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Thad McIlroy

@thadmcilroy.bsky.social
231 followers 271 following 282 posts

Author: "The AI Revolution in Book Publishing: A Concise Guide to Navigating Artificial Intelligence for Writers and Publishers."

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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"No more AI. SI, it’s better," he said in another post. www.foxbusiness.com/technology/e...
foxbusiness.com
Elon Musk rebrands SpaceXAI following Trump directive
SpaceX's artificial intelligence arm is undergoing another identity change just months after Elon Musk consolidated xAI into the company.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"There’s a parlour game played in NY these days: which dodgy economic habits has America picked up from elsewhere? Malaysia’s political patronage? Nigeria’s cash bribes? Or is it Brazil’s inequality, where the ultra-rich enjoy luxury alongside those living in squalor?" www.ft.com/content/a271...
ft.com
The US is looking more like Italy
America is not so exceptional any more — and the New World is becoming more like the Old
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“Quite early on, I learned the best way to survive is to pretend that anything unpleasant simply hasn’t happened,” she famously said.  www.ft.com/content/9161...
ft.com
The Great Dictator — the surprising, complex life of Barbara Cartland, queen of romance
Matthew Sweet’s sparkling, name-dropping biography of the prolific novelist is also a revealing portrait of a century of Britain’s wars, class rituals and gender battles
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There's no indication that either are inflation-adjusted. I've noted in presentations that if the AAP figures had been adjusted for inflation, U.S. books sales would show a +/- 30% reduction in the last 20 years.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
And a graph of sales as measure by the industry's key trade association, the Association of American Publishers, which, is adjusted for inflation would show sales flat to down.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Here's another BEA graph to go with it. Bookstore sales, 1994-2026.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"I do not know why the conclusion that human-level AGI may be unattainable is troublesome for some people. What is wrong with humans having powers and talents no machine can have?" cacm.acm.org/opinion/taci...
cacm.acm.org
Tacit Knowledge and AI – Communications of the ACM
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"In my book I write, 'Can a bridge decide to collapse?' The whole “Oh no, our models went rogue” thing … When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze why it decided to collapse. You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy?" www.wired.com/story/one-of...
wired.com
One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’
Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
(paywall) "The public reputation of the big AI companies is an absolute dumpster fire." www.ft.com/content/115c...
ft.com
Fixing the AI industry’s PR problem
Doomers will say it’s hopeless but here are five ideas to put out the fire
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
“The housing supply is too small... the difference right now, quite frankly, is it’s touching a population that’s not used to being poor,” she said. sfstandard.com/2026/08/08/s...
sfstandard.com
The $4,000 one bedroom apartment is here — and the hunt is brutal
When one bedroom apartments are $4000 and most inquiries go unanswered, the apartment search turns into a case of renter fatigue.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Jitter: "Small edits to such documents can sometimes shift Pangram’s score by a large amount — a problem known as ‘jitter’. " www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
AI-detection tools have made huge leaps forward — how good are they?
Scientists and publishers are testing a new breed of software that promises impressive accuracy at spotting AI-written text.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
This reads like parody: "We’re introducing ChatGPT for Teens, an experience designed to help teens learn, think critically, deepen understanding, and use AI with confidence." openai.com/index/chatgp...
openai.com
Introducing ChatGPT for Teens: Built for learning, backed by protections
ChatGPT for Teens helps teens learn, think critically, and use AI with confidence, with stronger built-in protections, healthy-use features, and additional controls for parents.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
"Friday night, once a central site of social activity, now looks like a typical weeknight. Saturday remains elevated but less so than before. Overall, time with friends has fallen by more than half." marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...
marginalrevolution.com
The End of Friday Nights with Friends - Marginal REVOLUTION
This study examines how Americans’ time with friends has changed over the week, focusing not on how much social interaction has declined but on when it has. Using American Time Use Survey data from 20...
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
You have to read the full blog post to appreciate this glimpse into our AI future! "The lateness continued, but Luna didn’t act; the policy she wrote had simply vanished from her memory." andonlabs.com/blog/ai-boss...
andonlabs.com
AI bosses are slow to fire and quick to hire | Andon Labs
The two hardest things a manager does are letting someone go and choosing who to replace them. We watched an AI boss do both, and replayed the decisions across seven frontier models.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
"At some of the fast-growing unicorns, ageism starts at age 30. It gets worse as you get older. As you approach 40, there are only a few roles people can gracefully age into." jowyang.beehiiv.com/p/the-techno...
jowyang.beehiiv.com
The Technology Career Funnel
In tech, career options narrow every year. Manage your career deliberately.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"realizing the promise of AI tutoring will require getting students to use it, not just giving them access." www.nber.org/papers/w3562...
nber.org
One Click Away: AI Tutoring with Khanmigo in a Two-Year School Experiment
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
False equivalence: "It didn’t bother them that a food-distribution center came to Gilroy without their engagement, but now it bothers them that a data center is coming to Gilroy without them having the possibility of engagement," Mayor Greg Bozzo said. www.wsj.com/us-news/how-...
wsj.com
How Amazon Built a Data Center in a California Town Without Anyone Noticing
The company and Gilroy, Calif., officials spent years quietly negotiating a $2 billion project that few residents knew about until construction began. Now, locals are upset.
