A young first-time novelist from Nigeria named Jerry Falade was on the verge of receiving $2 million for his debut novel when accusations of AI usage queered the deal. Now he’s accusing everyone of racism.
The novel is titled Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body, and reportedly involves one of those characters you call to clean up a murder scene. According to what we know now (this story was first reported by Jeff Sneider), Falade signed a deal worth $2 million or more with Minotaur after a 14-way auction. The book was set to debut in 2028.
Then Falade’s own agent, Marc Gerald of Europa Content, killed the deal.
“Jerry Falade produced an incredible manuscript that dazzled us and the top publishing professionals around the world,” wrote the agent in an email. “Unfortunately, we are no longer able to authenticate how the manuscript fully evolved from origin to completion.”
“During the submission process, we vetted the manuscript with Jerry for AI and felt trusting in his reassurance that it was written without utilising AI as a resource in the writing or editorial process,” the agent added. “We can no longer substantiate that, and we are withdrawing the book.”
As the submission process was moving ahead, one editor wondered about the use of AI. Falade denied the accusation, so the agency decided not to run it through an AI detection program. Later on, said the agent, “Aspects of [Falade’s] story changed,” so they pulled the plug.
“We feel terrible for putting this into the universe and the firestorm it has caused,” Gerald said. “The book itself is genius – however it came to be drafted, it’s amazing.”
Falade, as you can imagine, is not a happy camper and believes he’s the victim of racism. Here’s his statement to the far-left Guardian:
“Three Black authors received major publishing deals this year, and all three later had deals cancelled or disrupted following suspicions about AI. There seems to be a troubling assumption that when a Black writer produces work that attracts significant attention, the work could not possibly be their own. Meanwhile, there are popular white writers who have publicly mentioned using AI for their writing processes and they’re still doing fine. In my case, rumours began circulating and, within six hours, I had been dropped by my agency, deals were paused, and press releases were being issued.”
He went on to say that AI detection tools “are widely known to produce false positives” and that the book went through readers, editors, and publishers without anyone suspecting AI.
Basically, Falade believes that he’s the victim of false rumors launched to keep a black man down.
I’m as pro-AI as anyone, including its use in the arts, but if you are going to claim authorship of something, you must be the author. Publishers worry about AI usage because copyright ownership is vital in the world of publishing, and if authorship or ownership is in question, that can cause a world of problems.
Imagine you’re a publisher who paid $2 million for a book. One reason you pay that much is to own the copyright, which you see as valuable, and maybe not just for this specific book, but for future books, spin-offs, or even a franchise. Ah, but then it’s discovered you don’t own the copyright. Or, perhaps, you don’t own the full copyright because AI wrote part of the novel. Then someone can come along and undermine your copyright and your sales by publishing their own version of Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body.
The amount of time, effort, money, and reputational damage invested by his former agency is a very real thing. Did they not know he was black until after a deal was on the table? Please. What’s more, why would the agent kill the deal when he was just about to get paid a fat commission from the sale? Nobody does that.
So what’s the answer to using AI as alleged here?
To begin with, transparency. If you use AI, admit you use AI. Claiming you authored something you didn’t is a form of plagiarism.
In other words, don’t be lazy. Don’t use AI to write-write your novel, or your prose, or your op-ed, or whatever. If you’re stuck on what to do with the plot, I suppose AI can help you with that. Still, it’s up to you to use that help as an outline and then do your own writing.
If the accusations of AI usage are true, Falade really blew it.