Episode 64 – Beyond the New York Times Headlines with Coral Hart from Plot Prose

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This week on the podcast, we are tackling a timely and intense topic that has been rippling through the author community. In this episode, we were joined by the resilient and prolific Coral Hart. Coral recently found herself at the center of a firestorm following a feature in the New York Times, and she joined us to share the story behind the headlines, the reality of being an AI-forward author, and why she refuses to “die on the hill” of outdated publishing standards.

Meet Coral Hart: Prolific Author and AI Mentor

Coral Hart is a veteran of the publishing world with an incredible track record. Long before she ever touched an AI tool, Coral wrote and published 90 books the “long way.” She is an award-winning romance author, having received the Imbali Award for Excellence in South Africa, and has served in leadership roles for the Romance Writers of Southern Africa.

Today, Coral uses AI to accelerate her workflow, but she remains a staunch advocate for craft and storytelling. She views AI not as a “get rich quick” scheme, but as a “ninja tool” that allows her to keep up with her “squirrel ADHD brain” and bring stories to life faster than ever before.

Navigating the New York Times Backlash

The primary catalyst for this episode was the fallout from a New York Times article featuring Coral’s use of AI. Unfortunately, the public reaction included severe bullying, doxing, and even threats against Coral and her family.

Coral clarified that the pen name featured in the article was part of a specific experiment. She wanted to test the “threshold of the reader” by publishing books with minimal editing to see how they performed. While the article focused on this experiment, it missed the broader context: Coral is a master of her craft who uses AI as a collaborator, not a replacement for talent.

Steph and Danica made it clear: Brave New Bookshelf has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying. As Steph noted, the anti-AI vitriol often creates a “hell of their own making”—by attacking authors who are open about AI, they force the conversation underground, preventing the transparency they claim to want.

The “Tsunami of Change” and the History of Publishing

Coral describes the current AI era as a “tsunami of change.” She draws a direct parallel to the early days of the Kindle and the launch of Kindle Unlimited.

• The Kindle Era: People claimed e-books weren’t “real” books and that they would kill bookstores.
• The KU Era: Authors were told Kindle Unlimited was “the devil” and would destroy the industry.
• The AI Era: Critics claim AI authors aren’t “real” writers and that the technology is “cheating.”

In each instance, the industry evolved, and those who adapted survived. Coral’s philosophy is simple: when a tsunami comes, you head for the hills. You can either reach the top and thrive, or “die on the hill” because you refuse to move.

Challenging AI Myths: Environment and Copyright

The conversation also touched on common arguments used against AI, which Coral and the hosts believe are often rooted in fear and misinformation:

• Environmental Impact: Coral pointed out that while critics cite the water and power usage of AI, they often ignore the massive footprints of Netflix, Facebook, and Instagram—the very platforms used to hurl insults.
• Theft and Training: Steph highlighted the recent Anthropic settlement, noting that many authors react to headlines without reading the facts. Anthropic’s FAQ explicitly stated they did not use pirated datasets for training, yet the “theft” narrative persists.
• Suffering for Art: The hosts debunked the idea that writing must be hard to be “real.” Coral argued that efficiency doesn’t negate quality, just as using a lawnmower doesn’t make a gardener less skilled than one using nail clippers.

The Human Element: Craft, Story Structure, and “Killing the Cat”

One of the most insightful parts of the discussion focused on why AI cannot replace a skilled author. Coral teaches that a “good” AI book requires a human who understands story structure.

• Beyond “Save the Cat”: Coral argued that the popular “Save the Cat” structure isn’t a universal fix. Different genres require different “vehicles”—whether it’s the Fichtean curve for thrillers or “Romancing the Beat” for romance.
• AI as a “Rubbish” First Draft: Coral’s process involves getting a rough draft from the AI and then “putting the human back in.” She warns against using AI for editing, as it takes longer and loses the author’s unique voice.
• Market Psychology: AI doesn’t understand that readers buy feelings, not just words. It takes a human author to ensure the emotional beats land.

Mentorship and the Path to Success

Coral’s “Launchpad” mentorship program is designed to kick authors into gear. She emphasizes that there is no magic bullet; success requires work, accountability, and a deep understanding of business principles like rapid release and newsletter marketing.

