nothing in the rulebook

Some ideas are so catastrophically bad they make you want to curl into a ball and softly hum the tune of humanity’s decline. Enter Spines, an AI-driven publisher that plans to vomit out 8,000 books in 2025 alone. Yes, you read that correctly: 8,000 books. It’s less publishing and more literary spew — a firehose of words splattering across the cultural landscape, each volume the equivalent of a plastic bag floating on the breeze, destined to clog up someone’s Kindle. If this doesn’t scream “late-stage capitalism in a clown car,” then what does?

Let’s get this straight: this is not writing. This is not publishing. This is VC-bro alchemy, turning buzzwords into money for people who already have too much of it. Spines isn’t so much a disruptor as a desperate gold prospector panning for whatever spare change is left in the wake of TikTok booktokkers and indie authors who, astonishingly, actually care about what they create* Their business model might as well be called “Move Fast and Break Literature.”

And while Spines gets press for their “disruption”, what they’re actually disrupting is dignity. Writers — actual human beings who spend years crafting stories and obsessing over every sentence — are shoved further into the margins by this garbage heap masquerading as innovation. Indie authors, already drowning in Amazon’s algorithmic quagmire, will now be suffocated by AI-generated sludge. The one semi-democratic platform they have to eke out a living? Flooded. Thanks, Spines. You’ve turned the literary equivalent of a struggling farmer’s market into an abandoned Tesco aisle covered in knocked-over cans of Spam. 

And it gets worse! Did you know TikTok is also launching its own book imprint? Because what the world desperately needed was another giant algorithmically-driven nightmare in the publishing sphere. Next thing you know, Uber will start printing novels based on your driver ratings.

What seems most patently absurd about this entire venture is the idea at the route of Spine’s business model: that there are people out there willing to pay them $5000 to have them ‘proofread and produce’ their manuscripts. It’s as if these tech bros think their potential customers are too stupid to understand they can use AI tools themselves (if they wanted to), and self-publish along with all the other ‘writers’ currently doing this exact same thing. Sure, nobody reads these books. Nobody thinks they’re any good (because they’re not: AI, for all its fanfare, is severely limited). But why would someone think giving this spineless group of seed-funding seeking ‘publishers’ any of their hard earned cash to do something readily available to anyone else for a fraction of the price is a good idea?

This is where criticism of one of the publishing industry’s core news outlets is warranted. The Bookseller, a publication that really ought to know better; but yet finds itself greasing the wheels of this nonsense.

Publishing Spines’ self-congratulatory press release was nothing short of cheerleading for the soulless. They didn’t critique it. The Bookseller didn’t interrogate it. They simply served it up as rage-bait for engagement metrics, because why bother amplifying actual writers or publishers trying to do something real when you can cash in on some spicy online controversy? Indie presses and collectives fighting to put power in writers’ hands are calling for attention — and The Bookseller has their voicemail permanently set to “We’ll get back to you (but we won’t).”

At the heart of this mess is a tragic irony: for all its big talk about AI-enhanced creativity, Spines represents the least creative thing imaginable. The very notion of a publisher existing to care about ideas, stories, and voices has been gutted. Instead, they’ll throw darts at a wall of popular genres, spit out generic AI gibberish, and hope some sad, lonely algorithm on Amazon gives it a boost.

Here’s the kicker: they’ll probably make money. The founders of Spines will get richer, while everyone else — readers, writers, the publishing industry as a whole — will lose just a little bit more. So, let’s say it plainly: this isn’t the future of publishing. It’s a cultural Ponzi scheme, and it reeks of cynicism, greed, and the deep, abiding sadness of people who genuinely think this is what success looks like.

If there’s a silver lining to this grim parade, it’s that these “books” will inevitably collapse under their own weight. Just as we saw the NFT bubble pop and crypto grifters slink away, Spines and its ilk will eventually be buried under the mountain of unclicked, unread, unloved garbage they produce. And in what reeks of both the Dutch Tulip Crisis and the Dot Com Crash, the latest trend VC bros have of whacking AI on every wet fart of an idea they have will eventually come acrock. But by then, the damage will be done. And that, my friends, is the real tragedy.

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Want to help real, human writers and publishing ventures?

If reading this article has you ever so slightly mad, or depressed at the state of publishing, the arts – heck, the whole world – then we have an antidote.

Through the years, Nothing in the Rulebook has been working with real human artists and creatives, publishing houses, magazines that are all about supporting creativity in all its forms: and most importantly, supporting the creatives behind it. There are good people doing extraordinary things out there. We’ve previously published a list of 50 independent publishers in need of support. And below, we’ve listed a few ventures who are worthy of your support (and heck, they actually sell really good books).

1. Breakthrough Books Collective: launched in 2023, this new venture in author-led publishing puts power (and profits) in the hands of writers themselves. Check them out here – https://www.breakthroughbookcollective.com/
2. 404 Ink: an award winning indie publisher. Visit them over at https://www.404ink.com/shop
3. Daunt Books: Founded in 2010, the Daunt Books imprint is dedicated to publishing brilliant works by talented authors from around the world. Check ’em out http://http/www.dauntbooks.co.uk
4. Henningham Family Press: described as a ‘micro brewery’ for book lovers. We interviewed them and they are the best. Go find out more over at https://t.co/tWoCzoKvLs
5. About No Alibis: Based in a small corner of Belfast, No Alibis Press is a small publishing company with a big shouty attitude. A fantastic array of books to pick up over at http://noalibis.com/