Romance, AI, and The New York Times

Not all publicity is good publicity.

Before we get started: There are about 15 spots left in the second Publishing Confidential Cohort. If you’re interested, please fill out this GOOGLE FORM. The syllabus can be found HERE. The cost is $350, which includes a 45-minute consultation with me. All classes are 7:30-9 PM Eastern, and the dates are Wednesday, 3/5, 3/11, 3/18, 4/1, 4/8, and 4/15. A recording of each session is sent along with slides after each class. Who it’s for: whether you have a book under contract or you are querying, you will learn everything you need to know about marketing, PR, and the publishing process. You can certainly get something out of the class if you are hybrid-published or self-published and want to understand marketing and PR. A frequently asked question: Am I going to offer another session? The answer is maybe in May/June. It depends on my schedule, my workload, and some other factors.

And now, the main event.

Chances are that you’ve probably heard about The New York Times article (gift link), "The New Fabio is Claude," which delves into how the romance community is adapting to A.I. Or, at least, the article tells us that is what we are going to read. The headline is a little weird; Fabio didn’t write romance books, he was a cover model. I understand the play on words, so we’ll leave the headline where it is.

The main character of the article is “author” Coral Hart, who created 21 pen names, and doesn’t seem to see the problem in using Claude AI (you know, the AI platform owned by Anthropic, a company that was sued by authors for stealing their work (I’m simplifying here). Here’s an excerpt:

A longtime romance novelist who has been published by Harlequin and Mills & Boon, Ms. Hart was always a fast writer. Working on her own, she released 10 to 12 books a year under five pen names, on top of ghostwriting. But with the help of A.I., Ms. Hart can publish books at an astonishing rate. Last year, she produced more than 200 romance novels in a range of subgenres, from dark mafia romances to sweet teen stories, and self-published them on Amazon. None were huge blockbusters, but collectively, they sold around 50,000 copies, earning Ms. Hart six figures.

21 pen names, 200 books “written” last year. The article goes on:

Ms. Hart has become an A.I. evangelist. Through her author-coaching business, Plot Prose, she’s taught more than 1,600 people how to produce a novel with artificial intelligence, she said. She’s rolling out her proprietary A.I. writing program, which can generate a book based on an outline in less than an hour, and costs between $80 and $250 a month.

But when it comes to her current pen names, Ms. Hart doesn’t disclose her use of A.I., because there’s still a strong stigma around the technology, she said. Coral Hart is one of her early, now retired pseudonyms, and it’s the name she uses to teach A.I.-assisted writing; she requested anonymity because she still uses her real name for some publishing and coaching projects. She fears that revealing her A.I. use would damage her business for that work.

But she predicts attitudes will soon change, and is adding three new pen names that will be openly A.I.-assisted, she said.

The way Ms. Hart sees it, romance writers must either embrace artificial intelligence, or get left behind.

“If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who’s going to win the race?” she said.

Who’s going to win the race? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize book publishing turned into the Indy 500. What’s even more troubling is that Ms. Hart charges people to learn “how to produce a novel with artificial intelligence.” She may have requested anonymity, but her photo was shown, and Reddit sleuths have already found some of her other pen names and her real name, which I am not printing here because there isn’t 100% confirmation.

When I was an undergrad, I was an English major with a concentration in Creative Writing. I’ve been writing creatively since I was a child. I’m currently in an MA program earning my Master’s in English/Creative Writing Non-Fiction. In other words, I am constantly working on being a better writer. That is the opposite of what AI does. Anyone could give Claude, ChatGPT, or various other AI platforms the right prompts and get a story out of it, but what Ms. Hart and the people who think this is okay need to understand is this: They are stealing other people’s work. AI was and is trained on existing material, so those 200 “books” that Ms. Hart and her 21 pen names “wrote” are essentially stolen goods, and it is deceptive to market and sell them as her own.

I am not wholly anti-AI. I use it to manage administrative tasks. It can create a spreadsheet much faster than I can, that’s for sure. What I do not do is use it creatively. Every edition of this newsletter is written by me, without help from AI. That isn’t a brag. Instead, it’s the truth, which you do not get when AI is used. Ms. Hart appears to believe that quantity outweighs quality in book publishing. She’s wrong. Flooding the market with AI slop hurts the industry. More importantly, it hurts the self-publishing ecosystem. It even hurts the hybrid publishing ecosystem. When you have endless self-published titles and, say, half of them are “written” by AI, discoverability becomes impossible. Using fake names and claiming to have written 200 books in a year when you really only came up with familiar concepts in romance is deceiving readers. You’re collecting money, but you’re not doing the work. It is downright insulting to actual writers who sometimes spend years writing and querying before they are published. Ms. Hart is not better than anyone for what she is doing. She is the worst of publishing.

