An Author Published 371 Books in 20 Months With AI — and Made Over $1 Million

October 27 — The South African author Coral Hart (a pen name) has published 371 books in about 20 months with the help of AI, selling more than a million copies in total. By her own estimate, she has earned more than $1 million since the start of 2026 alone (about 6.684 million yuan at current exchange rates).

But this model of mass-producing books with AI and publishing them commercially has also stirred controversy, and she has received tens of thousands of abusive messages on social platforms, including death threats.

According to an Agence France-Presse report on 23 October, Hart, in her forties, had 14 years of experience in publishing. Before she began experimenting with AI writing in February 2025, she had already written dozens of works on her own. She then spent about three months getting familiar with different AI models and building a writing workflow. Most of the 371 titles are novels created for specific reader groups based on market research, with romance making up a substantial share. She also says one of her novels reached the top 100 of Amazon’s bestseller list.

Hart says she does not simply type a single instruction into an AI and publish the output as a finished product. She first fixes the story concept, characters, narrative style and chapter outline, then generates a draft through a customised AI workflow. Once the draft exists, she uses AI for several rounds of plot and structure adjustment — checking story logic, character development and how scenes connect — and finally hands the text to human proofreaders to check and revise any traces of AI writing that remain.

Hart says different AI models have different strengths, and tools must be chosen to suit the task. She believes that simply asking a model to write a book rarely produces acceptable work; only by building a complete story framework first and then refining it through prompts and multiple rounds of editing can you raise efficiency and control quality.

Her methods have nonetheless drawn criticism from some traditional authors and readers. Some call this kind of content “AI slop,” arguing that mass-producing AI-assisted work may lower the industry’s content standards and intensify competition.

Hart responds that whether a work is welcomed by readers should be judged by actual sales. Readers are willing to buy and keep reading these works, she says, which shows the content meets some market demand.

Facing the criticism, Hart says she has received tens of thousands of hate messages and several death threats on social platforms. She has still chosen to make her creative process public, hoping to push the publishing industry to face the changes AI brings. She sees AI as a tool for raising creative efficiency, and argues that the technology will not disappear because some writers oppose it.

Notably, Hart has recently started a training business, teaching the techniques to hundreds of authors, and is preparing to launch software for AI writers called Authorythm. The business covers writing workflows, content editing and publishing operations.