Like you, I saw that NYT piece on “authors” using AI to churn out books, with that deplorable quote about being able to churn a book in a day vs. six months and how that will help immoral would-be “authors” win some kind of perceived race or competition.
I did enjoy Gizmodo’s follow-up piece, which appeared the next day. They basically called “Coral Hart” out for what she is: a grifter.
And she is. And all the other would-be “authors” like are much the same. Courtney Milan reposted JenReadsRomance’s scathing skeet with a link to the article, saying, “I’m going to win.”
And you know what? Milan is right. Here’s why.
Hart Is a Scam Artist
The Gizmodo piece illuminates precisely why “Hart” is nothing more than a grifter, much the same as a thousand people before her. She confesses that she’s made six figures using her “churn slop” model. “Coral Hart” is an abandoned pen name, one of her least successful parts of the experiment. And she confesses in the NYT piece that she lies about the use of AI in her work. She claims that’s because there’s “stigma” around it—and there is, for good reason.
People don’t want it.
Already we can see the tech barons complaining about it. Microsoft’s CEO lambasted people for calling slop what it is and berated the common user for not using “amazing” tool more. That happened scant days before Microsoft rebranded virtually everything—including Office—as “Copilot.” A recent report suggests Copilot use has taken off—which, yes, everyone who used Office is now using Copilot, because Microsoft fucking renamed it. It’s a bit of linguistic trickery.
The Shine Is Wearing Off
There are other cracks starting to form in the AI bubble. Some jurisdictions are mulling over how to handle the fact that AI seems to have spurred some users to end their own lives. Others are grappling with things like Grok, which went off its (flimsy, perhaps nonexistent) rails and allowed people to generate revenge porn and CSAM. Some courtrooms are banning it, after various lawyers, law firms, and individuals have used AI to try and argue their cases, only to find AI “hallucinated” previous rulings in cases that don’t exist.
I personally had an author reach out to me for an edit, complaining that the AI tool they used to “fix” their book did not do what it had promised. In fact, it had actively made their book worse. I’ve also seen authors complain that AI cannot format their references with any kind of consistency. Adding insult to injury, it deleted existing references and invented new citations to works that didn’t exist.
AI’s Issues Run Deeper than Being Incompetent
This is leaving aside other ethical issues, such as the ongoing mass plagiarism and copyright infringement that built AI platforms, the destruction of jobs, the exploitation of existing work forces, and the costs of using water to cool data centers and burning more fossil fuels to meet increased energy demands. These have impacts on our environment, as well as the average person’s ability to do things like, say, heat their homes in the winter or keep the lights on. It’s already sparked a movement called the right to compute—because people aren’t seemingly going to be able to afford personal computers in the near future, thanks to the increasing demand for chips and other essential components to power the data centers. And that’s leaving aside the fights around where to build data centers–and how much they appear to be poisoning the communities they already exist in.
And for what? For “tools” that seemingly nobody wants.
Hart Is Perhaps the Worst Kind of Grifter
Hart is, clearly, part of the grift. She uses AI to churn “books” out in a day or so. She’s building a “platform” that promises it will turn an outline into a full-fledged book in an hour. And, most tellingly, she is now pivoting to offering “courses” for would-be writers. Perhaps she’s angling to catch those who are curious about AI or those who feel they have “a story” but no time to write, or even those who are desperate to “make it” in the cutthroat world of indie publishing.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say a lot of these people should not be writers. I know a lot of very good, very talented writers who do not get the recognition, the accolades, or the sales they deserve. And for every one of those, there are probably a hundred hack writers who think they have “an interesting story” and that they could “probably write a book,” because it can’t possibly be that hard, right? Something you do for fun on a Sunday afternoon!
People like Hart and AI certainly promise that it can be like that. But Hart proves that churning AI slop isn’t the way to “make it.” She claims to have made six figures—but exactly how much she made is up for debate. Was it $100,000 or $999,000? She doesn’t say. Just “six figures.” And, to be fair, that’s the dream for most writers. (Gizmodo calls her “not greedy,” but I’d disagree.)
Here’s where we see the lie exposed, though. One of her pen names failed (Coral Hart); how many others? And she is now pivoting to selling a platform and “courses” that sell the writer on how to make it “just like [she] did”!
The “Take My Course” Grift Is Not New
Every single person selling a course is a grifter. When they are selling you a course, a method, whatever they want to call it—that is where they are making their money. They do not make their money from their books. Oh, maybe they make some money from their books—often because they require the people taking their courses to buy them. They’ll write a “how-to” book, then create a course. They make you pay for the course, and then the book is required reading. You either have to buy the book, or it’s included for “free” as part of your tuition.
This is not a knock against education. These people are not accredited though, and if they’re so goddamn successful as authors and writers, why the hell are they selling the secrets to their success? The answer is they’re not actually all that successful.
Can Success Be Defined by the Numbers?
Hart again exemplifies this. Since this person uses multiple pen names and doesn’t disclose which ones are hers—or that she uses AI in her books—it’s difficult to say how many books she has out there, under various names. In early 2026, she claimed a backlist of around 200 titles, and she claimed she sold about 50,000 units.