Later in the article, we encounter a quote from the Editorial Director of Bloom Books:

But without such obvious slip-ups, it can be hard to spot A.I.-generated romance. Amazon asks authors who use its Kindle self-publishing platform to disclose if they relied on A.I., but does not require writers to include any public disclaimers on their books.

“The A.I. detector can be gotten around,” said Christa Désir, vice president and editorial director of Bloom Books, a romance imprint that often signs successful self-published authors. “It will become undetectable at a certain point.”

I don’t think Christa Désir’s quote means she is dismissing the problems AI presents. What she’s saying is that it’ll be difficult for publishers to discern AI-written material from human-written material. We are not there yet, but I agree that it will eventually become undetectable. That’s not to say we should throw up our hands and say, “Oh well!” Instead, I think agents and editors will look very closely at the material and be forced to ask some tough questions of some writers (or alleged writers). What is needed is employee training in publishing to better detect AI-generated content. There are telltale signs: overly formal tone, gushing praise, etc. Plagiarism software hasn’t quite caught up to the AI boom, but I don’t doubt that someone is developing better detection tools.

While I disagree with everything Ms. Hart is doing, I am also fascinated by her income. Is it a statement about today’s literacy rates that AI-produced books sell? Are these simply readers who lack discerning taste? Publishing AI-produced romance books is one problem; that people willingly read them is another. Sure, Ms. Hart offers classes, but people who do not want to put in the work of writing are paying to take them. Those same people seem to be under the assumption that the faster you write and publish, the more money you’ll make. They couldn’t be more wrong. Writing is a craft, and people spend years honing it. In today’s culture, there is an underlying need to be known. That is why people create TikToks, Reels, and the like. Virality has created a desire among some people to seek only likes and views. To me, this is what fuels the people who so desperately want to publish books that they rely on AI. Granted, not all content creation is done for the ego, but a whole lot of it is. That is why we now see AI-generated images and videos: we are all still in high school, where some kids will do anything to be popular.

I don’t blame The New York Times for doing the story. In fact, I think it’s good that they brought this to light. It’s a warning sign for the industry: This is happening, now what are you going to do about it? As a publicist, I also think the interview was unknowingly a bit of a trap for Ms. Hart. When The New York Times wants to interview you, and it gets in your head that it’ll be great for your career, you might miss the part where the internet is really good at finding out your real identity and many of your pseudonyms. For someone like the “writer” Elizabeth Ann West, your quote as the final sentence is almost like the nail in a coffin:

The writer Elizabeth Ann West, one of Future Fiction’s founders, who came up with the plot of “Bridesmaids and Bourbon,” believes the audience would be bigger if the books weren’t labeled as A.I. The novels, which are available on Amazon, come with a disclaimer on their product page: “This story was produced using author‑directed AI tools.”

“If you hide that there’s A.I., it sells just fine,” she said.

Ms. West, who also teaches classes on how to write with A.I., has gotten blowback from opponents of the technology, including occasional death threats on social media. But she believes that in time, A.I. generated fiction will become widespread and popular.

“Eventually,” Ms. West said, “readers will not care.”

In case you’re wondering, Future Fiction’s “About” section states the following:

Founded by Elizabeth Ann West, Stacey Anderson, and Steph Pajonas, we are dedicated to pioneering the use of AI in every aspect of the writing and publishing process. Our mission is simple: to produce high-quality fiction that resonates with readers, while proving that AI can revolutionize the publishing industry.

What I’d tell Ms. Hart and Ms. West is this: Readers care. They always have, and they always will. High-quality fiction is the result of someone who has relentlessly worked on their craft, not the result of typing prompts into an AI platform and calling the results their own writing. Caring about your readers means giving them your best, which is something AI will never do.

END NOTES:

What I’m Reading: I’m almost done with Strangers by Belle Burden, and I keep asking myself why she married the guy in the first place (Love, I know. It messes us up). I’m also still reading Theo of Golden, but that is a much slower book. What I really want to dig into is Clutch by Emily Nemens.

What I’m Watching: Tell Me Lies, Season 3 (read the book first!), Shrinking, Season 3, The Pitt, Season 2.

What I’m Listening to: Bad Bunny :)