This Is How You Should Disrupt Publishing

Hint: It’s not with AI.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Yesterday, the bookish side of social media was shaken by this story on The Bookseller about a startup aiming to “publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone” with the use of artificial intelligence.

For a fee — a hefty one for a robot, in my opinion — you can “automate proofreading, cover design, metadata optimization and limited translation services.”

Let’s first mention that whenever you see the word “disrupt” on an article about a startup, you don’t have to see the picture to know it’ll be a group of white guys with beards and identical t-shirts. Spoiler: that is the case here.

But the tech bros behind this startup also seem to misunderstand what is wrong with the world of book publishing and what actually needs to be disrupted about it.

Not only are they fixing a problem that doesn’t need to be fixed, they’re also devaluing the product itself.

Subpar Product Nobody Needs

If you read the article, you’ll notice this is basically a poor-quality vanity press that has gained attention only for the use of the buzzwords venture capital loves right now: artificial intelligence.