Jane Friedman's Fight Against AI Generated "Garbage Books" that Fraudulently Claim to Be Authored by Her

Jane reported this on her website, and it's been picked up widely in the publishing media: Five books, claiming to be authored by her, remixing her own work and pretending to be books BY her, when they're not.

Jane has immense standing in our industry, and the press and pressure brought to bear are most likely what made Amazon/Goodreads act to take the fraudulent books down. But as Jane writes, "What will authors with smaller profiles do when this happens to them?"

There's a call to action here:

"We desperately need guardrails on this landslide of misattribution and misinformation. Amazon and Goodreads, I beg you to create a way to verify authorship, or for authors to easily block fraudulent books credited to them. Do it now, do it quickly." —Jane Friedman

Jane's advice if you're in a similar situation? "start by reaching out to an advocacy organization like The Authors Guild (I’m a member)." 

**update Aug 16, 2023: Jane has a new post with much more detailed advice for authors here.**

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee