Claire Parnell, "Inequalities of Platform Publishing: The Promise and Peril of Self-Publishing in the Digital Book Era" (U Massachusetts Press, 2025

Summary

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Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Claire Parnell, "Inequalities of Platform Publishing: The Promise and Peril of Self-Publishing in the Digital Book Era" (UMass Press, 2025)
Host: Chelsea Harris
Guest: Dr. Claire Parnell
Date: December 7, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Chelsea Harris interviews Dr. Claire Parnell about her new book, Inequalities of Platform Publishing: The Promise and Peril of Self-Publishing in the Digital Book Era. The discussion explores the transformation of book publishing by digital platforms like Amazon and Wattpad, focusing especially on issues of inclusion, exclusion, systemic bias, and the intersections of technology, culture, and economics. The conversation is candid about both the advances and the persistent inequities of self-publishing in the digital age, addressing algorithmic bias, content moderation, commercialization, community action, AI's disruptive effects, and the future of cultural participation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Focus of the Book

[02:34 - 05:54]

• Motivated by the idea that digital platforms promised to democratize publishing, Parnell set out to interrogate whether these spaces were genuinely more equitable than traditional publishing.
• Focus on Amazon and Wattpad as contrasting but dominant platforms in the digital self-publishing landscape.
• Special attention on romance fiction, a field often at the cutting edge of innovation and diversity movements.
• The book centers on the experiences of authors of color and LGBTQIA authors navigating self-publishing.

Quote:

"More equitable access didn't really mean equitable participation."
— Claire Parnell [04:28]

2. Research Methods & Approaches

[06:23 - 09:19]

• Utilized a blend of interviews, metadata analysis, platform walkthroughs, and critical research.
• Importance of author interviews to capture lived experiences of platform use.
• Combined methodologies to pierce the "black box" of opaque platform algorithms.
• Drew parallels between traditional publishing's logics and the algorithmic logics of digital platforms.

Quote:

"Platforms... and their algorithms [are] like black boxes. They're quite opaque... so how people relate to them, how they experience them, I think is a really important way to understand the impacts that they're having."
— Claire Parnell [07:41]

3. Perpetuation of Biases in Self-Publishing Platforms

[09:22 - 14:06]

• Platforms like Amazon and Wattpad reproduce many established publishing biases, both overt and covert.
• Examples include:
  • Visibility algorithms shaping which books/authors are seen.
  • Content moderation disproportionately impacting marginalized groups.
  • Book categorization mirroring outdated systems (e.g., positioning whiteness/heteronormativity as default in BISAC codes).
  • Use of author photos/bios in classification, introducing further layers of bias.
• Platforms blend inherited publishing discrimination with new algorithmic forms.

Quote:

"Platforms... replicate these old biases as well as introduce some new ones that we're yet to reckon with."
— Claire Parnell [13:28]

4. Why These Issues Matter Now

[14:06 - 17:00]

• Links between AI training data biases, cultural censorship, and the consolidation of tech company power.
• Parallels drawn between content moderation on platforms and real-world book bans, often targeting works by authors of color and queer authors.
• Concern for the increasing centralization of cultural production and access in the hands of tech giants.

Quote:

"The way that fewer and fewer platforms and cultural producers are... responsible for access to both production of culture and access to culture, is... really concerning."
— Claire Parnell [16:15]

5. Pros of Platform Publishing: Increased Access and Diversity

[17:07 - 20:08]

• Self-publishing platforms have challenged traditional publishers to be more inclusive, particularly by demonstrating markets for BIPOC and LGBTQIA narratives.
• Authors gain agency—control over covers, content, and representation.
• Real, positive impacts on the diversity of available stories, despite limitations.

Quote:

"We do have a more inclusive and diverse book culture and publishing culture now than we did before... so it's hard to see how that hasn't had somewhat of a positive impact."
— Claire Parnell [19:42]

6. Censorship of Sex and Sexuality Online

[23:14 - 27:48]

• Rise in blanket censorship of sexual expression after SESTA/FOSTA legislation (2018) in the US, which increased platform liability.
• Platforms often moderate queer and sexual content more strictly, conflating sexual expression with harmful material.
• AI-based moderation systems can embed and amplify these regressive policies.
• These issues overlap with broader cultural and political attacks on queer and marginalized communities.