“I’m not teaching anyone how to make money,” Coral said. “I’m teaching the fundamentals. How hard you work equals how much money you get.” By using AI to shorten the writing phase, her students can focus more on the business and editing aspects that actually drive a career.

Key Takeaways from This Episode

• AI is a Tool, Not a Grift: Writing with AI still requires significant effort, craft knowledge, and editing.
• Adaptability is Survival: The publishing industry has always resisted change (E-books, KU, etc.), but those who embrace new tools find the most success.
• Human Oversight is Mandatory: To avoid “AI slop,” authors must guide the AI with specific genre knowledge and perform heavy manual edits.
• Stand Against Bullying: The author community must remain a safe space for experimentation and technological growth.
• Focus on the Reader: Readers want an escape and a feeling. If you deliver that, the tools you used to get there are secondary.

Resources Mentioned

Here are the links and resources mentioned in this episode:

• Plot Prose – Coral Hart’s Classes – (Links available via the Brave New Bookshelf website).
• The New York Times Article (Note: May be behind a paywall).
• Future Fiction Press – Check out AI-forward books.
• Future Fiction Academy – Learn how to integrate AI into your writing process.
• Publish Drive – Distribution and metadata tools for authors.

Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to Brave New Bookshelf, a podcast that explores the fascinating intersection of AI and authorship. Join hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite as they dive into thought provoking discussions, debunk myths, and highlight the transformative role of AI in the publishing industry.

Steph Pajonas: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Brave New Bookshelf. I’m one of your co-hosts, Steph Pajonas, CTO, and. I guess CTO, just CTO. I’m already messing this up, and it’s only the first few minutes of the podcast, Right?? CTO of the Future Fiction Academy and Future Fiction Press, where we teach authors how to use AI in any part of their process.

And we’re publishing AI forward books on Future Fiction Press. And that has come to a little bit of a head this past week. We’ll be talking about it throughout this. Particular episode, but I’m going to preface it by saying you can go to FutureFIctionPress.com and check out some of the books that we’ve published using AI, because they are out there now. And people are actually reading [00:01:00] them and downloading them and buying them, because they’re curious about what we do since we were just quoted in a New York Times article, which is what we’ll be talking about today on the podcast with our guest. But before we get into that, I’m going to introduce my lovely co-host, as always, Danica Favorite. It’s good to see your smiling face. I love you.

Danica Favorite: Yeah. Yeah. Good to be here as always. We were just talking beforehand.

Some of you already know Coral Hart, because she has been on the podcast before and we love Coral. I had been trying to get her back on the podcast, and we had so many weird scheduling snares, and then we had her booked for today. And right before this, the New York Times article came out, and so we keep saying this is divine providence.

Steph Pajonas: It is.

Danica Favorite: So really excited. Really, really excited that we get to have Coral here today. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Danica Favorite. I am the community manager at Publish [00:02:00] Drive. Where we help authors at every stage of their journey, from getting the perfect metadata, book description, AI book covers, to getting your books distributed out to the widest audience possible.

And then having some in-store promotions, things like that. And then finally, if you’re needing to split royalties with other co-authors or co contributors, we can help you do that. And so between us and FFA and FFP. We really can help you on ev every stage of the journey to help you learn to write the books.

And one of the things we really pride ourselves on doing on Brave New Bookshelf, is while obviously it’s about these two companies that have a great synergy, we also love to bring in other people who are doing great things in the AI space. And Coral Heart is one of those people, because yes, she teaches classes and things which FFA also does, but it’s a different teaching style.

And what may jive with [00:03:00] one person isn’t gonna be a match for another person. And so I like the fact that here we are in the age of AI, that there are so many options and so many possibilities and love the fact that we have someone like Coral out there teaching, but also who is out there on, kind of the front lines, in being willing to put herself out there.

And so usually we go through our questions and everything, but you guys have seen Coral before, so if you’re really interested in her answers to those questions, I’m sure some of it will come up through the conversation. But please do go back and listen to the previous episode because we covered a lot of that really well.

Because today we’re really gonna dig deep into this whole New York Times thing and Coral’s process and, you know, I think all of us have mentioned at various pla, in various places, how we feel about this whole thing. And I know [00:04:00] we will go deeper into this, but just bottom freaking line people, we have a zero tolerance policy for bullying, zero tolerance.

