I’m someone with an AI research/engineering background who also aspires to be (and sometimes fancies himself) a good writer. How would you be able to tell if I should put in the time and energy required to write short stories or novels that try to input good sci-fi ideas into our culture (particularly AI safety related) rather than using that time and energy on, for instance, side projects in technical AI safety? It may not be an either/or thing, but I’m not sure splitting my time is better than focusing on one path.
Also, from my cursory research, it seems like becoming a successful published author is similar to winning the lottery, and has worse odds than succeeding at a startup. Would it still make sense to try this, even if realistically, it probably wouldn’t be financially sustainable? The hypothetical EV could be very high, but that seems to depend on having very good ideas, very good writing ability, and a certain amount of luck, which are things I’m not super confident I have enough of here.
Yeah, these are good questions. I mostly don’t suggest people try to support themselves writing unless they already know they’re very good at storytelling, and even then it’s hard/rare. Instead, I think it’s good for people to experiment with it as a side-thing, ideally in addition to some useful technical work. (I’m very blessed that I get to work as a researcher at MIRI, for example, and then go home and write stories that are inspired by my research.) Don’t wait to be discovered by a literary agent; if you write something good, post it online! Only try to seriously monetize after you already have some success.
Regarding how to tell if your stories are good, I think the main thing is to get them in front of people who will be blunt, and find out what they say. LLMs are a good stepping-stone to this, if you’re hesitant to get a real human to read your work, though you’ll have to shape their prompt so that they’re critical and not sycophantic. Writing groups can also be a good resource for testing yourself.
With Crystal, I just slammed them out there with pretty minimal effort. I gave Society away for free, and didn’t make paperback copies until just recently. For Red Heart I thought the story might have broader appeal, and wanted to get over my allergy to marketing, so I reached out to a bunch of literary agents early this year. Very few were interested, and most gave no reason. One was kind enough to explain that as a white guy writing a book about China, it would be an uphill battle to find a publisher, and that I’d probably need a Chinese co-author to make it work. She estimated that optimistically I might be able to get it in stores in 2027. From my perspective that was way too slow, and since I already had experience self-publishing, I went down that route. Self-publishing is extremely easy these days, and can produce a product of comparable quality if you are competent and/or have a team. The main issue is marketing and building awareness; traditional publishing still acts as a gatekeeper in many ways. So I’m still extremely dependent on word-of-mouth recommendations.
I’m someone with an AI research/engineering background who also aspires to be (and sometimes fancies himself) a good writer. How would you be able to tell if I should put in the time and energy required to write short stories or novels that try to input good sci-fi ideas into our culture (particularly AI safety related) rather than using that time and energy on, for instance, side projects in technical AI safety? It may not be an either/or thing, but I’m not sure splitting my time is better than focusing on one path.
Also, from my cursory research, it seems like becoming a successful published author is similar to winning the lottery, and has worse odds than succeeding at a startup. Would it still make sense to try this, even if realistically, it probably wouldn’t be financially sustainable? The hypothetical EV could be very high, but that seems to depend on having very good ideas, very good writing ability, and a certain amount of luck, which are things I’m not super confident I have enough of here.
Yeah, these are good questions. I mostly don’t suggest people try to support themselves writing unless they already know they’re very good at storytelling, and even then it’s hard/rare. Instead, I think it’s good for people to experiment with it as a side-thing, ideally in addition to some useful technical work. (I’m very blessed that I get to work as a researcher at MIRI, for example, and then go home and write stories that are inspired by my research.) Don’t wait to be discovered by a literary agent; if you write something good, post it online! Only try to seriously monetize after you already have some success.
Regarding how to tell if your stories are good, I think the main thing is to get them in front of people who will be blunt, and find out what they say. LLMs are a good stepping-stone to this, if you’re hesitant to get a real human to read your work, though you’ll have to shape their prompt so that they’re critical and not sycophantic. Writing groups can also be a good resource for testing yourself.
What was your experience of getting novels published?
With Crystal, I just slammed them out there with pretty minimal effort. I gave Society away for free, and didn’t make paperback copies until just recently. For Red Heart I thought the story might have broader appeal, and wanted to get over my allergy to marketing, so I reached out to a bunch of literary agents early this year. Very few were interested, and most gave no reason. One was kind enough to explain that as a white guy writing a book about China, it would be an uphill battle to find a publisher, and that I’d probably need a Chinese co-author to make it work. She estimated that optimistically I might be able to get it in stores in 2027. From my perspective that was way too slow, and since I already had experience self-publishing, I went down that route. Self-publishing is extremely easy these days, and can produce a product of comparable quality if you are competent and/or have a team. The main issue is marketing and building awareness; traditional publishing still acts as a gatekeeper in many ways. So I’m still extremely dependent on word-of-mouth recommendations.