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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
This is extremely good. So, so good.
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Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
In "Content Machines," @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social considers how short-form, platform-based, and social media writing on digital mediums like Wattpad and TikTok has reshaped the modern reading and writing landscape. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/Tip538L
Cover of Content Machines: Reading and Writing in the Platform Era by Sarah Brouillette. The cover is white with a tablet featuring six colorful digitally drawn images of romance book covers. There are blue thumbs ups and red hearts covering the images. Beneath is written, “Reading and Writing in the Platform Era” in bold. Below this, in lighter text, a summary of Content Machines begins. The title is written vertically in the bottom right parallel to the tablet. The author’s name is directly after in a smaller serif font.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Very well paid ($157,000 - $200,000) for a book publishing job that's only partly about AI. www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...
linkedin.com
Macmillan hiring Principal, AI Ventures & Events in San Francisco, CA | LinkedIn
Posted 4:17:24 PM. Holtzbrinck is one of the world's leading media companies. We're home to Springer Nature, Macmillan…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A lot of these "author services" startups feature affiliate programs, which make me nauseous. bookblaster.io/affiliate-pr... bookmagic.ai/legal/affili...
bookblaster.io
Book Blaster Affiliate Program — Earn 30% Recurring Commission
Earn 30% recurring commission for every author you refer to Book Blaster. High-converting product, generous payouts, real-time dashboard.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
That's disappointing that Dave Chesson would encourage that behavior. He's been running Publisher Rocket for 10 years. Not good optics. They offer the affiliate program on the site as well: publisherrocket.com/affiliate-pr...
publisherrocket.com
Bot Verification
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
"[and I ask myself about the story I'm writing] Does that sound like AI? And you know what? I think it often does. But then I have to remind myself that I don’t sound like AI, --it sounds like me--."
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
"If you love an em dash the way I do, or you like flowy run-on sentences like I do, if you grew up reading Proust to let the words flow over you..., if you memorized sonnets so the iambic pentameter would soak into your bones, you’re gonna sound like a fucking bot." hughhowey.com/the-end-of-a...
hughhowey.com
The End of an Era - Hugh Howey
We knew this day would come. Some of us have known for decades, have been writing and pontificating about this since Ken Jennings lost at Jeopardy and Kasparov lost at chess. The writing was on the wa...
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Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.com · 31/07/2026
New #WriterBeware blog post: The AALA has made major revisions to its Canon of Ethics. What's changed, where I think the changes fall short, and questions about the future of the agent profession raised by the issues the Canon has been revised to address writerbeware.blog/2026/07/31/t...
writerbeware.blog
The AALA Makes Significant Updates to Its Canon of Ethics - Writer Beware
For the second time in four years, the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) has updated its Canon of Ethics. The last time, in 2022, the major changes related to packaging and producer fees ...
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Tuhin Chakrabarty @tuhinchakr.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Sorry I don’t think I have the time to do that. I also think you are advocating for use of AI to write books & morally that’s not okay with me so I can’t engage further. In terms of ebooks all these books are lawfully acquired. Most books are Kindle Unlimited so you can access full text at 11$/month
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Tuhin Chakrabarty @tuhinchakr.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I feel if you understand academic fair use once you can access a book you can screenshot and do AI detection. We have done this through months using crowdworkers so its pretty unethical you suggest there were “other ways”
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Tuhin Chakrabarty @tuhinchakr.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
KU books are on average a lot cheaper and not 6.99$
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Tuhin Chakrabarty @tuhinchakr.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
If you read the paper you know several of them were KU. Anyway good luck trying to use AI to write and publish. Don’t expect me to conform to your ethics and don’t criticize our paper just because we our world view doesn’t align with yours. If there are technical issues, happy to chat
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I agree. And you only needed to spend the monthly subscription fee, for unlimited access to KU books, not a 'per book' price. Which makes sense -- I'll adjust the post.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
"Other ways" only referred to whether or not you were using KU, which was logical, but not stated.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I figured you were using KU, but as it wasn't stated, and I didn't want to say it. You wrote "purchase." A lot of Kindle books never go to KU. We wade in deep waters when the issue become a "moral" one.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Hi Tuhin. I've published a rebuttal to the paper here: thefutureofpublishing.com/2026/07/is-a... I'm looking forward to your rebuttal of my rebuttal!
thefutureofpublishing.com
Is AI flooding the market for books, and diluting their value? — Thad McIlroy - Future Of Publishing
There’s a new scholarly paper available, published July 22, 2026, titled “Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books.” It might have remained obscure, as academic papers often do, except th...