We completely do not agree with people who are out there making mean nasty comments. If you don’t like AI, cool, there’s the door. Please use it. And without comment. If you are curious about AI, listen in. You’re gonna find pieces that are for you and pieces that aren’t. And as we say in every episode, use what works for you, forget about the rest. But do not go for the authors who are doing things with AI that you don’t like or you don’t approve of.

Steph Pajonas: A hundred percent. We’re not going to let that slide at all. In fact, I even deleted some comments on our [00:05:00] YouTube channel from our last talk with Coral, because I felt that they did not add to the conversation whatsoever. It’s just people putting other people down. And we do not stand for that at all. Not even a little bit.

Danica Favorite: Yeah. And this is a safe place, and we want to always make the podcast a safe place, because I know there are a lot of people who are curious about AI, who listen to our podcast and learn something.

And I also know a lot of authors who, are using AI, but they’re afraid to tell people that they are. In fact there is an author, name is not going to be mentioned, because this person is not public about their AI use. But she messaged me personally and said, I just wanna let you know that I loved Coral’s episode on Brave New Bookshelf, and she has done so much to help me as a writer.

I am terrified to come forward and tell people that [00:06:00] I use AI, but I want you to know, and I want you to let Coral know. And so I’m doing this very publicly, because I know there are more people out there like this, and I want you to know you’re not alone. And so with that, I wanna give the stage to Coral.

And Coral, why don’t you tell us more about yourself? Tell us about this New York Times article. All the good stuff. But really, like, let’s hear more about you and particularly the stuff that the New York Times article didn’t say.

Coral Hart: I’m Coral Hart. I got kind of famous this weekend in the New York Times unexpectedly.

I am a AI forward AI, openly AI forward author. Coral Hart is one of my AI pen names, and actually as I disclosed to the New York Times lady that she did not put in the article, Coral Hart’s pen name was the one I started with. And I started this experiment to see if I could put up an AI book with the absolute bare minimum [00:07:00] editing as quickly as possible.

I know these books are not the best books ever. They’re good books. They’re not magical books like some of my other pen names, but I wanted to test where that threshold with the readers was, right from the very beginning, and it just happened that this was the only pen that had social media, so it stayed that way.

And then they were like very mad at me for not telling them all 20 of my pen names. And then I was like, but look how you’re behaving.

Steph Pajonas: Right?…

Coral Hart: So, so you want me to tell you my pen name so you can dox me and one star bomb me and send me death threats on that one too. You can’t have both things, like, I’ll tell you my pen names.

Can you behave and be respectful like I have?

Steph Pajonas: I tell people all the time that the anti AI people are in a hell of their own making, because they started out like this where they said, we don’t want you using AI. Don’t use AI. If you use AI, we are going to punish you. And so, the [00:08:00] logical response to that is, well, if I use AI then I’m not gonna tell you about it, because I don’t think I deserve to be punished for using a tool that pretty much the whole world is using right now.

Come up. Right?? So they perpetuate it. They get the, and it starts rolling down the hill as like, well now we’re going to really punish you for hiding it. And if, and then I hear, well, if only you would declare, we would be able to see who, you know is doing these things or which books are succeeding because they have AI in them.

And no, we’re not going to declare because of the fact that you’re a bunch of bullies. So, you know, it’s a hell of their own making.

Danica Favorite: It is. It is. And one of the things that Coral had shared with us is somebody actually in doxing her revealed the name of her child. And somebody went after her child on social media, like found her child on social media and went after them.

And [00:09:00] this is so completely unacceptable…

Coral Hart: Not cool.

Danica Favorite: … and egregious. It’s absolutely egregious. And one of the things that I observe about that when talking with them, and I’m saying this here, because I wanna call out these people because I’m so pissed at the bullies, is that if you are so insecure about AI and AI writing that you would go after a child, there is something fundamentally wrong with you, not with the AI. Because there is never an excuse to go after a child. And one of the things I do wanna go back to from the article and stuff is that, you know, I appreciate Coral you saying that this was an older pen name that you were using as an experiment. And you wanted to see what the tolerance of people would be for various levels of [00:10:00] AI and how much AI would be allowable and acceptable.

And so I kind of feel like that message didn’t get printed. But what also got lost in all of that is you were a successful author in your own right prior to doing all of this, and…

Coral Hart: 90 books. That I wrote the long way. I wrote 90 books the long way before I picked up Claude. Okay. I don’t not love writing.

