Author Paul Dettmann: Crime Guy says gen AI isn't a threat to writers

Author Paul Dettmann

Long-time author Paul Dettmann, AKA Crime Guy, still has the first story he wrote as a nine-year-old and has been writing ever since! His nonfiction British Gangs 1900 - 1950 was published with with Pen and Sword in 2024 and he's nearly finished the follow-up, World War Two Gangs, for the same publisher.

Author Paul Dettman, AKA Crime Guy

Paul self-published From Beyond Belief (The Playground) and Kicking Tin, about a plane crash in the Potomac caused by an American missile after interest from HarperCollins waned. He's also written American-style pot boilers, including The Gun Slipped and the crime fiction Ernest Zevon.

Paul writes on Substack as Crime Guy and on LinkedIn writes the newsletter AI@Work. By day, Paul works for a consultancy firm which helps find opportunities for graduates in technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Paul is based in London, UK.

Social media is all about connecting with readers

On Creative Writing: Do you use social media to engage readers, writers, or publishers and, if so, which platforms?

Paul Dettmann: I do use social media, although I was reluctant to. I was an early user of Twitter when it was a nice place to be. I stopped everything for a few years but then in the pandemic I started using Instagram. I really liked the variety of content you could put on there but was initially frustrated that I couldn't just post text. I learned from looking at what other writers were doing and I also realised that a lot of my demographic are on there.

Younger people are moving to TikTok and Snap and although I have some under-30 followers, most of my followers are over 35. A lot of parents are active on Instagram, which I did not know. I would say that it is more important than ever to pick a main platform that you use most often, to avoid burnout, and pick the one which matches the audience you want to engage. It's not about what platform you prefer yourself - these platforms change up every few years - you have to put your audience first. And learn how to use the stats!

My followers were not who I expected. Nearly half are outside the UK even though I am very UK-centric in what I post. Sixty percent are female, which I did not expect, even though I knew true crime was popular with women. When you know these things you can tune your content for that set of people. I don't attempt to engage publishers on Instagram, but I know they look at my profile if I send a synopsis to them. I am trying to engage my readers primarily, the people who actually pay money to read my stuff.

Writing online for more than two decades led to publishing contract

On Creative Writing: If you’ve been published, how did you find your first publisher?

Paul Dettmann: I tell this story because it shows that the so called usual routes routes are not the only routes. Sometimes to stand out you have to do other things. When I was still active on Twitter, back in the summer of 2021, a scout for my current publisher sent me a DM asking if I would consider writing a book. I had only just started posting about true crime. I do not know if she had seen my novels or not, which were all self-published. But she asked the question, I just said yes, and then went about thinking of a topic. It was very easy. Just a few emails back and forth and then a contract arrived. Most people seem to have some story like this. When I say it was easy, it was only easy because I had been writing for over 25 years online!

Try to meet publishers in person, to cut through all that blind submission red tape. Go to events, find their local pub, ask friends of friends. I work a little bit in sales in my day job and honestly nothing works like a personal connection. And that's the other tip: under no circumstances should you try to make writing your main income stream. You will die poor and disillusioned. You simply must do something else. Many writers I know work in schools or colleges, others work in publishing (ha!) and I work in London in IT. You could work in a bar or a shop, but whatever you do, don't plan for writing to cover your living costs.

Writers shouldn't worry about AI

On Creative Writing: Do you see generative AI as a benefit or a threat to writers?

As luck would have it, and it's a double-edged sword, I have worked in AI since the 1990s and am known as an expert on the topic. As I often write in a LinkedIn newsletter that I write with a great colleague, the experts are always wrong. I was wrong. I did not spot how quickly ChatGPT would change the narrative on AI. But neither did OpenAI. The last two years have been a fun rollercoaster but ultimately have given me a new/old topic to write about. Now my old academic paper is an asset that opens doors.

Always remember that something you did in 1999 could find a new life. Netflix might just find your old book in a bookshop bin and buy the rights.

My AI paper led to an AI newsletter and now my writing and my day job are so intertwined I sometimes lose track! As an expert (always wrong) I can say I have no fear at all about generative AI. It is only a positive thing. In IT we have a concept called five-nines which basically means 100% but it's not quite 100% it is actually 99.999% (count the nines) and I can confidently state that 99.999% of people who moan about AI in the press and on LinkedIn have no idea what they are talking about. None of them have written a line of code.

If you can find someone on LinkedIn who is a coder and really knows what they say, they will tell you that generative AI is very rudimentary and not ready for prime-time. It should be seen as a beta tool. We were not meant to be having these very public debates with muggles.

Generative AI escaped before it was ready

The tech escaped before it was ready, sort of like COVID-19 actually, and we have been fire-fighting ever since. Close your ears. Make up your own mind, and use the tools if you find them helpful. You are under no obligation to use the tools at all. If I would change anything about the time since Christmas 2022 it is that ChatGPT would have been launched about 5 years later.

Something in that 3.5 version really struck a chord and I do not think it has helped the cause of true AI experts. OpenAI should have waited, but then, how could they have predicted where we are today? Stephen Fry writes well on Substack about AI and he has been excited about it since the 1980s. It shows it has been around. It all started in 1956 actually, so has AI changed the world in the last 70 years? Nah. The car has. Pollution has. Nuclear weapons. But not AI. Do me a favour. Find something else to worry about that might actually happen. Find me software that has changed the world. It does not exist.

The writing brain and editing brain are different

On Creative Writing: Do you edit as you write, or write and edit later?

This is a really important one. I have avoided all the other 'writer advice' questions because every story is different and there is no right or wrong way. I did not plan my writing career to follow the path it has, but I am not sure I would change anything when I look back. If I really had sold my first novel for a billion dollars it would not have led to the opportunities that I found later on.

On editing, you simply must not edit while you write that first draft. It is suicide in both fiction and nonfiction. Everyone agrees on this point. Your writing brain is different to your editing brain. You must finish the first draft as quickly as you can, in the most creative state you can get your brain into.

Flow is everything. It is another part of your brain entirely that reads and edits. If you keep flicking between these two, you will either go mad, or you will not finish the book, or if you do finish, it will not be as good a book as it would otherwise have been. Read about brain chemistry. Do not edit as you write!