Self-publish and be scammed: Jon’s tale of heartbreak highlights boom in fraudsters using AI to supercharge book swindles
theguardian.com – Wednesday March 11, 2026
New wave of publishing scams mimic lonely hearts hoaxes of old – swapping promises of true love for the fantasy of literary acclaim. And the wooing process is now fully automated
Eight years of dedication were poured into the pages of Angel of Aleppo, Jon Cocks’ debut historical novel. Inspired by his wife’s grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century, it was a labour of love, distilled from thousands of hours of research and oral testimony.
The retired South Australian high school teacher’s project carried the weight of family history and historical truth. It was precisely this emotional gravity that rendered him vulnerable.
The new wave of artificial intelligence-fuelled publishing fraud that began saturating global markets last year lifts directly from the lonely hearts playbook. Rogue publishing schemes – most operating out of south Asia, the Philippines and Nigeria – have become the new romance scams, substituting the promise of true love for the dream of literary recognition.
In six months Cocks has lost almost A$10,000.
Nick Petrie: The Joys and Challenges of Writing a Long-Running Series
crimereads.com – Wednesday March 11, 2026
The creation of every book still feels like holding a newborn kitten in my hand, a small and fragile creature that I never quite believe will grow strong enough to survive on its own. Although I’ve done it nine times now — ten times, if you include the finished manuscript now awaiting the sharp red pen of my copy editor — writing a novel from beginning to end always seems impossible until it’s actually done.
I’m thinking about this now because I’m trying to come up with the next book in my Peter Ash series. As a novelist, this is one of my favorite moments, with many distinct joys and challenges. Interestingly, the challenges, which become more significant with each new book, are the inverse of the joys.
The joy of conceiving a new book begins with the recurring characters. By now, Peter Ash, June Cassidy, and Lewis have become old friends. I know their personal histories, how they think and talk, their secret fears and fierce loves. Sometimes I dream about them. Writing in their voices has become second nature for me, like a conversation around the dinner table with folks I’ve known forever.
Expert advice on how to a write a children's book
greatbritishlife.co.uk – Thursday March 5, 2026
Cheshire has produced generations of award-winning children’s authors, from Lewis Carroll to contemporary luminaries such as Alan Garner. Now, in World Book Day month, we discover what it takes to pen a hit for young readers.
For me, it’s Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. My daughters opt for Dame Lynley Dodd’s unlikely canine hero, Hairy Maclary. Friends and family suggest other titles – Shirley Hughes’ We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Lauren Child’s Charlie and Lola, Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo, Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, JK Rowling’s
Harry Potter. They’re all stories that endure – enthralling and inspiring young readers and making indelible marks on fresh imaginations in a way fiction rarely does as we mature.
In Warrington, international best-selling author Curtis Jobling traces his success back to childhood inspirations.
Publishing houses have hundreds of imprints. What are they exactly?
marketplace.org – Saturday February 14, 2026
The book publishing market share is heavily concentrated in five or so publishing houses: Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Hachette. But these publishers all have a vast collection of imprints, and often it seems a book is more closely associated with its imprint than its parent publisher. My question is: What exactly are imprints and what are they for? The easy answer would be branding but it seems each imprint operates more or less individually on its books, implying it’s not just for appearances sake and might have a deeper purpose.
The big five publishers collectively have hundreds of imprints, spanning categories like classic literature, romance, science fiction, fantasy and business.
There are imprints like Golden Books, a brand from Random House whose children’s books have a recognizable gold-foil spine. Scribner, an imprint from Simon & Schuster whose published authors include Stephen King and Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan. And Harlequin Books, an imprint from HarperCollins that publishes the famed Harlequin romance novels.
Not all imprints have strong brand recognition among the public, but imprints have a purpose within the publishing world, helping agents know which brand they should pitch to, according to publishing experts that Marketplace spoke to. The people who work at imprints have also developed expertise on books within their brand and know how to market them.
Fanfiction’s Total Cultural Victory
defector.com – Tuesday February 3, 2026
In 2012, a self-published author of erotic Twilight fanfiction, whose books had gained a large fan base online, was offered a seven-figure contract by a major American publisher. E. L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy would become the three bestselling titles of the 2010s in the U.S. (even Fifty Shades Freed, the now mostly forgotten end to the trilogy, outsold The Hunger Games). They would also sell over 150 million copies worldwide across 52 languages.
The impact was immediate: Op-eds were written. Bad prose was excerpted. Stock photos of fluffy handcuffs appeared everywhere. And, amidst all the endless discussions about ethical BDSM and "mommy porn" and what, exactly, women might want, fanfiction had suddenly become highly lucrative. Instead of asking what Fifty Shades meant for women, people should have been asking what it meant for publishing.
Book publishers were afraid of building shared universes until they saw how successful the Marvel Cinematic Universe was, according to Brandon Sanderson
thepopverse.com – Tuesday February 3, 2026
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is so influential that it has even changed the way books are published. Publishers and readers are embracing shared universes, such as Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse and Jeremy Robinson’s Nemesis Saga. While book series are nothing new, a shared literary universe is different because it can focus on different characters and different time periods in a shared continuity, whereas a series will tell a linear story with the same characters.
