AI FOR THE CURIOUS & MEDDLESOME

ChatGPT & idea generating, an exercise. Using marketing copy (or a synopsis) of Jia Tolentino's 2019 essay collection Trick Mirror

Okay, okay, okay. Listen. I, too have questions and fears and rage about AI. But two things have made me curious about ChatGPT and book publicity: my partner is a high school computer science teacher, so it has already entered his classroom in interesting ways (and though I’m no longer a high school English teacher, I’ve been learning a lot from the ways that teachers are testing the interfaces—is interfaces even the right word?), AND I’m the kind of person who stubbornly has to do everything myself (even if it means doing it wrong 17 times) to figure out how it works.

This post is *very* basic. I am no revolutionary. I have just been playing around with ChatGPT for a few weeks to see what it’ll do. I’ve found some little tricks that I want to share with authors and publishers who might also be feeling inquisitive. I know that not everyone has a collaborator or a team of people when they’re setting a book loose on the world. Some folks are publishing with an editor who rarely answers emails, or the publicity department is an intern who cycles through new every academic season.

In this exercise this morning, I’m thinking of ChatGPT as an idea generator, a cliff to catapult my brain into new ideas.

When books come to me as an outside publicist, they often already have a synopsis or marketing copy—on the inside of a publishing department, publicists are often involved in the creation of that copy (the paragraphs you see on the back of a book, or in the “description” space for online retail). At every stage of publishing a book, these descriptions exist.

Writers are the first to create them when querying agents or publishers, agents write pitches when they’re going out on submission to editors, and the marketing and publicity teams often tighten and mad lib to come up with the copy that consumers read. As something that is hard to write (every querying writer will tell you) and intimately part of all stages of publishing a book, I thought I would use the marketing copy on a finished book for this morning’s ChatGPT experiment.

I’ll be using marketing copy from Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, which came out in August, 2019.

The first thing I did when I opened ChatGPT this morning was enter the marketing copy (the synopsis) for Trick Mirror from Bookshop.org and ask it to write a NYT style book review based on the synopsis. Here is the doc with the sample marketing copy.

I typed to ChatGPT, “Based on the following marketing copy, write a New York Times style book review, [marketing copy].” The simplest of prompts.

My idea was to see if there was any language in a “review” from the bot that would help me think about the book in new ways, think about the language around the book in new ways, think through a pitch or pitching angles, and perhaps generate some ideas for essays Tolentino could write (I like to give the authors I work with writing prompts).

And here is a Google doc of the New York Times style book review that ChaptGPT gave me with highlights, in case it’s easier to read. I’ve also pasted it below.

Book Review:

In "Trick Mirror," Jia Tolentino showcases her exceptional talent for dissecting the contemporary human experience with incisive clarity and unyielding courage. This collection of nine extraordinary essays delves deep into the complexities and contradictions of our time, illuminating the hidden forces that shape our perceptions and behaviors. With a rare blend of intellectual prowess, biting wit, and unwavering honesty, Tolentino embarks on a thought-provoking journey through the hallways of self-delusion that permeate our lives.

At the heart of this captivating book lies an exploration of the incentives that mold our identities, all within the context of a culture that revolves around self-absorption. Tolentino fearlessly unravels the nightmarish underbelly of the social internet, exposing the ways in which it distorts our sense of self and exacerbates our anxieties. She delves into the rise of scamming as a prevailing ethos among millennials, shedding light on the profound implications of a society driven by illusion and deception.

One of the book's standout features is Tolentino's remarkable ability to navigate complex subjects with ease, effortlessly guiding readers through the literary landscape. She skillfully dissects the evolution of the literary heroine, capturing the journey from bravery to emptiness to bitterness with keen observation and insightful analysis. Furthermore, Tolentino explores society's relentless pursuit of optimization, where even our bodies are subject to the relentless quest for efficiency and beauty.

Throughout "Trick Mirror," Tolentino's sharp sense of humor shines, providing moments of respite amidst the weightiness of the subject matter. Her prose is captivating, at times even poetic, as she dissects the multifaceted nature of our existence in this tumultuous era. Each essay in this collection stands as a testament to Tolentino's profound intellect and her commitment to delivering unabashed honesty to her readers.

"Trick Mirror" is an instant classic, serving as a searing commentary on the tumultuous decade that has unfolded before us. Tolentino's fearless exploration of our collective illusions and self-deceptions is both enlightening and unsettling, prompting readers to confront their own complicity in perpetuating these societal constructs. With her unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity, Tolentino has crafted a work that demands our attention and offers invaluable insight into the human condition.

In the first paragraph, I love the phrasing, “hallways of self-delusion” from this sentence, “With a rare blend of intellectual prowess, biting wit, and unwavering honesty, Tolentino embarks on a thought-provoking journey through the hallways of self-delusion that permeate our lives.”

It makes me think about: the fun house mirrors of online personas and beauty standards. I mean, duh, Trick Mirror. But hallways as a metaphor sort of implies that we have options, and yet hallways are often places we feel stuck (thanks, horror movies) or places that feel narrow and confined. It’s a metaphor I could definitely see applied in a larger way to pitch for the book. Tolentino also wrote the essay “The Age of Instagram Face” and this feels directly tied to “hallways of self-delusion.” (ChatGPT could have access to that essay as it’s from 2019, though I didn’t put it in there and wouldn’t put an author’s actual writing into the bot.)

