Elizabeth Smither and Stephanie Johnson\u2019s latest books, both published by Quentin Wilson Publishing, have been yeeted from the Ockhams.<\/p>\n
Author Stephanie Johnson had no idea that the image of a cat with human teeth on the cover of her book of short stories, Obligate Carnivore, was created with AI. Had she been made aware that the designers of her book cover were using AI, she says she\u2019d have asked them not to. \u201cI\u2019m concerned about AI,\u201d she told The Spinoff. \u201cAnd I understand that there has to be rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson is referring to the revised rules of the New Zealand Book Awards Trust who govern the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, the most prestigious in the country. The trust has eliminated Johnson\u2019s book, and Elizabeth Smither\u2019s collection of four novellas called Angel Train, from contention for the Ockhams 2026 due to the use of AI on both of their covers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their publisher, Quentin Wilson, says that the trust isn\u2019t being fair. \u201cAlthough the submission guidelines for the 2026 Ockham Awards, released in August, included in their eligibility criteria a clause specific to AI,\u201d he told The Spinoff, \u201cthe covers of every title published within the specified time period would have been designed months before. It was, therefore, far too late for any publisher to have taken this clause into account in their design briefs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephanie Johnson.<\/p>\n
Wilson had previously worked with Sugarcube Studios, the design studio that created the two book covers, and says \u201cthey have a long-standing commitment to thoughtful, high-quality design\u201d. The studio has a page on its website<\/a> dedicated to its \u201cAI-assisted book cover design for Quentin Wilson Publishing\u201d. The page shows covers for books by CK Stead, Karen McMillan and Alan Goodwin. \u201cAna [the designer] employed AI-powered design tools to generate a range of concepts,\u201d reads the copy underneath the images, \u201ctaking into account the genre, tone, and target audience of each publication.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson told The Spinoff he is happy if the designers use AI after they have come up with original concepts for the AI to work with. He believes this is the case with both Smither and Johnson\u2019s covers. The studio told Wilson that it sees AI \u201cnot as a replacement for creativity but as a natural extension of our craft, a new way to explore ideas and enhance our process,\u201d and that \u201cAI is a tool we use to enrich our book cover design workflow.\u201d Wilson told The Spinoff that Sugarcube Studios was disappointed by the trust\u2019s decision to disqualify the books and shared a statement from the studio, via email, saying they \u201chope this situation sparks a constructive conversation about how awards might evolve to recognise the changing realities of contemporary, human-directed digital design.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Spinoff has contacted Sugarcube Studios but the studio has not responded.<\/p>\n No other books have so far been disqualified for Ockhams contention due to AI use, including within the text itself. The trust\u2019s AI policy allows the \u201cuse of AI for research, minor editorial, or formatting support\u201d. The trust\u2019s AI clause was in the entry criteria in the \u201ccall for entries pack\u201d available from the date submissions were open, on August 7. All submitters were asked in the entry form to ensure they had read the pack, and to make a declaration that they had understood the eligibility criteria. <\/p>\n The trust told The Spinoff that during the submission process, the trust\u2019s awards administrator received a few enquiries for clarification about book cover artwork that used AI, but did not receive queries from Quentin Wilson Publishing which submitted its entries on September. \u201cPublishers entering books that were printed locally had ample time to have read the conditions of entry prior to submitting to the awards.\u201d The Spinoff understands that Johnson\u2019s and Smither\u2019s books were printed locally. Quentin Wilson told The Spinoff he did not enquire because he believed the books were within the criteria.<\/p>\n In terms of actually identifying the use of AI, the trust says it will review its criteria annually to take in the fast-changing presentation and use of the technology. For now, the trust \u201crelies on submitters [usually publishers] confirming with authors and designers that AI has not been used in the creation or generation of text, or disclosing AI use when querying a book\u2019s eligibility\u201d. It is easier, for now, to identify the use of AI in illustration compared to in text \u2013 in this particular scenario the trust was alerted to the AI in the two covers by booksellers. Johnson told The Spinoff she\u2019s worried that booksellers might refuse to stock her book now that the AI has been outed. The Association Manager of Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand has written an open letter<\/a> expressing \u201cunequivocal support\u201d for the trust\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Smither, one of New Zealand\u2019s most acclaimed writers and a former poet laureate, is agnostic about the elimination of her book from awards contention. \u201cI remember Maurice Shadbolt and others working out who was going to win an award, rather like plotters in Shakespeare,\u201d she told The Spinoff. \u201cThe real pleasure in writing is just doing it. Everything else is performance.