Negro Author Loses $2 Million Book Deal Because He Used AI to Write It
Jerry Falade, is claiming that the allegations are racially motivated.
Jerry Falade, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University, has recently lost a $2 million book deal over allegations that he has used AI to write it.
Falade is saying that his own reps pulled the plug on the sale of his first crime novel, “Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body,” and now Falade is claiming that the allegations have been made because he’s a negro.
In two posts from his Instagram:
“Definitely innocent!!!,” he wrote in an Instagram story.
“They CAN’T and WON’T stop this Black boy’s light from shining!!,” he wrote in a second post.
In a series of social media posts, he said claims against him are part of a systemic pattern of diminishing the intellectual contributions of negros. But I wouldn’t diminish the intellectual contributions of negroes… I would deny they even exist.
Falade wrote:
“If you’re a Person of Color and you secure a lucrative deal in history, someone, somewhere, will accuse you of using AI.”
Meanwhile, he added that white authors “brag about using AI all the time.”
Fourteen publishers had bet on the US rights for Falade’s debut novel, and he ultimately inked a deal with Minotaur, a Macmillan US imprint for a reported $2 million. HarperCollins Publishers won the UK rights.
Soon after the deals closed and Falade was set to make millions, an agent at Europa Content notified the publishers in a letter that he could no longer support the book after evidence of AI being used to write it came up.
Falade told the Wall Street Journal that he only used AI for research, “and not for writing the book itself.”
He explained that he relied on a tool that let him run an open-source AI model on his own device, to obtain details on topics like what chemical someone might use to dissolve a human body.
The tool he used doesn’t keep or share extensive search histories, raising eyebrows. But Falade said he used that method because of the grizzly subject matter of the questions for his crime novel—which he felt could raise red flags if they were tracked.
Falade said that none of the editors he met with during the book-sale process asked about AI usage. Falade also stated that he never consented to having his manuscript run through AI detection software.
We all know now the reason why he wouldn’t have consented is because he used AI to write it. However, refusal wouldn’t have necessarily meant that he was guilty, so the publishers were smart to go ahead and scan it after the book closing.
The scribe said that none of the editors he met with during the book-sale process asked about AI usage, noting that he never consented to having his manuscript run through AI detection software.
Falade told the Journal that he was contacted by a reporter who said there were rumors of AI usage. Hours later, he learned his agent, Marc Gerald, was pulling support for his book.
Gerald said he is no longer Falade’s literary agent and a rep for Macmillan confirmed Friday that the publisher participated in an auction for “Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body,” but they had pulled the book.
In the meantime, Falade said, he is going forward with his next work:
“Trust me, when this book is finally released, the bidding war we saw on ‘Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body’ will be child’s play compared to this.”
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