Books DO Matter; Prompt Engineering is Gonna Get Easier
And other takeaways from AWP week in LA
I went to my first Annual Writers and Publishers conference this past March.
AWP is the biggest coming-together of people in the writing world each year, and for a first-timer it can feel kind of overwhelming—12,000+ writers in one city block? Panels and readings and speakers for three marvelous but jam-packed days? Plus lunches and dinners and parties and (my favorite) completely random run-ins with some of the most creative and open people you will ever meet? It’s a dream and kind of a wild ride.
I wanted to get the most out of this opportunity, and I crammed a lot in. I can’t cover it all, but here are my top 5 takeaways from this special crazy week. (Shoutout to my mom for house sitting so I could do this week worry-free. Moms are the best, don’t sleep on Mother’s Day!)
Learning #1: AI Prompt Engineering Is Gonna Get Easier
Starting with the odd man out, a slight deviation from the AWP theme: I spent the Wednesday before the conference in an AI workshop put on by Airtable.
This was a lucky little side quest that landed in my lap thanks to the guys at Brxnd.ai via their Dispatch newsletter (thanks Luke and Noah!). I have been studying AI for the past three years both as a brand practitioner and for the sci-fi novel I’m working on, so I love seeing how companies are implementing AI in and out of product. Airtable is already a very dope platform for building custom apps and workflows; as many companies are doing, they’ve added an AI layer that makes interfacing with a ton of proprietary and publicly available info super easy.
AI is just going to be built into products going forward. It’s already been happening for years at IBM, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and so on.
While there are plenty of potential issues with that, one positive is that as it becomes more seamlessly integrated into things people use, people will have to do less heavy lifting creating prompts. My major takeaway from the day, aside from the fact that these guys put on an excellent workshop:
Sooner than later the complexity of detail needed to make AI give you what you need is going to be programmed by few and accessible to many via simple, 2-5 word Google-search-ish inputs.
The Airtable team showed us how they’ve layered a really simple input engine on top of much more robust, complicated, and/or code-like AI queries to make usability super efficient, while still allowing tweaks to the complete prompt to refine results.
Does easier mean better? Almost certainly not in the beginning, stuff is still so glitchy and spitting out so many wrong or half answers that the idea of everything being run by faulty AI is a fresh horror show on the horizon. (What else is new!?) Still gotta check your work.
So I’m not saying NOT to learn the basics of prompt engineering—there are a billion guides out there; my superpal Lauryn of Villain Branding shared Google’s pretty comprehensive guide with me recently—because knowing how the sausage is made will make you better at building custom applications (e.g. using it make brand voice and messaging easier to implement; more on that another time).
But generally I see the complex details of prompt engineering taking a backstage role in mainstream applications, going the way of Boolean search for search platforms—a skill that has meaning but most will never have to use to get results.
Learning #2: Books DO Matter—We Are Still in an IP Driven Content Cycle, and Books = IP
People have been complaining about “the endless number of Marvel spinoffs” and “the remakes upon remakes” for years now, but the trend of using existing IP1 as a content mine is not going anywhere, folks.
It sucks that it makes it harder for original screen material, and it really sucks that nonsense like follower count is influencing production decisions. There are tons of reasons why original ideas should get more air. But I’m a business girlie, and from a brand equity and revenue standpoint it makes financial sense for studios to mitigate risk by pursuing projects that already have a receptive audience.
A strong book can provide that audience. It just needs a strong reason why.
“Every studio will ask: Why this book, and why now? A bestselling book = desirable IP, but you still have to answer the why.”
– Sherryl Clark, Co-Founder & President, Premeditated Productions
If you have something that speaks to an audience, your work might get a second life through film or TV. Not that this is a rosy picture for writers (commercial fiction is limiting; the book market is already notoriously unforgiving financially; readers are reading less; fewer kids are even becoming readers, I’ma stop before this gets too bleak). Sad, but objectively understandable. There’s too much input out there. What’s the filter?
A “bestselling” book is currently THE filter. It’s another in a long line of hurdles for writers: write books that get read and have mass screen appeal too! Exhausting. Yet another iteration of “have it all!”2 But it does give books a one-up in a bonkers competitive content landscape—a solid book, per Ms. Clark, has a better chance of making it on screen than an original script or screenplay.
