Why Am I Hiding My Spoilers?

I’ve received some questions about my protected spoilers. So I decided to explain Why Am I Hiding My Spoilers? You might be surprised by reason #3!

Why Am I Hiding My Spoilers?

As of January 2024, I decided to try a new method for spoilers and spoiler discussions:

• I’m doing spoilers for more books than before
• But some of them are shorter
• AND I am protecting them until at least a few months after a book is published

So WHY am I doing this? I’d love to explain:

1. Writing out a full spoiler discussion post is very time-consuming

• It takes WAY more time than a regular review OR a review with brief spoilers
• Not every book I read gets a large enough audience to warrant all that time.

2. People who hate spoilers REALLY hate them

This publisher posted on Instagram that spoilers are OUT in 2025. So I have to be a little under-the-radar.

3. Google is changing EVERYTHING about your search experience

You may or may not have realized it, but Google has been UP TO STUFF since fall 2023.

• Some of it was to combat spam in the Google search results (fine)
• Some of it was to prioritize “helpful content” (hmmm okay)
• The most recent change is about giving you search results generated by AI (wait, what?)

Yes, now when you Google, you will likely get results that have been scraped off the internet by AI and then assembled into a “helpful” answer. But is AI book content helpful? Or even accurate? (If you’ve had to deal with any customer service bots recently, you know the answer is probably NO.)

I’m fine with getting an AI result for a straightforward question, like “when was Moby Dick published?”

But let’s see what happened when I searched “plot summary and character list” for The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas, as I was about to read the sequel, The Champions.

This obvious AI content couldn’t even get a simple character list right. And then entire post was a bunch of rambling word salad.

Now let’s see how AI did with my pretty straightforward question about a recent suspense book.

I asked Google, “Who was the Killer in I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai?”

And this is what I got:

Google AI’s “helpful” answer was that Omar Evans did it. End of story. What!??

Um, the ENTIRE point of I Have Some Questions For You is that the author starts to question whether Omar DID kill her high school roommate Thalia.

She is horrified that Omar might be an innocent Black man sitting in prison for decades, targeted as the killer through small-minded racism.

Total AI fail! Secondhand embarrassment for you, Google AI.

I won’t tell you who DID kill Thalia, but if you read my Spoiler Discussion Post for I Have Some Questions For You, I will reveal all.

So What Does Google AI Have to Do With Protected Spoilers?

Because Google new puts AI content at the top of search results, that means my (and other small creators’) content gets pushed WAAAY down so it’s hard to find.

So you will Google Thalia’s killer, get what you think is your answer, and never see my post.

Reaching you by email may be the best way I can get my content seen.

So, to access the hidden content (spoilers), I ask for your email address and that you try my weekly (or monthly) newsletter. If you don’t like the newsletter, you can unsubscribe. AND I am leaving my longer Spoiler Discussion posts unprotected (for now.) I may explore other options if Google continues down this AI path.

What can you do if you DON’T want Google’s AI search results to your questions?

• Try a different search engine. Bing also uses a little bit of AI at the top, but not the huge amount that Google has been serving up.
• If your question is complex and it’s important that you get an accurate answer that wasn’t scraped off somewhere like Reddit (uhhh, seriously?) scroll past Google’s AI and keep scrolling until you get something that seems legit.
• Make sure to support the smaller websites that you value. Bookmark them. Visit tham. Subscribe to their newsletters. A lot of small content creators are quitting or contemplating it because they are so discouraged (I’m hanging in for now…)

If you want to read more about how Google is pushing AI and paid promotional content to the top of your search results, check out this excellent article by the creator of another smaller site about how the AI and paid promo Google “Goliaths” are crushing the indie Google “Davids” !

Please feel free to leave a comment as I will answer all questions and LOVE feedback.