Book publishing for fiction has been battered for years by a combination of mergers, the chronic under-capitalization of small to medium-sized presses, predatory scamsters (many of them based in the Philippines), and the biggest shibboleth of all – the idea that if it is on the Internet, it should be free (or very close to it).
Ebooks started to take over the book publication market a long time ago, but they have not conquered all, mainly because, as tactile beings, a lot of book readers prefer to curl up on the sofa with a physical book, instead of an ebook reader. This has resulted in publishers and authors carrying two sets of publishing costs – the costs of ebook creation and distribution, and the costs of physical book creation and distribution.
I could write an entire posting about the other reasons that ebooks have not taken over book distribution (the main reason being license tethering to online platforms, which a lot of people, myself included, loathe and detest).
Unsurprisingly, the deployment of AI content generation based on Large Language Models has already significantly impacted the world of book publishing. Large presses are merging to become behemoths, and small presses are under-capitalized and struggling.
The charlatans and pretenders are already trumpeting the ability of AI engines to generate entire novels from just a few ideas. In the meantime, AI-created copies or summaries of books have started to flood online publishing platforms.
There are also AI-written novels being published. There seem to be a number of writers who regard the use of AI as a useful tool for creating written works.