Independent

Mia Ballard, Shy Girl, and AI use accusations …

I’d never heard of Mia Ballard until yesterday when a New York Times headline caught my eye. Apparently, she self-published a feminist horror novel in February 2025 titled Shy Girl about, well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Hachette, one of the Big 5 publishers, snatched it up for traditional publication. But according to the Times, it canceled its imminent US release amid accusations that it was written with the help of generative artificial intelligence.

I’ve not read the book. Nor will I. I recommend you watch the YouTube video above for a thorough breakdown by Frankie’s Shelf, who I would never want to review one of my books, not because I used AI to create them (I didn’t), but DAMN is he vicious! I recommend Ballard not watch this video.

“This controversy has changed my life in many ways and my mental health is at an all time low and my name is ruined for something I didn’t even personally do,” Ballard told the Times. She took no responsibility, blaming an unnamed person she had hired to edit her manuscript.

I don’t believe her. If you’ve ever hired an editor to review a manuscript you’ve labored over for months, you will re-read the manuscript once it’s returned to you. You don’t simply take the editor’s word for it. If you love your manuscript, you essentially know it inside and out. You’ve read and revised it countless times. You would spot any changes almost immediately. So, sorry, Mia. Your explanation doesn’t wash.

Hachette bears a lot of the blame for the kerfuffle getting this far. I have no idea if Ballard has an agent, but he or she has some ‘splainin’ to do, too. We assume that agents and Big 5 editors are these godlike gatekeepers who wouldn’t dare let substandard writing and incoherent stories hit bookstore shelves. They’re human, like everyone else, and make mistakes. Still, this disheartens those of us in the query trenches and with works out on submission who get passed over, knowing that Shy Girl passed for quality and numerous worthy, original, well-written works didn’t. Hey, that’s publishing for you.

My questions:

If Ballard is agented, did the agent read the entire book (the way an agent is supposed to)? I’d love to know what the agent enjoyed about the writing.

Did Hachette perform any due diligence? If a publishing house is going to extend a contract to a writer and offer an advance, which I’m assuming happened here, at least one editor must have read the manuscript. A copy editor, too. So, this manuscript, which has been picked apart online for months for subpar, repetitive, and at times nonsensical writing, met agent/editor approval at the highest levels and was already published in the United Kingdom, with the US date in April scuttled. Makes you wonder what the professional class didn’t see that the rest of the hoi polloi did.

Will accusations of AI use impugn innocent writers? Most likely. My understanding is that AI-detection software exists, but sometimes flags non-AI writing as suspect. Also, how is an author supposed to prove he or she didn’t use AI to escape the Scarlet Letters? (See what I did there?)

What is considered fair AI use? Spell-check existed long before what we consider AI today. That’s absolutely AI. What about grammar checks? AI again. Is that forbidden? If so, every writer on the planet might as well use a typewriter and have physical dictionaries nearby. And who makes the rules? Publishing houses probably need to specify what cannot be done. If the grammar checker slightly rewrites a sentence for clarity, and not substance, is this cause to pass on a manuscript?

We’re entering a murky period for publishing. (And other artforms, of course.) Most agents ask writers who query them whether AI was used to create the submitted work, and every writer worth his/her salt will mark No. But not everyone’s honest.

I assume someone writes a book to express creativity and knowledge, both in fiction and nonfiction. Relying on a program that generates what you want it to, and passing it off as your own, no more makes you a writer than heating up a Digiorno pizza makes you a chef. It’s easy to spot a Digiorno pizza by taste. As AI technology advances, it will become more difficult to spot its use and prove it.

Maybe publishers can include in their contracts that AI use (as they define it) is verboten, and that discovery of its use after publication would give the publisher specified legal options to pursue against the writer.

Whatever the case, Mia Ballard’s career likely ended as a trad-pubbed writer. Going fully independent appears to be her only route for the foreseeable future. If she’s truly creative and works on her craft, there’s nothing saying she can’t put out a quality product. And I hope she does.

But her claim that she didn’t know AI was used to perfect Shy Girl doesn’t pass any logical test, as every true writer will confirm.

Saving $750 to $800 by building my own website …

When you’re contemplating going indie, you need to save money. It’s that simple. Because you may not want to, and many people likely don’t, but you will need to spend money if you realistically want to sell books.

You need to get your manuscript edited, and not by family and friends. You need an objective pair of eyes to scour your manuscript. And if the editor’s good, he or she will not hold back and will let you know what needs fixing.

Then there’s the cover art. That’s the second most important aspect of putting out your own work. At least I think it is, and I’ve never done it before. But after the story, you need something professional to go up against the Big 5 and the reputable (somewhat big) independent publishers, and there are a few that rival the Big 5.

A good cover, in my humble opinion (and I could be wrong and will gladly admit that I am), will cost a few thousand dollars, and that’s simply a guess on my part based on what I’ve seen out there.

Take Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes:

Version 1.0.0

Did you know Travis self-published his book first, not expecting his cozy fantasy to explode the way it did? Well, he did, and I recommend everyone who’s thinking of going full indie to read the wonderful chronicle of his journey. He is a strong advocate of ensuring a self-published book looks as close to a traditionally published one as possible. He doesn’t say how much he spent on his cover (and it’s a great one), but he implies it was not cheap.

Now, if you can’t afford a super-expensive cover, that’s fine. I get it. This is reality. We have more pressing purchases than a flashy cover, which doesn’t guarantee you’ll sell anything. At the same time, anyone can spot a bad self-pubbed book cover. That isn’t to be mean, it’s simply the truth.

If I go independent, I want to give myself the best possible chance to succeed, knowing what I am up against (professional book publishers) and that millions of books from trad/indie authors are released a year.

That brings me to my website. I’m not sure what I paid in 2013 to get a professional website made, but I’m guessing it was at least $500, and I didn’t mind paying it. I knew nothing about code and didn’t want the hassle. And I was pleased with the outcome. I wasn’t looking for anything flashy, just a logical landing spot. I’ll keep that landing page for a little while longer until I transfer to the WordPress site I’m building. It won’t look much different than my current one. The difference is that I spent roughly $150 to go it alone (paying for the WordPress subscription that provides access to all the features). I was given quotes of $750 to $800 for SquareSpace packages from professionals. I found those quotes fair, honestly. I’d received ones in the $2,000 range.

And I’m enjoying the process of learning it as I go. Does it look like some super-snazzy author website? Not right now. But it gets better-looking every day as I figure things out. The money I’m saving will absolutely go toward a cover if I go that route. And to me, that’s a worthwhile tradeoff. (I can always hire a professional if need be to help with the bells and whistles.)

Every dollar counts.

And I haven’t even gotten to marketing yet. Sheesh.

At What Point Did You Go Full Independent?

I’ve never self-published before. I’m old enough (50) to remember when readers at large frowned upon self-publishing. You’re not good enough for the Big Leagues. Why should I bother reading your crap?

Fortunately, that stigma, while not entirely gone, has been taken down a few pegs. Some of the most popular books (Legends & Lattes, Dungeon Crawler Carl, The Martian, We Are Legion [We Are Bob]) were all first self-published and are now massively successful. There are several other examples I could name.

So, it’s not that they’re not ready for the Big Leagues. They had to prove they were. And boy did they.

Many other authors got followers through independence, built a fan base, and were later picked up by the Big Five. It’s possible.

But when do you pull the trigger? At what point do you convince yourself that it’s you and nobody else?

I’m not there yet, but I am open to it. And I’d love to hear about when people reached their breaking points and hit publish on their own.

Is there anybody out there? (Say it like Roger Waters did from Pink Floyd’s The Wall.)