AI Changes Book Writing and Publishing in 2026

Thank you Kerry, you've brought Replugged alive in a way the page alone never could. The audiobook is now live on Spotify, Audible, Apple Books, Amazon, and Google Play. The book traces the arc from mainframes to mindframes, through the technologies reshaping our world: large language models, robotics, quantum computing, biotech, brain-computer interfaces and the deeper currents beneath them: power, attention, trust, and what it means to stay human in an age of accelerating intelligence. Over the coming weeks I'll be writing on the Replugged page about these themes as they show up in the world around us. Follow the page Replugged the conversation continues there.

I don't routinely post about audiobook narrations I've done. But this one is different. The author, Satnam B., proposes that whilst there are many benefits of AI, there are also risks. He spells out what these risks are. And some of the concerns are being flagged up by the media as the headlines below, illustrate: 'Palantir UK boss says it's up to militaries to decide how AI targeting is used in war.' 'Should you really trust health advice from an AI chatbot?' 'Meta to track workers' clicks and keystrokes to train AI.' 'Finance ministers and bankers raise serious concerns about Mythos AI model.' Bains poses questions we should be asking ourselves now. paricularly in the commercial and defence domains, where we rely more and more on AI short-cut 'solutions'. That first headline, from the UK boss of Palantir, should give all of us pause for thought. AI hallucination is already happening. And, (oh, the irony,) here's an AI-generated definition of this: 'AI hallucinations are confident, plausible-sounding, but false or misleading outputs generated by AI models, such as LLMs. These errors occur when models invent facts, citations, or data due to flaws in training data, biases, or by prioritizing probabilistic word prediction over factual accuracy.' This audiobook really is well worth a listen to. My sample is a short 3.5 minute extract of headlines and questions. Available now on all mainstream audiobook platforms.

I think the negative effects of bad writing are underappreciated. Case in point: I'm reading a business book related to scaling up a startup. Although the framework underlying the book is valuable, the prose just isn't well written. The author chose to begin each chapter with a little vignette to illustrate the concepts in that chapter. Nice idea, but the vignettes themselves are full of strained humor and mixed metaphors, so they become distracting and credibility-sapping. One exemplar refers to "watching a movie from the sidelines." What I assume is lackluster editing has also resulted in multiple chapters where paragraphs seem to be out of order or missing. The book was published in 2026, so I wonder if it was co-written with AI. My point is, this book contains some really valuable content, but it is undermined by the prose, to the point that I wouldn't recommend the book. Although I think a competent human editor is still the best way to produce high-quality publications, I would think some better LLM prompting could at least help with the really obvious stuff I mentioned above. I guess the bigger question here is how many people actually care about the above. Maybe most people don't mind doing the extra work to wade through bad prose because everyone is in this "good enough, close enough, no time, move on" mindset.

I am genuinely terrified of where publishing is headed right now. This is full-blown uncanny valley energy. I was watching Soman Chainani talk about his writing process, and he mentioned that he screen records himself while writing. He also keeps multiple logs of his drafts as he goes. Not as productivity fodder or because it's good B-roll footage. He’s building a paper trail that basically says: I’m a human being and I wrote this. And this is someone with a bestselling series, a Netflix adaptation, and every possible signal of credibility. If he feels the need to do that… what exactly are the rest of us supposed to do? Because writers aren’t just writing anymore. We’re anticipating doubt. And sure, if you’ve been around since before AI kicked the door down, you at least have a body of work people can point to. A track record that buys you some trust. If you’re new, though? You’re walking into a market where your first book also has to function as your defense statement. That’s… wild. It feels dystopian in a very specific way. Creativity used to be one of those things you didn’t have to prove. Now we’re talking about draft histories, screen recordings, version control — like we’re debugging code instead of writing stories. And as much as I'd hate to admit it, the fear isn’t even dramatic. We’re at a point where something can sound like you, read like you, feel like you… and still not quite be you. So now every piece of writing carries these questions in the background: Who actually made this? What does it mean to make art? Is prompting the same as writing? And that question messes with the one thing publishing runs on: Trust. I’m really curious how people are thinking about this, especially if you’re writing right now, especially if you’re trying to break in. Are you just focusing on the work… or are you already thinking about how to prove it’s yours?