Quote:

"What's concerning is how things like sex trafficking and protecting children are being weaponized against a whole host of people and activities and the impacts on sort of queer communities in particular."
— Claire Parnell [27:05]

7. The “Pipeline” and Commercialization of Stories

[28:29 - 32:55]

• Discussion of how platforms like Wattpad use data-driven models to select stories for publication and adaptation (film, TV)—a process that often reinforces existing biases.
• Story DNA algorithm (trained on the Western canon and popular stories) acts as a new gatekeeper, potentially privileging established, dominant narratives.
• Concern about commercialization only benefitting those who fit within these algorithmic "success" parameters.

Quote:

"If you're saying that these are the ways that we measure success or good content, then you're only going to get that kind of content back out."
— Claire Parnell [32:07]

8. Influence of Platforms on Culture and Access

[32:55 - 35:49]

• Platforms act as new cultural gatekeepers, enclosing content within proprietary ecosystems (e.g., “originals” that aren’t widely accessible).
• Raises questions about preservation and ongoing access to cultural works when they exist only within private databases.
• Economic barriers to cultural participation (subscription fatigue, paywalls).

Quote:

"This enclosure of culture by capitalists—largely conservative tech companies—is quite significant, particularly if we're relying on platforms at the same time to improve diversity."
— Claire Parnell [35:37]

9. Community Pushback and Reclaiming Power

[36:02 - 38:09]

• Authors diversify (or "go wide") across multiple platforms to mitigate risk and avoid dependence on any single company.
• Some set up their own storefronts and communities, maintaining greater autonomy.
• Covert strategies: modifying metadata, cover designs to avoid moderation flags.
• Collective activism: book communities fundraising for social causes, supporting each other against censorship.

Quote:

"Not just through publishing practices, but through the sort of community itself, there are a lot of ways that people are reclaiming space and power and using these platforms for good."
— Claire Parnell [37:43]

10. Effects of AI and Algorithmic Systems

[38:13 - 42:09]

• Growing impact of AI-written content (particularly in self-help/wellness), with potential for harm and degradation of quality.
• AI systems replicate and amplify biases present in their training data (e.g., MIT study showing Amazon's computer vision misidentifying women of color).
• AI-powered recommendation systems are opaque, hard to audit, and potentially exclusionary.
• Positive recent policy development: Australian government rejected a copyright exemption for AI companies.

Quote:

"I'm a little bit concerned with the impact on book culture and on our lives sort of generally... they seem really difficult to study or reverse engineer."
— Claire Parnell [41:22]

11. Final Thoughts and Advice for Aspiring Self-Publishers

[43:12 - 45:08]

• Persistent inequities in platform publishing are not new—they mirror longstanding issues in traditional publishing.
• Despite challenges, self-publishing is a valid, increasingly mainstream publication route.
• Authors and readers are producing wonderful, inclusive, and creative works via platforms, especially in genre fiction.

Quote:

"It is a very valid publishing pathway in its own right and [is] increasingly big... So, yeah, it's just another sort of pathway to navigate as traditional publishing is as well."
— Claire Parnell [45:08]

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Notable Quotes

• “More equitable access didn't really mean equitable participation.” — Claire Parnell [04:28]
• “Mainly it's about how Amazon is quite shit, sorry.” — Claire Parnell [09:41]
• “Platforms... replicate these old biases as well as introduce some new ones that we're yet to reckon with.” — Claire Parnell [13:28]
• “This enclosure of culture by capitalists—largely conservative tech companies—is quite significant, particularly if we're relying on platforms at the same time to improve diversity.” — Claire Parnell [35:37]
• “It is a very valid publishing pathway in its own right and [is] increasingly big...” — Claire Parnell [45:08]

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Memorable Moments

• Parnell’s frank assessment of Amazon: “Mainly it's about how Amazon is quite shit, sorry.” [09:41]
• Insights on algorithmic enclosure: comparing streaming culture to ownership of physical media, and the cultural loss risked if platforms disappear. [34:59–35:49]
• The discussion about AI’s disruptive—and worrying—impact on publishing, drawing direct connections to copyright, quality, and equity concerns. [38:28–42:09]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Book origins and focus: [02:34–05:54]
• Research methods: [06:23–09:19]
• Platform biases and their origins: [09:22–14:06]
• Censorship of sex and sexuality: [23:14–27:48]
• Commercialization and the pipeline: [28:29–32:55]
• Enclosure of cultural access: [32:55–35:49]
• Community pushback: [36:02–38:09]
• AI’s influence on publishing: [38:13–42:09]
• Final advice to self-publishers: [43:12–45:08]