‘Cause that’s the biggest thing out there is if you don’t love writing, you shouldn’t be doing it. I love writing. I love my job. I love making books. I love telling stories. I love romance writing. I love it. You know what I don’t love? Not being able to keep up with my squirrel ADHD brain and write them fast enough.

It’s always felt like, like a hamster wheel. Until this, until that, it felt like I was running on this hamster wheel that I couldn’t catch up. I couldn’t get the next [00:11:00] story out fast enough, but it was already in my head, but I had to finish this one, because this one was commercially viable and maybe that one wasn’t.

Now I can write whatever I want and see if it’s commercially viable and not lose six months of my life. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. And that, that for me was, that’s what made me the most mad was when they’re like, if you don’t love writing…you couldn’t possibly find somebody who has probably as much passion for writing as I do.

And I always have. And then they were like, oh, but you teach classes. Uh, cool secret. I taught classes before AI also, on writing craft, on plotting, on using holidays for marketing, on wide versus KU on a business. I, I was the vice chairperson of the Romance Writers of Southern Africa. I literally ran all of their training and also enrichment [00:12:00] programs.

I love writing. And I love romance, but I am also not a stupid business person. And I can see that this industry is on the cusp of a tsunami of change.

Danica Favorite: Yes, I love that rephrase, tsunami of change. Like…

Coral Hart: Okay, so what happens when a tsunami comes? Right? We are gonna go for the hill. And either we are gonna get up to the top of the hill, and we are gonna be okay, or we are gonna die on the hill, because we don’t wanna move.

Steph Pajonas: A hundred percent.

Like just…

Coral Hart: This is the hill. Now. We are on the hill. Get to the top of it. Like there’s no good reason to die on the hill. I’m gonna say this and you can edit it out later if you want to. I don’t care how much water ChatGPT uses. Okay. I don’t care, because Netflix uses more and so does Facebook, and so does the Instagram that you’re on, hurling insults at me, so I don’t [00:13:00] care how much water it uses.

I don’t care how bad it is for the environment. Before I used AI, I used about 7,000 notebooks a week. That’s paper, that’s chopping down the rainforest as well. So the environmental impact thing, I’ve looked at every angle of it, and I have gone and done some research and just shhhh. Because I don’t think it means what you think it means. All of you just stop. The, it stole our information, it stole my information too, right? Yes, but there’s Anthropic lawsuit. They settled, which means they’ve now paid you for the information, so you need to shush. That’s what that settlement meant. Okay?

Steph Pajonas: Yes. Shush.

Coral Hart: Sorry we didn’t pay you for your information.

Here’s the money for your information. We’ve got the information. Cool.

Danica Favorite: Yeah, but even better, the Anthropic lawsuit isn’t, we’ve got your information. It’s, we never used your information, but here’s your free money anyway. Thank you, Anthropic.

Steph Pajonas: I still can’t get over the fact that people think that the Anthropic lawsuit was [00:14:00] about the fact that they trained on pirated works, which isn’t true.

In the Anthropic website settlement, number like 13 on the fact page, says that they admit that they held onto these pirated databases, but they never used them for training. And they’re sorry they hung onto them. Here’s some money, like if only people …this, this bothers me so much, that authors do not read.

Let’s all, let’s all have a big, oh my God. Right? Authors do not read. It literally took me five minutes to read through the FAQ on the Anthropic website to understand what was going on and move on from there. But no, they see a headline and they run around with it and they don’t actually read anything.

It’s so frustrating.

Coral Hart: I put it into Notebook LM and let it read it to me, in wax crayon pictures. You don’t even have to read it, like someone will fix it for you. [00:15:00] I think there’s so much fear. I think it’s fear driven. I, I, I do. I just, I and just ignorance, absolute ignorance, and none of those arguments fly with me.

And then today I had somebody who was very mad in my inbox, because I did not go on social media and fight with them and answer all the issues and comments.

Steph Pajonas: I still can’t believe that. It’s like we’re over here on this social media network talking about you slamming, you saying mean things about you. Why aren’t you showing up and defending yourself?

How about I got too much work to do? I’m not gonna show up over there. What the heck, what’s wrong with you people?