\u201d However, the author did tell her publisher that she was worried the work of the designer was being disrespected due to the fact that the angel on Smither\u2019s cover \u201ctook many hours\u201d to get right.<\/p>\n Johnson, on the other hand, is worried that her AI cover will dilute her reputation as a writer and repel book buyers and booksellers from her work. If the cover is AI-made, who\u2019s to know that the text within isn\u2019t, too? But she doesn\u2019t blame Wilson. On the contrary she \u201cadores\u201d him and is concerned about the toll of this situation on him. \u201cWe need Quentin,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cThe likes of Penguin aren\u2019t publishing as much as they used to. We need small publishing companies like Quentin\u2019s to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson is in his 70s; Smither is in her 80s. Johnson is in her 60s. Johnson describes herself as technologically challenged and said she didn\u2019t have much to do with the cover process beyond the original brief. She didn\u2019t have any contact at all with Ana at Sugarcube Studios and neither did Smither. Wilson does his best to include his authors \u201cat every stage of decision-making, including the look of their covers\u201d but says most traditionally contracted authors don\u2019t have much to do with the technical process of their creation. He didn\u2019t tell Johnson and Smither that AI might be used to create their final cover designs but did assume that the studio would be doing so.\u00a0<\/p>\n Renowned book cover designer, Todd Atticus, feels \u201cawful\u201d for the authors who he says have been betrayed \u2013 \u201c[their] work deserves better than to be represented by this bland slop\u201d. He admits that \u201cit\u2019s easy to hate on AI if your job is threatened by it\u201d but says \u201cit\u2019s even easier if the job the AI does is just bad\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Atticus recently worked for a major UK publisher who banned the use of AI at every stage of a book\u2019s production. \u201cTheir rationale is that in doing so they help preserve the sanctity of the book in an age where the veracity of authorship is crumbling around us,\u201d says Atticus, who supports such a stance. In Aotearoa, the Ockhams can be at the forefront of making this an industry-wide concern, he says.<\/p>\n Designing a book cover takes time and money. For small publishers that can be a significant investment and Atticus understands the lure of AI in alleviating cost pressures.\u00a0<\/p>\n The creeping use of AI in publishing raises questions of author\u2019s rights when it comes to the publishing process and whether authors should be able to include clauses in their contracts to state that their publisher must not use AI in the production process. It is now standard that publishers will include a clause to assert that AI has not been used in the writing of the text, but far less common that authors ask for reciprocal assertions from publishers.<\/p>\n The New Zealand Society of Authors is soon to publish revised guidelines for author-publisher contracts with regards to AI, including the following clause:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018No substantial generative AI use without consent\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Neither party will, without the other party\u2019s prior written consent, use or authorise others such as sub-licensees to use, Generative AI to wholly or substantially fulfil that party\u2019s material obligations pursuant to this agreement\u2026<\/p>\n In particular, the publisher must seek the author\u2019s prior written consent to the use of generative AI in relation to their work for:<\/p>\n a) audiobook narrations Elizabeth Smither and Stephanie Johnson, both MNZMs, are two of the country\u2019s longest-working authors with nearly 50 books and nearly 20 awards between them.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Smither and Stephanie Johnson\u2019s latest books, both published by Quentin Wilson Publishing, have been yeeted from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,84808,288,5424,84809,61,60,84810,24860,84811,80],"class_list":["post-149451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-book-covers","tag-books","tag-comments-enabled","tag-elizabeth-smither","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ockhams","tag-publishing","tag-stephanie-johnson","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Elizabeth Smither. Image: Liz March<\/p>\n
b) translations
c) illustrations or artwork
d) cover design
e) animation
f) substantial visual elements
g) revisions and new editions
h) substantive editing<\/p>\n