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced, accessible, and candid exploration of the realities behind self-publishing on digital platforms. While acknowledging genuine advances in accessibility and diversity, Parnell and Harris remind listeners that issues of equity, censorship, gatekeeping, and algorithmic bias persist and in some cases are exacerbated by digital transformation. Yet, they also find hope in the resilience, activism, and creativity of author and reader communities carving out space and forging new paths in the digital book era.

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Recommendation:
Parnell encourages aspiring self-publishers to view digital self-publishing not as a lesser route, but as a robust, evolving, and important form of cultural participation. Readers and authors are urged to stay aware, resist platform overreach where possible, and continue building inclusive communities.

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Transcript

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[New Books Network Host]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Chelsea Harris]

Hello and welcome to the New Books Network. I'm Chelsea Harris, Marketing and Sales Manager for the University of Massachusetts Press, and I'm delighted to be joined today by Claire Parnell, author of Inequalities of Platform the Promise and Peril of Self Publishing in the Digital Book Era, which is the newest title in our Page Screen series. Parnell is a lecturer in digital publishing at the University of Melbourne. Her research has appeared in Media, Culture and Society Publishing Research Quarterly, Creative Industries Journal, and more. Claire, thank you so much for joining me.

[Claire Parnell]

Thank you for having me.

[Chelsea Harris]

I am too. I have been so excited for your book, I think since the moment I heard about it.

To get started, why don't you tell the listeners what your book is about and how it came to be sure.

[Claire Parnell]

So Inequalities of Platform Publishing is basically about how digital platforms like Amazon and wattpad are transforming book publishing sort of generally and specifically how they structure inclusion and exclusion through all of their different systems. So like their technological, their economic, their social and their sort of cultural infrastructures. And I sort of became interested in this topic. So I have a background in media and communications and a minor in literary studies and I really wanted to study books for my honours and stuff like that, but I wasn't really allowed to because of the media and communications focus, even though I maintain that books are media.

And so I started looking at digital books and self publishing as sort of a digital form of publishing practice. And I became interested in this because I was a reader of a lot of self published genre fiction myself. And in sort of media and communications, when I was studying it, there was a lot of talk about sort of the promise of the Internet and digital technologies of like digital divides and all of that. And this idea that there is sort of or this persistent sort of romantic notion that digital technologies and the Internet would sort of open up the world, make it sort of more democratic, more equitable. Anybody could access.

Communications technologies and sort of create cultural objects themselves and that digital technologies and the Internet would sort of make our social, political and sort of cultural lives a lot more democratic.

And yeah, this idea that sort of like old walls were crumbling, that old gatekeepers were sort of falling by the wayside.

But I was sort of struck by the notion that more equitable access didn't really mean equitable participation. And so I sort of became interested in the question around whether digital publishing and digital books were in fact sort of more diverse, more equitable.

Than traditional publishing. And more importantly how digital environments sort shaped participation for different people. How did access sort of play out in practice? What were the new rules of this participatory space and what if any sort of barriers still existed? And I suppose most importantly, who sort of felt restricted still in this new sort of golden era. So I set out to answer these questions and decided to focus sort of or deep dive into Amazon and wattpad because they're two of the largest publishing platforms, but quite different in sort of how they operate, who they're for and the bookish objects that are made on them. And focus on romance fiction in particular, because it tends to be at the forefront of digital innovation and has had a lot of reckonings with issues of access and equity and diversity. So in the book I focus on the experiences of authors of colour and LGBTQIA authors.

Publishing on Amazon and wattpad as sort of a starting point to help uncover the intersections of marginalization in digital book culture, which are all things.

[Chelsea Harris]

That are super relevant. Self publishing is getting so popular and so many books are coming out that way and so many readers are reading self published works.

