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Threat, Benefit, or Both? What AI Means for Your Book and the Publishing Industry

Threat, Benefit, or Both? What AI Means for Your Book and the Publishing Industry

A “Cranky Editorial Guy” session held on May 13, 2025

Is AI the end of book publishing and authors as we know it? This conversation features Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, VP of Editorial at Berrett-Koehler Publishers, and Thad McIlroy, a published author and journalist, founding partner of Publishing Technology Partners, a contributing editor to Publishers Weekly, a board member at Johns Hopkins Press, and the principal of The Future of Publishing.

Recording

Slides

Zoom Chat Highlights & Resources Summary

Key Themes Discussed in the Meeting Chat:

  • AI’s Impact on Authors:
    Many participants shared that their books had been used in large language model training sets—some without consent. Concerns included copyright, revenue loss, and ethical implications.
  • Publisher Responses & Compensation:
    • HarperCollins paid $2,500 per title for limited AI use, per Authors Guild guidelines.
    • Wendy Keller (literary agent) shared that publishers are adjusting contracts, with some requiring authors to declare that no AI was used in content creation.
  • Author Reactions & Actions:
    • Some authors are joining Created by Humans and the Authors Guild to protect rights.
    • Resources like The Atlantic‘s dataset search and the Good Law Project were mentioned to check if one’s work was scraped.
  • Use of AI in Book Creation:
    • Authors asked about citing AI-generated content and using AI tools for promotional planning.
    • Tools like Perplexity and Circleback were mentioned for research and transcription, respectively.
    • Concerns about AI hallucinations (false information) and carbon footprint were raised.
  • Fiction vs. Nonfiction Considerations:
    Participants debated differences in how each genre is impacted by AI and how AI may challenge the creative voice and value proposition for authors.
  • Ethical and Strategic Tensions:
    Conversations highlighted a “Hobson’s choice” for authors—between “creating for art” or “creating for the market”—and echoed past shifts in the music industry due to digitization.

 Shared Resources:

About the host: Currently the VP of Editorial at Berrett-Koehler, Jeevan Sivasubramaniam has been in publishing for thirty years in acquisitions and administration and has worked with over 700 authors and books.