Again, that has its own downside. Nothing is all good. But I’m an optimistic realist. I’m happy that books have a chance at getting more than one life, and a new interpretation through the minds and perspectives and art of other creatives. So much of the most popular content out there now is based on popular writing. While there’s plenty to hate about it, I choose to love this for us.3 I, too, am a screen goblin.
Learning #3: Community Matters More Than Ever
The major driving motivation to go to AWP, besides the fact that I actually love meeting new people and I’ve missed conferences since leaving New York for my hometown of Santa Fe, NM, was seeing the amazing writer friends I made at Courtney Maum’s Turning Points retreat—both from my time there in 2023 and from the class of 2024 I’d met virtually but never in person.
Getting to see these gorgeous, generous, genius women in person revived my writer spirit in a way I’ll never forget. They inspire me and refresh my spirit in ways that make facing down the goal of writing 60,000 words in the next six weeks feel possible. And in a world that feels increasingly isolating, we need our people more than ever.
If you are a writer and you aren’t following Courtney’s Before and After the Book Deal Substack, you are seriously missing out. Treat yourself!!
Other great Turning Points follows: Elizabeth Austin, Andrea Fernandez4
It was also an opportunity to get my hands on a galley of my brilliant pal M.L. Rio’s new book, Hot Wax. !!! Reading it feels simultaneously like sitting down to an incredibly decadent steak dinner and gearing up for the drop at the top of a roller coaster—I feel increasingly nervous for the main character with every page I turn. I love a book that makes me feel this way. Books should be an EXPERIENCE, honey, YES. You’ll want to read this with a pen. And an oxygen mask.
Preorder Hot Wax here. It’s hot.
Learning #4: Sometimes You Need to Go to LA to Get Home
On the final day of the conference, I spent a lot of time at the insane bookfair these guys put on; they bring together SO many great publishing houses and presses big and small. (AND I ran into poet and author Ben Purkert! We used to work together! We once wrapped every single thing on his desk for his birthday! It was very frustra- I mean very fun for him! Little joys were everywhere at this conference.)
Where in this enormous conference hall do you stop to get books? For me, I wanted to see how New Mex was representing. I picked up some exciting titles from well-known houses like McSweeney’s and Skylight, but my favorite picks came from The Santa Fe Writer’s Project (props for being the booth keeping it the most weird) and the University of New Mexico Press. So much to reeeead.
Finally, Learning #5: It’s Good to Invest in Yourself
It was a good week. More than anything else, it was a gift I gave to myself. I made the commitment to prioritizing writing “for real” three years ago, and something my sister said when I did has stuck with me:
“I’m so glad you’re investing in yourself this way.”
She nailed it—this is an investment. I’m taking a lot of financial risks to make this writing journey work. I’m incredibly lucky5 because I have a very cool day job providing strategy and verbal identity services to some very awesome companies. But right now I’m sinking every penny I make into writing my first novel. It’s scary and I alternate between feeling self-indulgent and insane, because I have very little control over the ROI of this journey. Books aren’t exactly a sure thing economically.
Whether the book succeeds or not, the process has been a success so far. It feels like the most honest thing I have ever done. I’m throwing myself into it, and I’m very stubborn about things I believe are worth doing. I am mitigating the risk of deathbed regret. I am having so much fun and giving life to part of myself that has been seriously neglected in the past 20 odd years.
This conference was not just a way to learn more, or to meet more people who love writing as much as I do; it was a way to honor a part of myself that needed some sunlight.
Sometimes you have to invest in you to make sure you get your money’s worth outta livin’.
IP = Intellectual Property, but in this shorthand it means content that has already landed successfully with an audience in another format or pre-existing content.
And we all know how fun that is, don’t we? Already Liz Lemoning over here.
Yes, yes. “Easy to say now,” you say as you gnash your teeth and want to throw things at me. I acknowledge that I don’t know firsthand all the frustrations this might entail. So take my enthusiasm for the IP market with a grain of salt. But I find the idea of going from book to screen super motivating, and it thrills my heart when I see my friends off to their film agent meetings (looking atchoo Courtney ;)
Bree Cox, you have no Substack, but I am following you alwayyyys
I’M HAVING IT ALL!!! But mostly, I’m having a lot of all-nighters and all-Saturdays, minus the month or two of book-time I can set aside per year.
Love all the Turning Points shout-outs! I'm planning to be at AWP next year so look forward to the Pointer Sisters meeting there.
Aww- I adore all this. And you!