Publishing is no longer about writing just a book. It’s about performance of that book across multiple mediums and acceptance of that book by the masses. Therefore publishing is not just dependent on itself but on other mediums as well.
A best selling book makes it to a Netflix show or a movie and that in turn gives the book sales another fillip. So content in its traditional form — i.e as a book is not dying anytime. In fact, the need for good content is greater than ever as players like Netflix and HBO keep on searching for the next bestselling story to be made into a tv show or a movie.
The demand for good content has similarly been on the rise. Publishers are hungry for great content that can prove to be the next unicorn just as they are looking for fresh content that can be used for content snacking under newer publishing models such as Juggernaut.
Artificial Intelligence, which is proving to be major game changer in industries like healthcare and finance, is proving to have some answers for the publishing industry as well. And to start with, it is creating an impact on the basics of publishing, the process of sourcing good content.
Identifying the right author: Since the beginning of publishing, publishers and editors have been using gut feeling and market understanding as their key tools to identify the right manuscript. But the method is not without its shortfalls and sometimes not being able to identify the right author makes a lot of difference to the way your business will shape up. Harry Potter for example was rejected 12 times before being printed and Stephen King’s Carrie had more than 30 rejections. Berlin based publishing startupInkitthas worked out a model to identify the right author and the right content with the help of artificial intelligence. Inkitt has worked out an AI algorithm analyze users’ reading patterns and determine the best of the best. Then once identified, the firm works diligently to transition a book from manuscript to approval from major publishing houses with the intention of cutting out literary agent. Authors upload their manuscripts on Inkitt and the platform amasses a group of readers giving them access to that content. Based on their reading patterns, Inkitt’s algorithm makes the requisite analysis. Erin Swan’s Bright Stars was one of the first novels to be published through Inkitt and was taken up by Tor Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.
Impact on Design: The other possible impact that AI can have in the world of publishing and particularly for publishers of Graphic novels like Marvel or DC will be design. Every time a designer sits down to create the next futiristic villain and his formidable aircraft, AI can be of use in creating generative design and offering the designer multiple choices of what the aircraft could look like. The same principle can be used for book or magazine design as well affecting STM publishers in a major way.
Recommendation engines: This has given the ecommerce businesses their cutting edge in shaping reading habits as well as selling more books. The recommendation engine customizes ads and content based on the data that it captures of the customer’s interest. This translates into higher sales and more preferential choices for the customer when they are browsing a site.
Image and Visual Search: With Artificial Intelligence playing a major role in determining the future of visual search (which in turn is disrupting fashion and ecommerce in never before ways), publishers (particularly magazines and journals) can now have multiple tools for photo research as well.
Replace the author: The experiment is underway. What if a publisher could sell a book without paying any royalties and what if there was an endless source of such content. One of the proponents of self writing books is Guy Gadney, the CEO of To Play For and founder of The Project Factory. Gadney’s vision is less about books writing themselves from start to finish and more about authors and publishers figuring out ways to integrate “AI-driven storytelling” into their works. In such a scenario, there would be a basic framework to the book and the story, with characters and whole narrative segments already written by the author. These books would also have sections where readers could interact with the story or characters in exciting and unpredictable ways. The purpose of AI could allow ‘characters to react differently to individual readers’. So imagine Joker playing with your mind differently than he plays with your friend while you read the same book.
On the other hand, the Hitoshi Matsubara and his team at Future University Hakodate in Japan has made an AI write an actual short form novel that passed the first round at Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award. Matsubara and his team selected words and sentences and set parameters for construction before letting the AI write the novel autonomously.
Custom textbooks and lectures: When it comes to educational books, the scenario with AI is a little different. I had covered it in an article where I was looking at the applications of AI across other industries. A cross reference to the work of Content Technologies, Inc. seems equally relevant for the publishing industry as well.
Content Technologies, Inc. a startup created by Dr. Scott. R. Perfitt is experimenting with content related technologies with an AI backbone. Palitt, an AI solution reimagines how content is assembled. Until now, custom content and custom textbooks were an expensive and time consuming process. Using Palitt, people can create their custom lecture series, syllabus or textbook in a jiffy. Another product, Cram101’s AI technology can turn any textbook into a smart study guide complete with chapter summaries, unlimited true-false and multiple choice practice tests and flashcards all drilled down to a specific textbook, ISBN number, author and chapter.
To the vast industry of textbook publishers, Content Technologies can come as a major ally in terms of redefining how textbooks are published.
Publishing is one of those industries which is facing both opportunities and challenges from many quarters. While on the one hand its alliances as the sole source of content is feeding industries like entertainment, the idea of content creating itself is also a challenge to the way the business model exists as of today. Thus, redefining publishing in the AI era would also mean identifying the actual product that is getting transacted. Whether it is a chapter that can fit into one of Palitt’s textbook assembly or whether it is an actual book that is bought in bulk by a University.
