Author Hugh Howey reflects on the profound impact of Artificial Intelligence on the writing and publishing industry, marking what he calls the "end of an era." He contrasts his own career trajectory, which benefited from the "lucky timing" of self-publishing platforms like Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) emerging around 2007, with the challenges authors will face post-2026. Howey highlights a recent situation where a debut author received a $2.4 million advance for a novel that was later rescinded due to concerns about AI-generated content and unproven provenance.

This incident, he argues, exemplifies the new reality: "Every book is suspect." The window of roughly 20 years where writing was difficult but publishing was easy is closing. Howey predicts that publishers will increasingly accept AI-generated books, and most readers will care more about the story than its origin, much like they do with publishing imprints today. He also foresees a fringe of readers actively seeking out "machine-books" and established authors leveraging AI for various aspects of their work, a trend he himself is already adopting. The ease of AI assistance for research and communication, as demonstrated by his own experience, underscores this shift.