In the book you draw on a mix of research methods, data analysis, platform studies, interviews with authors and cultural critique. What made that combination feel important.

[Claire Parnell]

And.

[Chelsea Harris]

How did using these different approaches Help you get a fuller picture of what's happening.

[Claire Parnell]

Yeah. So I knew that I wanted to interview authors. Like, that was the most important thing for me going into this research. I was really interested in people's lived experiences, how their sort of standpoints and their position in society sort of intersected with the systems of online. So the interviews were like, really where I started, and a lot of the other approaches and methods that I used. So, like metadata analysis, I did a walkthrough of platforms, which is me just sort of moving through the platform and looked at grey literature. A lot of that stemmed from some of the themes that arose in the interviews.

And.

I think that combining those methods was really useful to get, as you say, a fuller picture of what's happening. Platforms.

Tend to be likened to sort of. And their algorithms likened to black boxes. They're quite opaque in terms of explaining how they work, what's going on in their systems, so it's really hard to sort of gain purchase on them. And so how people relate to them, how they experience them, I think is a really important way to understand the impacts that they're having. But the sort of metadata analysis, so collecting metadata from the platforms and walking through them myself, helped to sort of.

Build out what was happening in different parts of the platform.

So.

Yeah, I think these different approaches sort of let me better understand how individual authors actually experience these platforms, which I think is really important. These platforms say they do a lot of things, they sort of present themselves in particular ways, but how they actually play out in real life, often there's a little bit of a disconnect.

So not just looking at what the platforms are, but how we experience them. And then I also sort of draw on research about technology and platforms as well as publishing and book culture generally, because I was really interested in the ways that publishing logics and book logics play out on these platforms as a sort of distinct cultural sector and how logics of sort of cultural production intersect with algorithmic logics online.

[Chelsea Harris]

Yeah, okay, thank you.

And kind of a spoiler, you do write about how self publishing platforms still carry a lot of the same biases that have existed in traditional publishing for decades. Can you talk a bit about where that comes from and how those patterns stick around?

[Claire Parnell]

Yeah, I mean, I often sort of, when people ask me about what the book is about, I often just sort of say, mainly it's about how Amazon is quite shit, sorry.

And I sort of, when I started, thought that wattpad would be an interesting counterpoint, that it was sort of a little Bit more inclusive and equitable, but quickly uncovered a lot of the ways, as you say, that they still carry biases against people of color and lgbt, LGBTQ authors and their books.

So like traditional publishing platforms sort of perpetuate biases against these marginalised communities in a lot of different ways. And like traditional publishing, sometimes these are quite overt and sometimes these are quite covert and really difficult to trace, sort of en masse. So in particular, platforms sort of perpetuate or exacerbate biases through their technical systems, so their visibility and recommender algorithms, how books are made visible on the platforms through their sort of content moderation systems. So like how they actually govern books, they also replicate a lot of the sort of.

Systematic.

Discrimination.

Through the economic system. So how their payment and remuneration systems work, what books get valued and how they get valued, and who benefits from their systems of valuation. And then of course they're not just platforms, they're sort of businesses as well. So through their sort of cultural and social environment, so both like the staffing and the cultures of, of their organizations as well as through the actual communities on the platforms themselves. So the user groups, so Amazon and wattpad sort of carry these biases in different ways according to their different infrastructures, so their interfaces, their different algorithms, their different community groups, as well as like how they actually structure books. And a lot of these I found are sort of inherited from traditional publishing. So a really key way that this plays out is through how books are actually categorized on Amazon. So when self published authors publish a book on Amazon through the Kindle Direct publishing platform, they choose the categories for their book, so fiction, romance and so on. And Amazon's categorization system sort of largely follows books. Bisac, which is the book industry standard and communications codes that are used primarily in North America. And BISAC as well as a lot of other knowledge organization systems like Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress tend to position whiteness and heterosexuality and cisgender identity as sort of the default norm. It's not made explicit the same way that Asian American literature or first nations literature are sort of named and made explicit sort of lower in the, in the order. So Amazon sort of replicates this system.

Of naming. And there are some benefits to being named in a categorization system. It can sort of help you help authors.

Reach readers who are interested in their books and readers discover particular kinds of books.

