How AI is impacting the romance novel industry, with authors not disclosing their use of AI and using pen names more, bogging down the publishing ecosystem
The romance industry, always at the vanguard of technological change, is rapidly adapting to A.I. Not everyone is on board.
New York Times Alexandra Alter
Related Coverage
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- For Some Reason, Someone Who Generates AI Slop Books Has Unmasked Herself Gizmodo · Mike Pearl
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Discussion
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@brandyljensen
Brandy Jensen
on x
jesus christ [image]
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@shakeelhashim
Shakeel
on x
People want to read slop! And I'm willing to bet that the AI books are not noticeably worse than the books she was churning out “by hand” regardless.
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@ggreadsandwrites
@ggreadsandwrites
on bluesky
“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. — Ma'am, we are not in the same “race” at all. In fact, we're not in the same league.
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@tgwood505
@tgwood505
on bluesky
First: Art is not a race. Second: As an author who has spent nearly 30 yrs writing books the old-fashioned way, books stolen by Anthropic to train AI, I am particularly livid. These “authors'” books simply would not exist without those stolen from me and the thousands of other …
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@bownie
Richard Bown
on bluesky
Honestly, if you read formulaic pulp, does it matter if AI writes it? Some people buy into the mythos of authors, some just like a genre. Do authors matter? [embedded post]
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@djl
David J. Loehr
on bluesky
“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?” — It's not a race. — I don't read to see how well you can prompt a machine that aggregates from plagiarized work, I want to see how YOU tell a story yourself.
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@duncanweldon
Duncan Weldon
on bluesky
One of the more depressing paragraphs in a throughly depressing read. — www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/b... [image]
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@parismarx.com
Paris Marx
on bluesky
I would never argue all self-publishing is bad, but I realized years ago that Amazon designed KDP for exactly this purpose: to incentivize people to adopt new tech to churn out more slop titles in a clear attack on the publishing industry with little regard for readers or even th…
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@edzitron.com
Ed Zitron
on bluesky
This is straight up manufacturing consent now [embedded post]
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@sarahweinman.com
Sarah Weinman
on bluesky
“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?” God this is bleak
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@dtgeek@mastodon.social
Anthony Dean
on mastodon
Eww. Also, the biggest gay romance series right now (the one “Heated Rivalry” comes from) was AFAIK written without AI and is doing just fine? — https://www.nytimes.com/...
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r/books
r
on reddit
Can AI Chatbots Write Emotionally Rich Romance Books?
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r/WritingWithAI
r
on reddit
NY Times Article Claims Romance Author is Writing 200 Books a Year Using Only AI.
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r/RomanceBooks
r
on reddit
New York Times article about AI and romance
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r/haremfantasynovels
r
on reddit
NY Times article on AI in romance writing (gift link)
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@iblametom
Thomas Brewster
on x
This just feels fraudulent on so many levels... But my main concern about AI lit slop is just the amount of shit agents/publishers/competition judges are going to have to wade through to get to actually compelling new voices. AI will amplify idiots and drown out geniuses.
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r/technology
r
on reddit
Can AI Chatbots Write Emotionally Rich Romance Books?