Brandson Sanderson, who created the Cosmere literary universe, recalls how the shift began after the MCU took off. “I thought I want to do all these magic systems, all these different planets, and I want to connect them all,” Brandon Sanderson says during New York Comic Con 2022’s Titans of Fantasy panel. “People were really scared of continuity back then. When I was doing this, this was a few years before the MCU came out. Publishers were scared. They wanted one series but they didn’t want this big interconnected thing because the conventional wisdom was this would scare off readers.”
Brought to book: Alison Healy on some unwise rejections of authors’ manuscripts by publishers
irishtimes.com – Monday February 2, 2026
If you’ve recently heard a collective intake of breath, it’s probably coming from a posse of publishers near you, bracing themselves for the deluge that’s coming. They know that those new year resolutions to get that novel published have been set in motion. Manuscripts have been retrieved from the dusty bowels of laptops and are being dispatched.
And in tandem with the arrival of the swallows, the rejection emails will start to wing their way into the inboxes of many of those hopeful writers. But if your life’s work is rejected, fear not. You are in the best of company, judging by a book I recently read. Rotten Rejections, by editor André Bernard, documents the in-house memos, letters and anecdotes involving the rejection of work by some very familiar names, including many Irish authors.
Back in 1895, poor WB Yeats was castigated for his offering, Poems. “I am relieved to find the critics shrink from saying that Mr Yeats will ever be a popular author,” huffed the person who received the submission – the book doesn’t cite the names of those who were so bold as to reject these titans of literature. “The work does not please the ear, nor kindle the imagination,” the publisher continued. “That he has any real paying audience I find hard to believe.”
Why most books sell less than 200 copies
authorlink.com – Sunday February 1, 2026
Ah…the reason so few books sell more than 200 copies “might” be partly due to the quality of the writing, but the greatest challenge looms in the marketplace. The problem boils down to sheer numbers. Excuse me if my math contains rough estimates.
The top five traditional publishers (Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Simon & Shuster, Hachette and McMillan) collectively turn out about 100,000 titles a year. Amazon posts about 1.4 million self published books annually. There are roughly 50 million Amazon titles floating around for sale at any given time.
The typical American reads about four or five books a year. If you include avid readers, the number increases to 12 to 14 books per year according to Gallup News.
About 21% of U.S. adults, or roughly 43-45 million people are functionally illiterate, according to National University, nu.edu. An estimated 130 million adults are unable to read a simple story to their children. Consider this: 59 million U.S. adults read below Level 1 on the PIAAC (Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) scale. This level indicates very poor literacy skills, where individuals can, at best, read short texts to locate a single piece of information, or in many cases, are functionally illiterate. (Perhaps that’s why emojis have become so popular).
How are publishers pushing Gen Z to read?
thred.com – Sunday January 18, 2026
Recent data suggests that traditional marketing for new books is steadily facing irrelevance with Gen Z. Is it the end times, or simply a shift away into less conventional formats of storytelling?
The book industry is facing a dilemma.
Recent studies suggest that teenagers and younger Gen Zers aren’t reading many books in full. College students are increasingly turning to AI tools like ChatGPT to research, curate and interpret information for them, rather than actually learning and applying knowledge independently.
That isn’t just a grouchy, older person take either; this ‘Voices of Gen Z’ study by the Walton Family Foundation reported that 35% of Gen Z students dislike reading, and 42% rarely or never read for fun. A survey by BestColleges in 2023 also found that 56% of students reported using AI tools to complete assignments and exams, with that number only likely to have risen since.
Schools are also less likely to assign full books for coursework reading today compared to decades prior, and some sources indicate that very few teenagers are reading in their down time. In fact, according to The National Centre for Education Statistics, only 14% of 13-year-olds are reading for fun, with 31% saying they never or hardly ever read.
In 2022, the National Council of Teachers of English argued that reading books in full should be less of a focus for children, with more emphasis given on ‘critically examining digital media and popular culture’ online and on screens. A UK study the same year by Renaissance Learning concluded that the total books read annually in schools declined by 4.2% for the first time over the previous twelve months, with reading difficulty flatlining or falling in secondary education.
The case for changing genres
thebookseller.com – Saturday January 10, 2026
I often say The Odds of You, my debut contemporary romance, is a book that snuck up on me. But for you to really get it, I need to set the scene.
It’s 2023. My debut book, The Curse of Saints, has just released in the UK and become an instant Sunday Times Bestseller. I’ve just turned in book two of the trilogy, The Curse of Sins. My career has got off to a stellar start in the romantasy genre.
Enter The Odds of You. A book that’s not only in a different genre, but has an incredibly different voice and style from my romantasy trilogy.
If you’re in the industry, you’re likely scratching your head and wondering why, with a romantasy trilogy that’s "doing well", would I ever decide to change genres so early on in my career.
Here’s the truth, in all its unflashy glory: it just happened.
Get the free newsletter | Submit a news item or article | Get Writers' News for your website