But in addition to this sort of like traditional publishing system of organization, I found that through an interview that Amazon uses other data points as well, like author Bios and author photos to determine where books belong. So while platforms kind of inherit a lot of traditional publishing logics, they also interweave them with sort of new algorithmic logics as well to sort of replicate these old biases as well as introduce some new ones that we're yet to reckon with.

[Chelsea Harris]

Well, with these biases being reproduced in the platforms, why do you think it's so important to be paying attention to that right now in this particular cultural and technological moment?

[Claire Parnell]

This is such a tricky question to answer because there are so many, so many reasons at the moment.

The growth and influx of AI into our lives, into sort of almost every facet of our lives. The way that large language models are trained on biased data that sort of replicates Western industrialized sort of rich ways of thinking and knowledge.

There are disturbing sort of parallels between how books are moderated and treated on publishing platforms and how books are being banned and sort of.

Groups are sort of going after particular books by authors of colour and queer books and saying that these books are not for particular people, that they're unsafe.

Which is sort of being exacerbated through conservative logics, conservative ideals that are playing out both in, quote, real life and online.

And then I think another reason is.

Who owns these platforms and the consolidation of power of money.

Through the ownership of tech and the impact that that's having sort of broadly on our social and political lives. And I think in particular, I mean, all of these issues worry me. I could talk forever about how much I hate AI. I could talk a lot about, and I want to do more research about book bans outside of America as well, to see what's happening in Australia here. But I think, you know, the ownership of our cultural objects, the sort of.

The way that fewer and fewer platforms and cultural producers are sort of responsible for access to both production of culture and access to culture, is I think really concerning me. And I think it just sort of highlights the importance of people and sort of human centered processes to our cultural lives and the need to sort of fight against the sort of encroachment of tech systems into all facets of our lives. So, yeah, I think there are so many reasons to be paying attention to the impact of platforms and tech companies, both within book culture and sort of more globally as well.

[Chelsea Harris]

We have so far discussed a lot.

[Claire Parnell]

Of the bad things, naturally.

[Chelsea Harris]

Do you think there are. Have any of these issues gotten better or has any. Is there, I guess any like, what are the pros using these platforms?

[Claire Parnell]

Yeah, I think, I think the idea that like they do open up access is, is a real benefit that like feels quite simplistic when we talk about these sort of more convoluted systems of discrimination. But.

Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing and self publishing has had a really significant impact on traditional publishing, on the traditional publishing industry as well as book culture sort of more broadly. One of the, the authors that I talked to, or a couple of the authors that I talked to who like begun self publishing right around the time that Amazon launched the Kindle and Kindle Direct publishing, which was 2007, but self publishing sort of really took off around 2010 when the iPhone was launched and the Apple app store and stuff like that. And they talked about how.

How editors of traditional publishers would look to the best selling lists on Amazon and sort of find authors and books to publish from there. How self publishing, the ability to publish more diverse books through self publishing because they didn't have to prove marketability in advance, helped demonstrate a market for sort of bipoc and queer books. And how self publishing sort of gave authors more power to push back against some of the traditional publishing logics around representation and around things like how people represented on book covers and stuff like that, that it gave authors a lot of power to say that's not good enough or yes, I can include a queer side character, it's like not going to break the world and so on. So I think that at the same time that platforms have increasingly worked to regulate books and determined conditions of participation, that that access has also granted authors a lot of power as well to participate in book culture and to publish stories that they want to publish. And I think that, I mean, in science we're not really allowed to conflate correlation with causation. But I think that, you know, we do have a more inclusive and diverse book culture and publishing culture now than we did before that. So it's hard to see how that hasn't had somewhat of a positive impact.

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[Chelsea Harris]

Right? And traditional publishers. I mean we see major publishers opening now imprints specifically bring in self published authors and works to rebrand them and re release them. So that is getting even more just like explicit way that traditional publishing is responding.

One Another topic that you talk about is how sex and sexual expression are censored online. How do you see that reflecting what's going on culturally and Politically right now. And what does that kind of policing tell us about where things might be headed?

[Claire Parnell]

Yeah, this is a topic that I'm really interested in and have sort of since built on since doing the research for this book. But it's a really interesting time that we're living in in terms of.

Like sexuality and like the cultural. The cultural feelings towards sex.