New York Times: Illegal AI-generated audiobook versions of popular titles are flooding YouTube, rapidly produced and paired with AI images: AI made this piracy form easy and quick to mass-produce, and harder for publishers to detect and remove. These unauthorized versions cover bestsellers like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and self-help books. Within days of a bestseller’s release, 5,000+ AI-pirated audio versions can appear online. They evade YouTube’s Content ID automatic detection system, which works for music but hardly for synthetic spoken content. Publishers rely on cumbersome manual DMCA takedowns, and new pirate channels quickly emerge to replace those removed. YouTube confirms that it's the responsibility of publishers to find and flag the videos. Hiring staff and companies to monitor YouTube is expensive for publishers and authors, and it doesn't even solve the issue. This is one of the negative uses of AI. What do you think? I am available for hire, consulting or partnerships: message me. 👍Like; Comment; Repost; Follow me (in my profile, click 🔔, select "all").

Thousands of #AIwritten #books are being sold. An eerie echo of #Orwell’s ‘novel‑writing machines’. "Many of these works are not fully #machinewritten. Instead, they’ve been, as the #AI #writingtool #Sudowrite advertises, “polished by AI.” With its “#Rewrite” function, the company promises to give users an opportunity to “refine your #prose while staying true to your style, with multiple AI-suggested revisions to choose from.” The service is akin to the “#touchingup” provided by the Ministry of Truth’s Rewrite Squad in “1984.” Other #books for #sale on #Amazon are, however, entirely machine-generated. The AI writing tool #Squibler promises that if you give it an overarching prompt, it can produce “Full-Length Novels in Seconds.”" #book #booksellers #bookshop #publishingworld #books #read #reading #artificialintelligence #societyandculture #culture #culturalrevolution #imagination #accountability #responsibility #authenticity #commerciallaw #cheating #computer #computers #bladerunner #human #humans https://lnkd.in/eQyKkyBc

Recent research highlighted in the New York Times examined 370,000 college essays and compared human and AI-generated writing (link is in the comments). A couple findings stand out: --As my colleague Allan R. Gold regularly notes, writing requires thinking, and thinking is hard. Using gen AI to brainstorm can short-circuit the hard work of thought and reflection, making writing less insightful. --In a related study, researchers found that human-written essays contained eight times more new ideas than AI-generated work. If you care to put your name on it, make sure content features your insights and perspectives, not just a synthesis of what's already been published.

One Engine, Every Genre. 📚✨ From the whimsical tone of a children’s storybook to the rigorous logic of an academic textbook, the '100k Word SEO AI Writer' is being built for multi-genre mastery. By leveraging advanced System Prompting and Voice Sampling, the AI can pivot its 'Creative Soul' to match the specific rhythm and vocabulary of any book type. We aren't just building a writer; we're building a Digital Publishing House. 🌌🚀 #GenerativeAI #Publishing #AcademicWriting #SaaSGrowth #Entrepreneurship

Here’s a short LinkedIn-style post you could use: --- LLMs are writing books now — but not always well. It’s fascinating to see how quickly people are adopting AI to churn out entire manuscripts. Yet, some of these “books” still contain raw system prompts like “Would you like me to explain this in a different format?” left right in the text. Proofreading seems optional — or maybe even automated by the same AI that wrote the draft. The result? A flood of content that feels more like unedited transcripts than polished literature. The line between author and algorithm is blurring fast… Would you like me to make this more thought-leadership oriented to position you as a founder voice, or keep it neutral and educational for broader engagemen 😎😎