What a week yesterday was, as several controversies over AI use in book publishing emerged. During the Poznań Impact event in Poland, Nobel laureate in literature Olga Tokarczuk said that she used AI while working on her next novel, as reported by My Company Polska. Tokarczuk said that she asked an LLM what songs her characters might have danced to in the past. She also expressed support for the technology as a useful tool for writers. “I often throw an idea to the machine for analysis, asking, ‘Honey, how could we develop this beautifully?’,” she said. “Even though I know […]
Authors Guild Calls For Info on Books Without Copyright Registration
The Authors Guild is soliciting information from any author whose publisher did not register their book’s copyright, “and that they believe they were excluded from the Bartz v. Anthropic class action settlement because of that.” The AG wants to “assess the scope of the issue,” ceo Mary Rasenberger said, and encourage authors to look at their contracts to see if publishers were required to register, and in what timeframe. Some contract language only indicates that the publisher “may” register the copyright, while other boilerplates more clearly state that the publisher “shall” register. “We think that publishers should pay authors $1500 […]
Commonwealth Foundation and Granta Stand By Short Story After AI Accusations
One winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize has been accused of being AI-generated. Online posts have noted that the AI checker Pangram rated “The Serpent in the Grove” by Jamir Nazir as 100 percent AI-created. Critics of AI detectors note that they are not always accurate; Pangram is among the more well-respected tools. The prize honors five unpublished short stories from the British Commonwealth of Nations. Granta published all five winning stories online. “Granta editors were not involved with these stories or their selection beyond copy-editing them upon receipt,” a spokesperson for the magazine said. “We are alarmed by the speculation that […]
New Books Publishing May 19
This week’s fiction releases include new novels by Ali Smith, Ayelet Waldman, and Michael Connelly, while nonfiction includes work by Jesmyn Ward and Ada Ferrer. 39 works of fiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-fiction-publishing-may-19 15 works of nonfiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-nonfiction-publishing-may-19 Also publishing this week is a new novel by Jane Costello, excerpted in our Buzz Books 2026: Romance anthology. Watch her discuss her midlife romcom with her editor on our Authors and Editors panel here. We consult a number of sources in compiling our weekly lists and PM members can see our lists for the coming months on […]
June Library Reads
Trade Sales Flat in First Quarter as Audio Continues Growth
The Association of American Publishers released StatShot data for the first three months of the year. In the first quarter, trade sales for adult and children’s titles were up 0.3 percent to $2.02 billion. The return rate across the three months was 15 percent, compared to 15.4 percent in the same period in 2025. Adult books fell half a percentage point to $1.46 billion, with fiction sales of $851 million (up 5.5 percent) and nonfiction sales of $605 million (down 7.8 percent). Hardcovers sold $427 million (down 8.3 percent), paperbacks sold $514 million (up 4.7 percent), audio sold $268 million […]