Is This What Comes After AI Slop?
theatlantic.com – Tuesday July 28, 2026
Daggermouth could be the first best-selling novel partly written by a chatbot.
Most self-published authors can only dream of writing something as popular as Daggermouth. Set in a surveillance state ruled by a masked elite, the novel traces the unlikely romance between the president’s son and an assassin hired to kill him. Since H. M. Wolfe uploaded Daggermouth to Amazon as a Kindle ebook, it has been a viral hit. “Did I finish Daggermouth, or did Daggermouth finish me?” a TikTok book influencer gushed. In February, Simon & Schuster paid seven figures to secure the publishing rights to the book and its sequel, which is due out next year.
Daggermouth has spent months on USA Today’s best-seller list and is ranked No. 1 in Amazon’s “science-fiction romance” genre. It also tops a less prestigious list, one compiled by academics studying AI writing. Among thousands of self-published Amazon ebooks that they identified as containing “substantial AI text,” none was more popular than Daggermouth.
Until recently, AI fiction has been easy to dismiss as slop. On Amazon, new-book releases nearly tripled from 2022 to 2025. (That’s probably not because humans suddenly dedicated themselves en masse to the written word.) Many are blatant copycats of existing titles, seemingly intended to trick readers into buying them. Their sales figures are generally meager; the reviews, indignant. A suspicious number of them feature protagonists with the same names. Last year, readers of one fantasy novel noticed a line that seemed to be responding to a prompt asking a chatbot to write in the style of another author. But if a book as beloved as Daggermouth were written with a chatbot, it would raise an awkward question: Could AI fiction be getting … good?
Feeling excluded in the literary world, Jews are launching their own publishing houses
jta.org – Tuesday July 28, 2026
Meg Keene, an activist whose own novel failed to sell, is helming an eponymous imprint at Wicked Son Books.
An unpublished novel has paved the way for the birth of a new Jewish fiction imprint, in the leading edge of a flurry of initiatives to combat antisemitism in the publishing industry by taking hold of the means of production.
Meg Keene had an enthusiastic agent with a long track record of sales when she submitted her novel, a romance with Israeli characters, to publishers in 2024. But she said heard over and over that her book seemed too Jewish to publish at a time when the war in Gaza had turned anything that could be perceived as pro-Israel radioactive. As has happened to an untold number of Jewish authors in recent years, her book did not sell.
Now, Keene is the eponymous tastemaker at the helm of a new imprint within Wicked Son Press, a 5-year-old publisher that has released mostly nonfiction that leans right.
Open Book ceasing operations at end of August
quillandquire.com – Tuesday July 28, 2026
Open Book has announced it will cease operations as of August 31.
The online publication, run by the Open Book Foundation, celebrated the Ontario literary scene, with a special focus on books and events from the province’s independent publishers. In a note to readers on July 20, the Open Book team announced that due to “successive reductions in grant funding” it would be unable to continue operating.
“This is not an announcement we ever wanted to make. We feel so privileged to have served Ontario’s literary community by connecting readers with incredible books, amplifying authors’ voices, and showcasing the work of independent publishers across the province,” the notice reads. “We are deeply grateful for the years of public funding and community support that made this work possible. Over the years, investment from our funders allowed Open Book to grow into a trusted resource for readers, educators, librarians, booksellers, and the publishing industry.”
New Magazine Listing: Anthology
firstwriter.com – Tuesday July 28, 2026
Publishes a luxury lifestyle magazine featuring travel destinations, interior design, fashion, beauty, and arts and culture, with a focus on high-profile interviews, fashion spreads, and contemporary cultural coverage. Accepts poetry and fiction through competitions only.
New Literary Agency Listing: The White Editorial
firstwriter.com – Monday July 27, 2026
Handles nonfiction and memoir, inviting query packages by email. Accepts submissions that include a synopsis for fiction or a full book proposal for nonfiction, along with two sample chapters. If no response after three months, assume rejection.
Free International Writing Competition – Six Word Wonder 2026
firstwriter.com – Monday July 27, 2026
Entries are now open for "Six Word Wonder 2026", an annual international writing competition celebrating the art of telling a complete story in exactly six words.
First launched in 2022, the competition is free to enter and open worldwide to anyone aged 16 or over. Writers may submit up to five original six-word stories, memoirs, poems or jokes.
‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ author on how he went from self publishing to New York Times bestseller who is developing a TV adaptation with Seth MacFarlane
pagesix.com – Sunday July 26, 2026
It takes a lot of work to be an overnight success, and nobody knows that more than Matt Dinniman, author of the massively popular “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series of books that’s sold a whopping 13.5 million copies.
“I’ve been writing since I was a kid. My first book came out way back in 2003. It was published with a small press. Back then, you didn’t self-publish because if you did, it meant you weren’t good enough. That stigma still exists,” Dinniman tells Page Six Hollywood during a brief respite from his packed schedule at San Diego Comic-Con.
He finally caught the self-publishing bug in 2017, releasing “Dominion of Blades” in the lesser-known (at the time, at least) Literary Role-Playing Game (LitRPG) genre. In the years that followed, he made a living selling drawings of cats and dogs at conventions (he attended 42 of them in 2019 alone). When those cons took a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic, he decided to get serious about his next project: “Dungeon Crawler Carl.”
New S&S UK Imprint Targets Self-Published Authors
publishersweekly.com – Saturday July 25, 2026
Simon & Schuster UK and International has launched Simon Stream, a digital-focused fiction imprint aimed at self-published authors who want to make the switch to traditional publishing. The imprint will be headed up by S&S UK publishing director Victoria Pepe.
Simon Stream will publish globally in paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats, per its website, beginning with the first installment in a new five-book “cozy crime” series by Jack Gatland, set for this fall.
The imprint hosts an open submissions portal, and is currently accepting crime, thriller, romance, historical fiction, and fantasy manuscripts of 70-100k words.
Pepe said in the announcement that Simon Stream aims to offer authors “the best parts of both [self- and traditional] publishing models,” specifically with an eye to royalty rates. Simon Stream offers 50% net royalties on e-book sales, while a typical e-book royalty rate for traditional publishers hovers around 25%. Many hybrid publishing offers also start at a 50% royalty rate.
How to Get Your Book Published: 5 Takeaways from You Are A Writer
pen.org – Friday July 24, 2026
For the final installment of You Are A Writer, PEN America’s workshop series for early-career writers, four industry experts delved into how a book makes its way from a writer’s hands onto shelves. They discussed what agents, editors, and publicists are looking for in proposals and manuscripts, how writers can find the right path for their book’s publication, and why they should never quit their day jobs. Scroll down to read five takeaways from the discussion.
Moderated by Sarah Bowlin, a senior literary agent at Aevitas Creative Management, the session featured Juli Kiyan, editor and associate director of publicity at Penguin Press, Kate Gale, co-founder and managing editor of Red Hen Press, and Liz Garriga, senior director of publicity at Little, Brown.
If you missed them, catch up on the earlier sessions of You Are A Writer.
1. Sweep readers off their feet with your manuscript.
Kicking off the session, Bowlin asked the panelists what they’re looking for in any given submission. Kiyan responded that when it comes to fiction, the writing needs to leap off of the page and wow readers.
Garriga agreed. “Really, it’s just about an immersive reading experience,” she said. “So that’s the good news there: You just have to enchant someone with the writing.”
Later, Bowlin stressed that you should contact agents only once you have a complete (and thoroughly edited) manuscript. “My dad had the very cheesy [saying], ‘You only get one chance at a first impression,’ but it is true in the sense that I have 700 unread novels in my inbox right now and the only way that I get through that material is for something to really stand out,” she said.
Jessica Knoll’s Guide to Writing a Novel Without Losing Your Mind
polyesterzine.com – Friday July 24, 2026
Jessica Knoll knows what it takes to build a life around writing. The bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and The Favorite has spent years turning complicated stories into page-turners, all while navigating the pressures that come with making writing your livelihood. Now, after moving from LA back to New York, raising her young daughter and publishing her latest novel, Helpless, she’s thinking more than ever about the long game, and how to keep writing without letting it consume you.
Helpless is Knoll’s most ambitious novel yet - an erotic thriller about two exes who reunite at the funeral of their beloved professor, only to find themselves pulled into a dangerous story that forces them to question everything they thought they knew about their past.
When we speak, Knoll is candid about the less glamorous side of writing a novel - the days when a thousand words can take four hours, the weeks when the story won’t cooperate and the difficulty of remembering that your life is bigger than your writing.
Here, Jessica Knoll shares her guide to writing a novel without losing your mind.
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