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I've posted a rebuttal to the paper here: thefutureofpublishing.com/2026/07/is-a...
thefutureofpublishing.com
Is AI flooding the market for books, and diluting their value? — Thad McIlroy - Future Of Publishing
There’s a new scholarly paper available, published July 22, 2026, titled “Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books.” It might have remained obscure, as academic papers often do, except th...
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I've posted an extensive review of Tuhin Chakrabarty et al. “Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books.” The methodology appears solid, but I think that they miss the mark. thefutureofpublishing.com/2026/07/is-a...
thefutureofpublishing.com
Is AI flooding the market for books, and diluting their value? — Thad McIlroy - Future Of Publishing
There’s a new scholarly paper available, published July 22, 2026, titled “Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books.” It might have remained obscure, as academic papers often do, except th...
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Amazon's sales rank is a relative measure of the sale of every active title at a single point in time. There are formulas that roughly translate rank into # of copies sold. Taking several readings at different points provides a pretty clear view of how books are selling in relation to one another.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
The Reimers/Waldfogel paper, referenced by Chakrabarty et al., shows "the number of ratings is highly correlated with sales in a large sample of Amazon ebooks from Bookstat." Exact sales data isn't essential to make the points in the Chakrabarty et al. paper.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
There are a number of solutions that can perform this sales estimation function: firebrandtech.com/flywheel and Ingram iQ www.ingramcontent.com/publishers/a...
firebrandtech.com
Flywheel | Backlist Metadata Enhancement | Firebrand Technologies
Maximize backlist sales with Flywheel's data-driven metadata enhancements, boosting discoverability and conversions while ensuring a risk-free, success-based investment.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
“You can say, This probably isn’t a publisher, this is three LLMs in a trench coat,” Tamblyn said. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/b...
nytimes.com
How A.I. Books Sneak Their Way Into Stores
Big booksellers are taking different approaches to dealing with the deluge of titles generated by artificial intelligence.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I want to read the whole "textbook"!
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Smart people are sharing it because there have always been a cadre who favor the 'sky is falling argument' around reading. Meanwhile I just posted: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j... I suppose both can be true at the same time?
theguardian.com
The rise of the ‘hot literati’: how reading became sexy
Celebrities are hosting literary clubs and designers are launching products emblazoned with the classics – but does reading’s trendy turn have a darker side?
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
"Sihaam Naik, however, is a little more cynical: 'I’m glad to see people treat bookworms and reading as worthy of being cool again, but is it a fleeting trend, and are we going to dunk on it next year? Who knows!'”
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
"Being bookish is now sexy, we’re told." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
theguardian.com
The rise of the ‘hot literati’: how reading became sexy
Celebrities are hosting literary clubs and designers are launching products emblazoned with the classics – but does reading’s trendy turn have a darker side?
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Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 16/07/2026
The world is complex and breathtaking, but life is short — way too short to read Atlantic articles I can tell at a glance are useless clickbait.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Write stories about your friends: The "Friendship Fiction" genre includes some --very-- popular books. www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers...
amazon.com
Amazon Best Sellers: Best Friendship Fiction
Discover the best books in Amazon Best Sellers. Find the top 100 most popular Amazon books.
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I see that the latest listing of what constitutes a genre, via Amazon, includes "Epistolary", "Immigration" and "Sea Stories." www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers...
amazon.com
Amazon Best Sellers: Best Genre Literature & Fiction
Discover the best books in Amazon Best Sellers. Find the top 100 most popular Amazon books.
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Lynn Cherny @arnicas.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
End of the month nl post has a bunch of bangers on AI and fiction, two by @mariaa.bsky.social in fact 😀. Also the usual web toys and games, some AI video contest winner links, Krea 2 LoRAs, and some fun games things. open.substack.com/pub/arnicas/...
open.substack.com
TITAA #80: Fitting a Hot Manifold
Proc & AI Gen Scenery - AI Fiction Findings - Krea 2 LoRAs - AI Video Winners
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
55,000 copies of the French edition of 'Heated Rivalry' are being pulped, because of a typo -- two 't's in 'Heatted' on the spine of the book. rhollick.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...
rhollick.wordpress.com
Waste
Photo: Actualitté Publishing Perspectives reports that 55,000 copies of the French edition of Heated Rivalry are being pulped. The book is described rather charmingly at Actualitté as a “saga…
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
@joshgans.bsky.social "Predictably, this led to every single country other than the US saying that it had to have its own sovereign AI. Nice, I’d like my own sovereign AI too, along with a pony." joshuagans.substack.com/p/the-big-mess
joshuagans.substack.com
The Big Mess
Straight out of Magic
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Thad McIlroy @thadmcilroy.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
“The fox can’t guard the henhouse,” said DeVaan, who has studied the donations of the ultra-rich. “They can’t be responsible for their own regulation or for their own definition of what their altruistic mandate is....” apnews.com/article/anth...
apnews.com
Anthropic announces 'Claude Corps' to teach nonprofits to use AI more effectively
Anthropic will donate $150 million to launch a fellowship program called Claude Corps that plans to help nonprofits effectively use artificial intelligence by embedding 1,000 trained fellows in variou...
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