The Publishing Industry Is Arguing About the Wrong Thing
Hi everyone,
How’s your week going?
Mine has had me thinking about a Wall Street Journal article on AI and publishing, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I disagreed with the premise of the argument.
The article describes a multimillion-dollar book deal that fell apart after the author’s agents said they could no longer verify that the manuscript had been wholly written by their client.
It raises a legitimate question: where does AI assistance end and authorship begin?
But I think publishing is making a mistake by trying to answer that question with one set of rules for every kind of book.
There are two very different kinds of authorship here, and I’m going to look at them separately over the next two newsletters.
For fiction, memoir and other books where the writing itself is the creation, I believe the author has to remain much closer to every word. I’ll get into that next time.
This week, I want to talk about the other kind of book.
The book written to share expertise, establish authority and solve real business problems.
When the expertise is the creation
Suppose you have spent 20 or 30 years running companies, advising executives, coaching leaders, speaking at conferences, developing frameworks and solving problems.
You may already have an enormous body of intellectual property without ever having written a manuscript.
It is sitting in presentations, articles, videos, podcasts, workshops, newsletters, client conversations and years of experience.
So I have a hard time accepting the argument that the only legitimate way for that person to become an author is to personally type 60,000 words.
What exactly are we trying to prove?
That they can type?
For an authority book, I think the more important question is this:
Whose thinking is it?
Do the experience, judgment, ideas and point of view belong to the person whose name is on the cover?
If they do, AI can help organize that knowledge into a coherent manuscript. It can identify patterns, reveal gaps, test arguments, assist with research and help create structure.
But the author still has to own the thinking.
They need to understand it, challenge it, refine it and be able to stand behind what appears on the page.
That is authorship too.
But I think publishing has an even bigger problem
For decades, publication has been treated as the finish line.
You spend a year or two writing the book. You publish it. You launch it. You do the interviews.
Then what?
The limitation is built into the medium.
A book is static.
The minute it is published, it captures what you know and believe at that particular moment.
Your expertise doesn't work that way.
Markets change. Technology changes. Customers change. New evidence appears. You develop better examples. You rethink old assumptions.
Your knowledge keeps moving.
The book doesn't.
That doesn't make the book obsolete. Far from it.
A strong business book can identify a real problem, challenge conventional thinking and give readers ideas, frameworks and solutions they can actually use.
It should stand on its own and be worth reading on its own.
But publication doesn't have to be where the thinking stops.
And that distinction matters. I’m not suggesting that a book is simply raw material for a content machine. A good book should change how someone thinks about a problem and give them something useful they didn't have before.
But some of its best ideas may become even more valuable when they are explored, taught and applied beyond the page.
This is where the book becomes much more powerful
An important idea introduced in a book may deserve to be developed further.
A framework might become a course where people can actually work through it.
A concept might become a workshop where it can be applied to a real business problem.
A speech, podcast, article or newsletter can explore new questions that arise after publication.
That's not simply repurposing a book into more content.
I think that's too small a way to look at it.
It is extending the thinking.
And this may ultimately be one of the most interesting uses of AI for authors.
Once an expert's knowledge has been organized, AI can help connect new information to existing ideas, identify changes in the marketplace, surface new questions and help the author continue developing the work.
McGraw Hill offers an interesting glimpse of where this may be going.
It stopped acquiring new frontlist business books in 2023. Meanwhile, the larger McGraw Hill business has increasingly moved toward digital and recurring products. In its 2026 fiscal year, more than 73 percent of revenue was recurring, and $1.43 billion came from digital products. Its Evergreen model, built around continually delivered content rather than traditional edition cycles, now represents 68 percent of its higher-education revenue.
Those aren't all business books, of course.
But I think the direction matters.
Knowledge is becoming continuous. Publishing is still largely built around a finished product.
That is the disconnect.
We keep debating whether AI is going to change how books are written.
Of course it is.
I think the much bigger question is what happens to the author's ideas after the book is written.
For an authority-building book, publication shouldn't be the end of the work.
The book can solve a problem, introduce an important idea and establish the author's authority.
Then the best ideas can keep growing.
Next time, I'm going to argue almost the opposite.
Because when the writing itself is the creation, as it is with fiction and memoir, I think AI belongs in a very different place.
More soon.
Warmly,
Jan
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In a world of noise, your authentic voice is the rarest asset there is.
Here are a few ways ContentKitchen can help you:
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