Online.

Sex, sexual expression, which has included like sexuality content people and, and discourses, have largely been sort of caught up in a broader like de. Platformization of sexual online. And this has really. This really sort of became more acute after like after 2018 when two laws in the US were passed which have foster sesta, which is like Fight Online Sex Trafficking and Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking act, they were passed which basically made platforms and digital.

Infrastructures responsible or liable for illegal sexual content online. And.

I think the. The idea of, of the laws were really good and important, but what the result of them was that like a lot of sexual content and sexuality content sort of got caught up in it, that platforms found it easier to sort of just.

Or moderate against a lot of different forms rather than sort of tease out the nuances. It's a lot more economic to just sort of say we don't accept any of this then to sort of try and find like particular kinds of content that are illegal. So what we sort of see is that like LGBT community resources and art and literature are getting caught up in this online.

Where sexual expression and sexuality are conflated with like illegal and unsafe sex. Alexander Monya, who's a sort of cultural sociologist, I think, from George Mason University, he has a really great book called the Digital Closet and he sort of finds that in these large databases that train content moderation that there are some really regressive logics in them, like the conflation or the connection between homosexuality and bestiality.

So yeah, I think that the systems that are censoring sexual expression online are based on quite regressive ideas of sexuality and are also sort of reflective of and exacerbating regressive conservative politics sort of generally they are, I think, inexplicably tied to the calls for book bans in libraries, in school libraries that we, that we're seeing, particularly in the US.

And the attacks on trans people. Like these are not separate issues.

And it's concerning how things like sex trafficking and protecting children are being weaponized against a whole host of people and activities and the impacts on sort of queer communities in particular and then the intersections with queer people of colour. So I don't know where this might be heading.

But I am interested to see and really hopeful that like.

I don't know, that we can get some nuance back and back to the discussion and in particular.

Maintain a fight against sort of discriminatory and really dangerous attacks on queer communities.

[Chelsea Harris]

Yeah, that'll make sense. I also have to imagine that there's an amount of like, risk mitigation. Right. If there's any kind of risk to the corporate's corporate infrastructures and their bank accounts, the easiest thing is just like a. Just blanket removal. You write about this pipeline where platforms like Amazon and wattpad turn written stories into screen adaptations and other kinds of media.

How do you feel about that kind of commercialization of stories? Is there any upside to it or is it mostly a concern?

[Claire Parnell]

I don't necessarily see commercialization as a bad thing in and of itself. I'm a huge fan of popular fiction and get quite defensive when the idea of it being economically successful is conflated with the idea that it means it's not good quality or that.

It'S bad. I think that earning money is really useful, particularly for authors who write good books that I want to keep reading. So I think that commercialization on its face is not a bad thing. I think it can be quite a positive thing. I think the.

The sort of, the way that decisions are made for the, like what gets commercialized or what gets adapted.

Is interesting and worth sort of paying attention to. So when we talk about the pipeline in the book, I talk about how wattpad.

Makes decisions around what stories get posted to the platform. It's a reading and writing platform where anybody can sort of sign up for free and post stories for free. But it also is an entertainment company that has its own sort of studios department where it adapts or produces movies and film, sorry, film and tv. It has its own book publishing imprint. It's got a whole host of other sort of like ways that authors can earn money from their intellectual property.

And it sort of developed this system that seems to work for it, where.

They have their own internal award system.

And often authors who win an award get invited to their pool of. They used to call them wattpad stars, but now it's a creators program which is a way for authors to earn money through the platform through like, paid stories or advertising. And it's from this pool of creators generally that they adapt the stories for film or TV or publish the books from them. And this pipeline sort of follows a popularity principle where the most popular stories are going to be the ones that are adapted. And the sort of general consensus is that the popular stories on wattpad tend to replicate sort of old market values around sort of like their stories about white people and about straight couples and cisgendered people.

And other sort of mechanisms in the system also sort of perpetuate this sort of narrow definition of what success looks like. So the Wati Awards, the selection for those awards.

Stories are sort of run through wattpad's story DNA algorithm, which sort of values stories in its own way. And story DNA is trained in part on like Project Gutenberg titles, so classic Western canonical titles like Jane Austen and the likes, as well as like popular stories from the platform. And so when you're measuring success against a sort of Western canon and a narrow definition of like popular stories, you're only going to replicate what already exists. If you're saying that these are the ways that we measure success or good content, then you're only going to get that kind of content back out. So I think that.

