Romance novelists adapt to A.I.

[MsAmerica]

The New Fabio Is Claude
The romance industry, always at the vanguard of technological change, is rapidly adapting to A.I. Not everyone is on board.
By Alexandra Alter

A longtime romance novelist who has been published by Harlequin and Mills & Boon, Ms. Hart was always a fast writer. Working on her own, she released 10 to 12 books a year under five pen names, on top of ghostwriting. But with the help of A.I., Ms. Hart can publish books at an astonishing rate. Last year, she produced more than 200 romance novels in a range of subgenres, from dark mafia romances to sweet teen stories, and self-published them on Amazon. None were huge blockbusters, but collectively, they sold around 50,000 copies, earning Ms. Hart six figures.

While we spoke over Zoom, an A.I. program she was running ingested her prompts and outline and produced a full novel, about a rancher who falls for a city girl running away from her past. It took about 45 minutes.

Ms. Hart has become an A.I. evangelist. Through her author-coaching business, Plot Prose, she’s taught more than 1,600 people how to produce a novel with artificial intelligence, she said. She’s rolling out her proprietary A.I. writing program, which can generate a book based on an outline in less than an hour, and costs between $80 and $250 a month.

But when it comes to her current pen names, Ms. Hart doesn’t disclose her use of A.I., because there’s still a strong stigma around the technology, she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/business/ai-claude-romance-books.html

Why post this twice?

Because they're two different forums, presumably frequented by different people, presumably with each group perhaps finding this of interest.

Horrid. I listened to an audiobook read by ai. It was awful. Words don’t make sense monotone, forgot the gender of the characters. i don’t know I was AI at first just thought it was shit. I would never actively choose books written or read by AI.

That's really interesting, because I've had spam telephone calls with A.I. and they seemed to do a good voice of mimicking humans.

I hope no one buys this lazy hacks work

‘Through her author-coaching business, Plot Prose, she’s taught more than 1,600 people how to produce a novel with artificial intelligence’
Oh goody. There’s more soulless drivel coming. I’ve wondered a couple of times recently whether books I’d been reading were ai or just badly written. Could be either now I guess. It’s such a shame for the industry imo.

So she'll make her money now... so that by the time books sell for 1p a copy because there's so many of them she can retire rich?

How depressing.