I could write a whole book about my experiences in mall dressing rooms from my teenage years—how we clustered in a gaggle to stand in front of mirrors and lights angled specifically for consumerism and disappointments, Sbarro’s pizza oil licked from our fingers, someone’s Hello Kitty bag full of sprinkled parmesan from the stolen glass canister (they eventually tied it to the register)—those feelings I had (still have?) about my body (and comparison) could also come into a book pitch for Trick Mirror within the larger frame of “hallways of self-delusion.”

In the second paragraph of ChapGPT’s “review” it says “mold our identities” in the first sentence, which speaks a bit to audience. This book, from the copy, was angled at millennials, and it came out before TikTok had its pandemic blow-up, but the idea of molding identities gives me a segue into how I might pitch mothers of children growing up in the internet age, college-age adults, even teenagers.

It’s really interesting that though the marketing copy doesn’t contain the idea of self-absorption, ChatGPT still picked it up … “within the context of a culture that revolves around self-absorption,” and it also picked up on Tolentino’s analysis that the “social internet” … “distorts our sense of self and exacerbates our anxieties.”

The pairing of these two things, “self-absorption” and “anxieties” is yet another angle idea for a book pitch, but it’s also an angle for strategizing “companion pieces.” Tolentino could use the friction between these two phrases to write essays and opinions pieces to be placed and timed around publication, to add buzz to the book. My first thought is the recent 2023 CDC Youth Survey, “U.S. Teen Girls Experiencing Increased Sadness and Violence.” What could Tolentino say about that within the realm of “self-absorption” and “anxieties”—probably quite a bit.

STRUCTURE! The phrasing, “journey from … bravery to emptiness to bitterness.” This short little sentence offers an arc to millennial storyline captured in the book. For those that struggle with structure, here’s a sentence that you could pull out as a starting place to breakdown the larger structure or shape of what your book is doing. Thinking about an essay collection as a journey is kind of a quagmire in my brain (unless it’s a book of personal essays), but I think this very short structural arc speaks to the journey of millennials that Tolentino captures in the book—and why are they going from brave to empty to bitter, how can we pluck that apart for a pitch?

In the last sentence of ChatGPT’s “NYT review,” it says, the book “demands our attention.” Interesting phrasing when thinking about a book that’s analyzing the attention economy, the attention paid to internet, to body dysmorphia, to instantaneous, and triggers. I like this, it’s an opportunity to market Tolentino’s book as a sort of “take backsies” of attention. A way to counter fast economy, hustle culture, instant gratification, a book that attempts to steal back time from the cultural ethos and phenomenons its analyzing.

After going through the “review,” I also went through just to look at the words ChatGPT chose in response. Some thoughts:

• “dissects,” gives me 7th grade science class and plastic surgery

• “tumultuous era,” Taylor Swift is on her “eras” tour, everyone on social media is saying things like, “Lazy girl era” (seriously, Youtube is overwhelmed with videos of people trying to get you out of bed and into hustle culture). Could Tolentino write about the idea of “eras"—of breaking down our lives into little segments and categorizations, of trying to encapsulate the self into one thing, into sections? Is this how we’re organizing our lives now?

• “searing,” the book is kind of a roast

• “unsettling,” brings me back to that fun house mirror feeling. The idea of the book’s larger commentary. We want to read about it, and yet, what does it reflect back to us? Are we reading the book to see ourselves in a new way (and would it change our behavior?)

• “complicity,” folks reading this book realize that they’re within the schema, we’re in the Matrix. It’s a book, again, of reflections.

• “hidden forces,” there is that Matrix feeling. This makes me want to research the power of the doom scroll, why we’re all so addicted to it.

• “unyielding,” tells me that we can talk about Tolentino as a voice that pushes against the fabrication, she’s relentless (since essay collections are often about marketing &/or branding the writer AND the book at once).

• “optimization” and “efficiency,” these are definitely words IN the book, but I think the idea of stealing the language of the very thing Tolentino is dissecting would make for a fascinating pitch on the book. Computer bro speak? If this book was published today, I would probably read through a few of Facebook’s recent announcements on Threads, and/or read through what Zuckerburg is saying in interviews, so that I could twist and turn his language for my own work in publicizing Tolentino’s book.

Lastly, I asked it to regenerate a second time after doing the first experiment and it changed a few things. I went through and highlighted what I might use in that same Google Doc here. Also, lol at this title on the second response: “Book Review: Jia Tolentino's "Trick Mirror" - A Captivating Voyage Through the Illusions of Our Time”

Remember when we used to do exercises? Maybe it’s time we try again.

Test out ChatGPT as a pseudo-collaborator and idea generator. Throw your marketing copy in there and see what it tells you, see what it opens up. Use it as a cliff!

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ICYMI: Jessica E. Johnson was interviewed on Lives of Writers by Lena Crown, Jane Kuo was interviewed in OC Register about Land of Broken Promises, Maya Golden wrote about sex addiction for Insider, Jenny Sadre-Orafai was interviewed in The Rumpus, Kate Doyle’s I Meant It Once is recommended by The Millions, Debutiful, Purewow, and Good Morning America, Beth Kephart wrote a beautiful prompt for Isolation Journals about gifts, Kate Doyle is going on a US tour this summer, and so is Ross White.

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