There is much that is happening this year with several books in the pipeline for publishing works of at least four different authors. Each author has a unique story to tell that will appeal to a wide variety of readers. Some of these books have been decades in the making as each author has persistently pursued their literary course until freed of their compulsion to ‘get it written down‘. The reader then becomes the beneficiary of their most arduous self-imposed task.
As was seen in my previous blog, Festoon Publishing has a brand new look that brings the webpage up-to-date with images of real people. As the world moves further and further away from reality with AI generated text and images, it is hoped that 2026 will begin a trend away from the unrealities of AI (that is very good at mimicking reality). It is one thing for an artist or author to create a fictitious work, but quite another when human imagination is removed from the creative work altogether.
It can be difficult to draw a line that determines what is acceptable as a personal work, and what is AI generated. The intrusion of artificial intelligence into what is a personal inspiration has been a steady creep spanning many decades. The initial appearance of what was to eventually develop into AI began, I suppose, with automatic spellcheckers and grammar correction software. It was then only a matter of time before software engineers developed systems that could detect a writer’s style and give hints as to how to turn a letter into a professional business letter or legal document, or just remove ambiguities.
It was during the 1980’s that educators and school teachers began dropping grammar, Latin roots, and even spelling from the curriculum as a basic requirement for a good education. The surmise was that by the time the child had finished their education, computers would be so far advanced that they would be able to take dictation from a person and turn it into a professional document. The trouble is, the resulting document is all gobbledygook to the person that dictated the message to the computer/handheld device in the first place!
In just one or two generations the education system has failed to meet what was once a minimum standard in education that was recognised by all. For example, there are now university qualified professionals use words such as ‘to’ ‘two’ and ‘too’ interchangeably! Interestingly though, this lack in basic education has led to the rise in sophisticated ‘group-speak’ or phraseology that hides the ignorance that ought to be expressed in ‘common-speak’ language. Each profession has adopted a ‘language’ of their own, that makes them look cleaver to the uninitiated outsiders.
Clear communication ought not be written or spoken to impress, but rather to convey meaning. Words have meaning, and used correctly, will convey thought very effectively. This, I believe, begins at a very early age and ought to continue throughout ones entire adult life. We educate one another that way without even realizing it in most cases.
We look forward to the publication of the many books that are in the process of editing at this time. The easy way is to let AI rewrite everything, and at the click of a button the job is done. You will be happy to know though, that is not how books will be edited at Festoon Publishing. There may be some residual errors in the final draft, but at least the end result will be a human-to-human interaction. To err is human (albeit, by this assessment, some people appear to be more human than others).
The staff at Festoon Publishing wishes everyone a very Happy New Year!
