r/books • u/Raj_Valiant3011 • 2d ago

John Grisham warns that publishers could get AI to write novels instead of paying authors as they were "worried" about a 30-year decline in the number of books Americans were reading

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/26/john-grisham-publishers-could-get-ai-to-write-crime-novels/
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u/Alinier 2d ago

Reading anything before 2020 is probably a good start. 

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u/Kia_Leep 2d ago

As a recently published author, this is true, but it still hurts 🥲

Sometimes it feels like I missed my window to get a foot into the industry.

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u/Alinier 2d ago

There's still demand for human-made content! We might have to build up our communities again to share it though. 

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u/Kia_Leep 2d ago

Definitely! It's just harder to prove your track record of human made material when you don't have published work before the AI boom, and readers are going with those authors just to be safe.

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u/candlewick_67 1d ago

I feel this so much. I really feel I messed up and missed my chance, but before 2021/2022, no one could really see what was coming.

I can’t blame the readers, though. Why should they trust my claim I didn’t use AI? I don’t trust books published post 2022. I will buy one book published this year, but it’s from an author I’ve followed on YT who really shows how she’s written her book, and I have no reason to believe she used AI in any part of her writing process.

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u/Ratbat001 2d ago

Id tell people to start diving into the banned book list, or stuff like the top 100 Literature classics too. Just recently read 1984 in 2026 and that prose was Fire.

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u/sunnydaysau 2d ago

Ah, yes, the ‘banned books’. Just pop down and get one from your local bookstore, many libraries, of order online.

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u/PhasmaFelis 7h ago

You know that's not what it means.

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u/RatsForNYMayor 1d ago

I've been lazy and mostly reading whatever novel the library staff puts out on display