NEED TO KNOW
- After their friend self-published a children’s book, a Reddit user did not congratulate her, and she became “upset”
- The user also inquired about the friend’s illustrator for the book, and she revealed she used AI to make the cover art
- Responses to the Reddit user’s situation were split, with some agreeing they were in the wrong and others pushing back on how they handled things
Is there a proper way to respond when your friend publishes a book? What if they used AI to create the book’s artwork?
These are questions pondered in a June 30 Reddit post while sharing their predicament — and seeking advice — on the platform’s “Am I the A——” forum.
A friend of the user “self-published a children’s book on Amazon,” they wrote, and “made a big announcement on social media about how excited she was to start this new chapter in her life as an author.”
The newly self-published author also texted the user about it, to which they responded, “When I can, I’ll totally buy a copy. What’s the story? It sounds funny.” (The author “marketed it as a hilarious story to read at bedtime,” the user later clarified, “and the title has shock value.”)
“Later, my husband saw the cover and was curious if it was AI-generated,” the user wrote. “I asked my friend who her illustrator was, and she said she’d used Canva AI. Personally, I didn’t really care either way, so I just didn’t reply to that message right away.”
After a few hours had passed, the friend “followed up asking why I had asked.” When the user missed that text — “I wasn’t on my phone, so I didn’t see it right away” — she sent another text, asking something along the lines of, “Are you going to reply or not?”
“I told her I was just curious,” the user wrote, noting that they “didn’t want to mention that someone else [their husband] thought it looked like AI, since I felt that would come across as rude.”
The user summarized the author’s response: “I already have one friend criticizing my book, and then there’s you—no congratulations, just asking about the artwork as if you’re trying to find something negative. So why don’t you be honest about why you’re asking.”
According to the user, they replied: “Please calm down. I can’t afford to buy your book right now. When people are proud of something, they usually enjoy talking about it, so I thought asking questions was a way to show I was interested.”
The author did not respond to the explanation, but her husband — a coworker of the user who made the post — later revealed “she was upset” that the user “didn’t congratulate her.”
“I genuinely wasn’t trying to downplay her new book—the first thing that came to my mind was to ask questions to show support since I couldn’t buy it,” the user wrote. “But now I’m wondering if I was unintentionally dismissive.”
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Many of the top responses to the user’s Reddit post agreed that overall, they are not in the wrong — particularly because the new author used AI to create the book in the first place.
“It seems like she was already insecure that she used AI or other people have critiqued her for it so she automatically took it as [judgment],” one person wrote, while another said, “Self published AND AI?! sounds like a total s— show…. yikes.”
Others said the user was in the wrong, particularly for one detail: telling her author friend to “calm down.”
“There is no reality where she would be proud of an AI generated cover, so that reply was completely disingenuous and you know it,” one person responded in part, “especially since you said basically nothing else. Also, there is no reason why you couldn’t say ‘congratulations’ without buying the book? And finally, literally no one appreciates being told to “calm down’. Not a single person.”
The same person also asked the user if they “even like” their author friend. In response, the user said, “I do in fact like her very much though I will admit I might walk on eggshells with her a bit.”
As for the “calm down” criticism, they clarified: “When I told her to calm down, that was in response to her coming to me hours after I asked the question (assumedly after she got flack from somebody else) to yell at me.”
“I get that telling someone to chill isn’t ideal wording,” the user continued, “but she sent multiple messages demanding I explain myself, and at that point it felt a bit confrontational.”
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