On average, that’s around 250 copies per title. That’s a respectable enough number—certainly impressive enough for indie or self-publishing. But it’s not bestseller status or anything (in Canada, that’s defined as 10,000 units per title — 250 is a far cry from that). So is this woman really that “successful”?
I can compare some of my own titles. Consider that I am a small beans author, but I have titles nearing the 1,000-copy mark each. I know plenty of indie authors who garner thousands of reviews on their books—and not everyone reviews or rates books, so you have to consider that a book that has 3,000 ratings on GoodReads has probably reached many, many more readers than that.
So: Hart is not a glowing example of success here. It’s likely that some of her titles are more successful than others. Some may have double or even single digit sales. Finally, you have to remember that some of those sales may have come from course requirements. And there are always bots and pirates as well.
So, who is buying and reading these books? It’s a good question—and the answer maybe be “not as many people as she’s making it seem like.”
Fool Me Once, Shame on You …
The fact that Hart is straight up deceiving people is disheartening, although we always knew that people would be dishonest about the use of AI in their work. Simply asking people “did you or didn’t you use AI?” and expecting them to answer honestly is not exactly foolproof.
Lying to readers, though, will not save authors from their judgment. And by that, I don’t meant that they will necessarily judge an author for using AI. Some people may clock books as containing AI-generated materials; others won’t notice. We’ve seen that on Facebook feeds around the world, where everyone and their grandma simply likes all these “beautiful pictures!”, while the rest of us squint and wonder why this image seems so off. My favorite is scrolling into the comments on recipe posts and finding everyone complaining that the picture looks nothing like a dessert that has all the ingredients called for in the actual recipe itself. Surprise! It’s AI slop.
Readers have shown that they can and do clock “AI weirdness,” even if they don’t know what’s wrong with the book or why it feels off. Another example I had was with some HR training videos. The platform used AI to narrate the videos, and the delivery was wild. The cadence was off, the emphasis was wrong, and some words were simply pronounced incorrectly. It actually made it, at points, more difficult to understand the material.
That’s similar to the experience people have with AI-generated book content. It doesn’t feel right. There’s something off about it, something strange. It’s a little bit uncanny valley, and you may not be able to put your finger on it right away, but you do know it’s off.
Why You Need to Think about the Book Experience
That translates, for many people, to a poor experience. And that’s where I say Hart and other authors will still be judged by readers. Readers are finicky, fussy, and particular. While some of them may not clock AI, most of them will not return to an author that gives them a “poor” book experience.
That’s why I was making such a fuss about sales above. Hart isn’t selling millions of copies of one title, and sure, you don’t need to do that to be successful. But there’s a good chance she’s coercing people into buying at least some of her books—and the other ones are giving people poor book experiences.
Of course, you don’t have to use AI to deliver a poor book experience to a reader. It happens all the time. People have thoughts and opinions, and what worked for one reader will not work for another. It happens.
But with AI use, the chances of that happening to more of your would-be readers increases, because of those vaguely “bad vibes,” the weirdness. You may not clock it yourself. I don’t know what it is, but so many, many AI users say, “It’s fine,” whereas the average reader says, “There’s something wrong with this.”
And that’s where AI is never going to win the race. Even if you lie to readers, even if you try to hide that you’re using AI, they’re simply not having a good book experience and they abandon your books and you as an author.
They do it all the time to people who put in actual effort. Why do you think readers are simply going to put up with the slop you couldn’t be bothered to edit or write?
And that’s the crux of the issue here: Hart thinks she can dupe people. And perhaps she can, for a little while at least. There will always be the unsuspecting reader. But these “books” will leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, and they will tell their friends and family and acquaintances, and people will learn to avoid particular pen names.
It’s a Race No One Is Winning
In this scenario, the grifter stays one step ahead by seeing when sales are slowing off. Then they reinvent under a new pen name to replace the “dying” one, while operating multiple names. In this scenario, real books get buried by the mass amounts of slop. Real authors can’t find readers; readers can only find AI slop, and they thus eventually give up and turn away. But the AI “authors” can’t keep grifting in that environment either.
Literally everybody is losing in this scenario.
Yet, I still agree with Milan’s assertion: “I will win.”
Maybe not me, specifically, maybe not even Milan herself (although I think she has a good chance). But human authors are going to win.
Because people want human stories. Real authors will gain a reputation among readers, and readers will flock to them, returning time and again, because they know what they are going to get.
How can I make that prediction? Because readers already do this. They did this before the advent of AI, and AI is only going to drive them to do it more. They will find real, human authors they enjoy, and they will champion those stories and those authors. And they will help each other sort through the slop that grifters like “Coral Hart” want to drown them in.
It will be a struggle. But I believe in readers—because being an author has always, always been a game of building trust with your readers, of becoming a name they recognize and know they can trust in.
And AI is not going to change that fact, come hell or high-water. Courtney Milan is right: human authors, like her, will win.