This data driven approach to sort of evaluating stories which informs which stories get commercial success.

Is not necessarily breaking down sort of like so the traditional systems of valuation. And so I think, yeah, the upside is potential new ways to earn money. The downside is who actually benefits from that system.

[Chelsea Harris]

So given that these platforms create their own entertainment ecosystems and how much we rely on them, how do you think we should be thinking about their influence on culture as a whole?

[Claire Parnell]

Yeah, so.

I think that.

It'S interesting to sort of weigh the positives with the negatives in this space. The sort of positives, as I've said, being greater access to cultural production, ground up communities in action, sort of determining and finding different kinds of content and stories. But at the same time, these platforms work towards a logic of enclosure where they make their money by having intellectual property to exploit.

And sort of in this way become new gatekeepers, not just to sort of modes of cultural production, but accessing cultural products at all. And I think this is really apparent in the originals model that we see on platforms. So like Netflix Originals.

Wattpad has like originals as well, which is content that is exclusive to particular platforms or platform companies or studios. And what this means for the longevity of that. If what pad were to like, disappear tomorrow, like what stories would we lose from it? And you know, it might not be the most quote unquote important books or stories of our generation, but they are still valuable. And.

Being able to access.

Cultural products, I think is really one of the main ways that we should be thinking about their influence on culture. I was talking to a few students this semester about this very issue. And I was telling them about.

How.

The difference between accessing streaming media versus owning physical media and that even though it's cumbersome physical media, we could access it whenever we wanted forever, as long as we had the technology to support it. And their mind was just blown a little bit. But then I'd have to own a DVD player and then I'd have to own all of these DVDs and put them somewhere in my house. And I was like, yeah, but at the moment we have to access all of these streaming platforms and pay untold number of money a month. And I think this enclosure of culture by capitalists.

Largely conservative tech companies, is quite significant, particularly if we're relying on platforms at the same time to improve diversity and, and equitable access to culture.

[Chelsea Harris]

Right.

[Claire Parnell]

They may not be the most, as.

[Chelsea Harris]

You say, and I'm putting air quotes around important stories, but they are for sure important to someone.

How are writers and readers finding ways to push back on these platforms? And are there any examples you've seen of people reclaiming space or power online?

[Claire Parnell]

Yeah. So I think one of the main ways that authors sort of navigate.

The precarity that they face on these platforms is by what a lot of self published authors call going wide. Which just means that putting your eggs in a lot of different baskets. So publishing not being exclusive to Amazon, but publishing through Apple, through Google, through Kobo, all of these different platforms. So that like if something happens to one of their accounts, like if Amazon decides you've contravened our terms of service, we're going to delete your account and your entire backlist, that they still have a way to earn money. In one way, some authors are sort of going another step further, setting up their own shop fronts online and sort of hosting their own content, which is, which, which is really interesting. And a sort of more covert way that people push back, that authors push back is I think through design practices as well. So.

Through inputting particular metadata, having particular cover designs that they think are not going to get flagged by Amazon, sort of content moderation. And I think beyond the sort of textual and publishing practices and beyond the book generally, the way that sort of bookish communities sort of engage in connective action.

In response to sort of political.

And social issues. So a lot of authors over the last couple of years have gone together to fundraise for issues around abortion rights, for instance. And so I think that not just through publishing practices, but through the sort of community itself, there are a lot of ways that people are reclaiming space and power and using these platforms for good.

[Chelsea Harris]

We touched on AI a little bit earlier.

One of the things you write about is how much human labor keeps the publishing world running, both traditional and digital. With AI now entering that space, how do you think it's changing the industry?

[Claire Parnell]

I'm going to try and keep this short because I have a lot of feelings about AI and none of them are particularly good.

So in Australia very recently, like the last week or so, the government sort of definitively ruled out introducing a copyright exemption for AI companies to train their models on Australia's creative works, which I think is a really positive outcome. And I'm hoping that we see sort of more of this trickle out worldwide.

And.

That big powerful authors start suing companies for training their data on their copyright.

