Just as booksellers are inundated with AI slop and publishing is reckoning with suspicions of AI-written books, academic publishing is facing similar issues—and their approaches to the problem, including vetting tools and guidelines for authors, can inform and inspire trade publishers. Submissions to academic journals have ballooned, and, while it’s impossible to prove, many of the papers have the signs of AI, including mistakes and authors with a large number of publications in just a few years, medical journal editor Itamar Ashkenazi said in a recent presentation for the Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE). Generative AI can be useful in […]
AI
Amazon is Scanning and Destroying Rare Books to Train AI
A shipment of rare books arrived at an Amazon warehouse that is dedicated to scanning them for AI training, 404 Media found in an investigation. 404 coordinated with an anonymous bookseller to place an Apple AirTag in one book that was part of a shipment of 1,000 that ended up at a Las Vegas Amazon warehouse known as LAS8. Part of that warehouse goes by the name VGT3, which has a logo on its entrance of a Tyrannosaurus Rex holding a book. According to posts in online forums, employees at this facility say “all we do is scan books,” 404 […]
Harper Reports Strong Fourth Quarter, Record Full-Year Sales
News Corp announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2026, with fourth quarter publishing sales at $566 million, up $72 million (or 14.6 percent) from a year ago, “driven by higher physical and digital book sales, which included strength in general books, the UK and children’s publishing.” Digital sales were up 12 percent in the period, with audiobook sales growing 16 percent, “driven by strong growth at both Spotify and Audible.” EBITDA of $57 million was up $7 million from a year ago, with foreign exchange contributing $3 million. Costs rose in line with sales, with the […]
Seven-Figure Book Deal Cancelled Over AI Suspicions Raises Questions About AI Guardrails
A debut thriller won by Minotaur in a seven-figure, two-book deal after a reported 14-way auction was withdrawn by its agents this week for suspected use of AI. The novel, whose title and author PL is withholding for the author’s privacy, sold for an alleged $2.5 million or thereabouts. But rumors surfaced quickly from people who had read the manuscript that the book contained many of the hallmarks of AI, including negative parallelism, off-kilter metaphors, and a flat prose style. On Wednesday, the author’s co-agents Marc Gerald and Ashley Coleman at Europa Content withdrew the book, after questioning the author […]
ElevenLabs Releases Showpiece ‘Odyssey’ Audio
AI voice company ElevenLabs has released an audiobook of the Odyssey, narrated by an AI version of actor Michael Caine. The audiobook is created with a cloned version of Caine’s voice, which he licensed to the company, as well as 20 other AI voices, plus sound effects and music, the NYT reports. Even with an artificial cast, it took four human producers six weeks to create the 13-hour audiobook. ElevenLabs created the audiobook to “showcase the creative potential of voice clones and A.I. narration,” and timed it to coincide with media coverage of the upcoming film adaptation. “The idea was, […]
Dutch Publishers Launch Opt-In AI Licensing Platform
Some of the largest publishing companies in the Netherlands have joined to create a platform that gives publishers control over licensing their books to AI companies. Publishers VBK, WPG, Lannoo, and Maven and distributor CB have launched Bookpact.ai in an effort to keep rightsholders in control of how their books are used by tech companies. With authors’ consent, publishers can specify on Bookpact which titles may be used, and for what licensed usage (training, translation, summarization, etc.). “AI companies then submit offers for targeted licenses on a per-title basis,” they explain in a release, and publishers can choose to accept […]