Publishers fight AI in public

American book publishers sued Google for copyright infringement and canceled books by authors suspected of using LLMs this year, appearing to oppose generative AI.

But quietly adopt it behind closed doors

HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, and Hachette have been quietly incorporating AI tools into their publishing processes without public disclosures or author consent, according to interviews with more than two dozen workers.

AI tools now handle multiple tasks

Publishers are using LLMs like Claude and ChatGPT to email literary agents, write publicity and back-cover copy, design cover art, and generate marketing materials, often at the direction of their executives.

Canceled books are just the tip

Multiple editorial staffers say widely publicized cases like Hachette's horror novel Shy Girl and Macmillan's crime thriller Call Me, I'll Hide the Body are only the visible cases of AI-written books.

“Every single imprint has a story of someone very esteemed who had a book canceled because of blatant AI use without ever making the news.”

HarperCollins bought Claude licenses

HarperCollins senior leaders purchased Claude licenses from Anthropic months ago but quickly realized they did not know how to implement them, according to a current employee.

Staff forced to become AI Champions

Dozens of junior and senior level staff were voluntold to become AI Champions and tasked with discovering use cases in monthly brainstorming sessions with staff across HarperCollins.

Concerns dismissed as cost of business

When some HarperCollins employees expressed concerns about the legal, ethical, and environmental impacts of AI at a brainstorming session, a person leading the meeting dismissed their qualms as the cost of doing business.

“the cost of doing business”

Staff anger over spending priorities

HarperCollins staffers were unnerved by the brainstorming sessions. One employee said it was a slap in the face after years of making business cases for healthy salaries while the company spent money on software most…

“It was such a slap in the face. We've been making valid business cases for years to be paid a healthy salary, and instead they spent that money on software that most of us don't really want.”

Publicity copy is the main use case

One of the most common uses for LLMs across HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, and Hachette is generating publicity copy, which readers encounter on Amazon, Goodreads, back covers, and in pitches to booksellers and journalists.

Publicists warn against AI pitches

A Big Five publicist says using AI to generate publicity copy is short-sighted because publicists have a duty to engage in good faith with readers and media colleagues who have a low threshold for tolerating…

“Publicists have a duty to engage in good faith with readers and our colleagues in the media, who I'm sure have a low threshold for tolerating AI-generated pitches.”

Smaller publishers resist the shift

Meg Reid, publisher of independent Hub City Press, says LLM-written marketing and publicity feels inevitable for the Big Five but smaller publishers insist that the humans involved are the whole point.

Agents spot AI rejection letters

Literary agents began suspecting Big Five editors were using AI to write rejection letters earlier this year.

“Among colleagues, we compared emails on different books from the same editors, and they all had the same classic signs of AI writing, like 'not this, but that' and the rule of three.”

Simon and Schuster holds AI contest

In May twenty twenty-four, Simon and Schuster held a contest among employees to come up with the best use cases for AI, with a ten thousand dollar prize for the winner and five thousand dollars…

Agents fear manuscript data theft

Agents worry publishers might paste text from authors' manuscripts into LLMs to generate rejection letters and publicity descriptions. Some agents have added AI clauses to contracts prohibiting material from being run through LLMs.

“We've added AI clauses to our contracts saying 'this material can't be run through an LLM.' Ostensibly, that was meant to protect authors from tech companies, but it also applies to the company buying and publishing the book.”

Layoffs and overwork drive AI adoption

Some staffers across the Big Five say they are reluctantly experimenting with LLMs only because executives gutted their teams through layoffs and subsequently tripled their workloads, forcing them to take shortcuts.

“It's skeleton crews everywhere you look. Large teams have been reduced to just five or six people, give or take, and we're doing double or triple the number of books.”

Simon and Schuster staff oppose surveillance AI

Simon and Schuster employees began gathering signatures on an open letter to CEO Greg Greeley expressing strong opposition to an experimental trial with Skan AI, which the investment firm KKR urged the company to explore…

CEO memo itself may be AI-written

On October sixth, Greeley sent a memo to Simon and Schuster employees confirming the company explored Skan AI's Blueprint product but made no decision to use it.