I think it's such a big question, the impact of AI on the publishing space.

And not even considering the fact that AI produces terrible products, that a lot of self help books and wellness books are being sort of written by AI and published on Amazon through self publishing and the potential harms that that might have to people's health. The fact that it's ruining our environment.

And all these things, the fact that, you know, these systems, these sort of large language models are trained on databases that have biases and discriminatory logics embedded in them is really concerning. So.

Two ways this is sort of having an impact on authors and books in a real sense is wattpad story DNA which I just talked about, which is the neural network that's been trained on Project Gutenberg stories. Amazon has Recognition, which is its sort of content moderation computer vision software, which basically is the software that looks at an image or a video and can sort of determine what's in it. And recognition has sort of been proven by researchers at MIT to be extremely less accurate at identifying darker skinned women.

In particular. And this has impacts on how books are treated differently online.

I think that we don't know enough about how Genai works in terms of surfacing and discovering. Particularly that given the fact that a lot of Gen Z, a lot of my students use ChatGPT and similar chatbots instead of Google now. So like the impact that that's having. So yeah, I'm a little bit concerned with the impact on book culture and on our lives sort of generally.

Especially given the fact that they seem really difficult to study or reverse engineer. You know, we know a little bit about how Amazon's algorithms work or wattpad's algorithms work, or even Google search results work. But like.

I don't know enough about how ChatGPT works in terms of if you asked it, what book should I read next? And it gives you an answer, how do we know what logics are determining that answer and the impacts on that? So I'm interested to see where it's headed. I'm terrified to see where it's headed, actually, but hopeful that some positive outcomes are, you know, changing. Changing the trajectory that we've seen over the last couple of years.

Right.

[Chelsea Harris]

And remembering that the LLMs are not. And the chatbots are not. Correct. No, there.

[Claire Parnell]

Yes, I wrong.

[Chelsea Harris]

I'm sure you have seen, but I cannot remember where it was published. I think over the summer there was an article that was like, oh, books you should read this summer. And it was AI. Because all the books didn't exist.

[Claire Parnell]

They didn't exist, yeah. Because at their heart they're like sophisticated predictive text. It's. What is the most likely word after this word? Basically, it has no knowledge.

[Chelsea Harris]

Instead of it telling, these are the books that are out and you can read. It's like, if these books existed would be so cool and you should read them. But of course, that's not how we always framed.

[Claire Parnell]

Not yet.

[Chelsea Harris]

Are there any last thoughts or takeaways that you want to leave listeners with that we have not covered, given that.

[Claire Parnell]

We'Ve covered a lot of the sort of like, depressing facts and findings from the book? I think, you know, the main thing that I want to end on, I guess, is that while platforms can and do perpetuate inequality in so many different ways, these are not new problems that we're dealing with. And authors and readers are increasingly reliant on them.

For publishing, writing and reading books, and through them doing really wonderful, inclusive and creative things and producing really great books that are sort of improving, I would say, book culture sort of generally on the whole, particularly in like, genre fiction spaces, which tends to be where I hang out, and that many authors are choosing this path of publishing for very real and valid reasons and because of existing issues in traditional publishing. So I think that.

Fixing these problems means also reckoning with. With existing problems and sort of working on them in tandem. But maybe, I don't know, go read my book and go read the books of the authors that I interview because they're really great.

[Chelsea Harris]

So at the end of the day, if someone is listening and has the urge to self publish, and I have been very doom and gloom. My bad. At the end of the day, you do still recommend they should give it.

[Claire Parnell]

A whirl I think it's an increasingly, like, valid and real good way to publish that shouldn't be seen as, like, subordinate or lesser than traditional publishing. It is a very valid publishing pathway in its own right and increasingly big, you know, like.

So, yeah, it's just another sort of pathway to navigate as traditional publishing is as well.

[Chelsea Harris]

Claire, thank you so much for answering all my questions and talking with me. I do, at the end of this episode, want to plug that for people who are in the US in order from our website, we are running a holiday sale right now through January 4th. So if anyone wants to order anything, including Claire's book, and they use the code holiday at checkout, they'll save 40%.

[Claire Parnell]

That's a good deal.

[Chelsea Harris]

Thank you, Claire.

[Claire Parnell]

Thank you.