The publishing industry is buzzing with news of AI start-ups, social media companies entering traditional publishing and traditional houses entering the AI space. It is like a digital wild West with seemingly every few days bringing a new announcement.
Among the latest is the arrival of Spines which told the Bookseller that it aims to “disrupt” the books industry by publishing 8,000 books in 2025 alone using artificial intelligence (AI). Spines, founded in 2021 but which published its first titles this year, is a startup technology business which—for a fee—is offering the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish and distribute books. The company charges up to $5,000 a book, but it can take just three weeks to go from a manuscript to a published title.
However, observers wonder whether the Spines approach isn’t simply vanity publishing. It seems there is no editorial control or choice: if a prospective author has the money they can buy publication.
Meanwhile, ByteDance, the company behind the video-sharing platform TikTok, has announced that it will start selling print books in bookshops from early next year, published under its imprint, 8th Note Press. 8th Note Press will work in partnership with Zando to publish print editions and sell copies in physical bookstores starting early 2025.
Microsoft has launched 8080 Books, a new non-fiction imprint. HarperCollins US is asking some of its non-fiction authors for permission to license their books to Microsoft to train its large language models, and the Bookseller also reported reported that Simon & Schuster-owned Dutch publisher Veen Bosch & Keuning
was “trialling” the use of AI to translate a limited number of its titles into English.
