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Hachette has canceled a forthcoming horror book, SHY GIRL by Mia Ballard, due to suspected AI use. But it looks like they only canceled it after the New York Times queried them about it and presented evidence of AI use. This novel has been on the market in the UK since November 2025 (!) and prior to that it was self-published. I myself have been aware of the AI accusations for many weeks now because of online discussion, and I felt certain Hachette would have acted before now, but they didn’t.
This sparks the question for me: Why did it take Hachette so long to act?
First, I have to assume Hachette doesn’t make use of tools like Pangram to review manuscripts. (Pangram: industry leader in AI detection; it’s not foolproof, but it’s the best at this point.) I’ve spoken to the founder of Pangram fairly recently, and he indicated a handful of publishers, mainly scholarly ones, use the service. It’s used mostly in educational settings, unsurprisingly.
I don’t think Hachette fully understood the level of AI use in the book and I’d be truly surprised if its editors/leaders did know about the level of AI use in the book and just thought no one else would notice.
Some might be quite cynical about this and say this proves industry standards have fallen if no one inside Hachette noticed the AI giveaways, but I think it’s instead a sign of how good AI has become and what a strong assisted effort by a human author looks like. The self-published book had a lot of reviews and decent ratings, and right now it’s THE thing for big publishers to do—to acquire rights to successful self-pub work that has proven itself in the market. I guess I’m open, though, to someone making the argument that Hachette would just re-issue a book without at least one editor reading it.
If readers spotted AI’s hand in this but Hachette’s people could not (assuming they did in fact read it), then industry professionals who refuse to engage with AI will continually be on the backfoot because they will not recognize AI use when it’s plain to the readership. Even if you’re against AI, if you work as a publishing professional, unfortunately you can’t remain ignorant of its capabilities.
I hope (finally?) this is a wake-up call for all publishing professionals. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is far more AI use happening by all types of authors across all genres than is ever admitted to. And the use is becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Is the publishing industry doomed? Only if no one in the industry changes their behavior after this incident. It’s time to deal with AI upfront and transparently. Right now, the community is overfull with people on extreme sides of this issue. The industry loses if the issue of AI continues to be a battle between the extremists.