Coral Hart: I just responded very politely with, I’m far too busy writing five books today for your nonsense. Thank you.

Danica Favorite: And again, that goes back to the argument that people make is why aren’t you disclosing the AI? This. This is why people aren’t [00:16:00] disclosing, and it’s really frustrating that you can’t have it both ways. Either make it safe for authors to be open about their AI use. Or don’t try to force them to disclose things that is going to be potentially unsafe for them to disclose.

And I, I just, I don’t know how to wrap my mind around the cognitive dissonance that is happening in the author community about AI. They, they still don’t get it. Like every time I see someone who’s like, oh, AI is trained on stolen work. No, this has been disproved…

Coral Hart: No.

Danica Favorite: so many times. It’s so…

Coral Hart: No.

Danica Favorite: Like all of the arguments that I have been seeing against like what Coral was doing and like everything in the New York Times article in people’s responses.

All of the negative responses are based on rumors that have already been disproven [00:17:00] so many times, and the fact that people continue to believe something that is not true, that has been proven to be not true, I think that also says a lot about those people making those comments.

Coral Hart: So I’ve actually just pulled them up.

So I pulled, it’s sorted by quotes, and the overwhelming quote is, you’ve never written a book in your life. So there’s a whole 90 of them. Before this, before AI, it came in, in year, from 2010 to 2024, I wrote 90 books and published 90 books, without AI. So, um, the general consensus is they feel I should live shorter, suffer horribly.

That’s the other theme that comes up, that I’m not an author, at all. I have. I have an award in South Africa. There’s an award it’s awarded by the Romance Writers Association of Southern Africa. It’s the [00:18:00] Imbali Award for romance writing excellence. It’s judged by a panel of local and international judges.

It’s the equivalent of what the reader used to be. Right?. I have one of those. A beautiful glass trophy on my shelf. I’m pretty sure I’m an author. Like I’m also pretty sure, ’cause a lot of the comments were, did you see that photo? I’m sure it’s AI. I would’ve looked a lot better if it was AI. I promise.

Steph Pajonas: I thought you looked beautiful.

Coral Hart: My hair would have been done, like actually done but like this is the thing. It’s like, are we sure she’s real? She might just be, um. I’m like, uh, I feel like you should be doing something better with your time.

Steph Pajonas: I agree.

Danica Favorite: This goes back to one of the fallacies I think we’ve talked about, I don’t know if we’ve just talked about it in person or on the podcast, ’cause I’m now confused.

Is this idea of you have to suffer for your art. Right?. And you know, this whole suffering artist thing. And all of these people who [00:19:00] as authors have suffered for their work. And yeah, guys, like, come on. I remember I was just cleaning out my office the other day, and I literally found one of those, so when it used to be that when you would submit, you’d have to submit by mail, and you would have to send it with one of those prepaid envelopes so they could send your manuscript back when they were done with it.

And I found one of those prepaid envelopes. And I remember like really being stressed about being able to afford the postage and doing all this stuff. And then, of course now we have, everything’s online and it’s so much easier. And now it’s even easier with AI and of course like now you don’t even have to go through those gatekeepers.

Um, you know, you could publish your book and upload it through Publish Drive. Very easy. And I just remember thinking that when we made that shift to indie, like how many authors were like, oh, indie authors are not real authors, and [00:20:00] they can’t write a real book, they can’t get published. And it’s funny because this week Harlequin also announced they were closing one of their lines.

They were closing Harlequin historical.

Coral Hart: Harlequin historical.

Danica Favorite: Yeah. And that’s been around for years. And so everyone’s like, okay, do it the real way. Okay. That is getting narrower and narrower and narrower.

Coral Hart: Okay.

Danica Favorite: And so how much do you want people to suffer?

Coral Hart: Real. Okay, first of all, so when I first started my very first, I was trad first, and then I went indie. My very first indie book.

A friend who wasn’t in publishing came over to my house and her husband was very upity and he was like, so who’s your publisher? And I said, I went indie with this one. And he said, well, it’s not a real book. And I remember picking the paperback proof that had just arrived up off my desk and smacking him upside the head and saying, it feels pretty real to me.

Like. It’s actually real. Not a real book. What is a real book? What is a real book? Because my kids know it’s a real book. [00:21:00] What’s a real book? My coloring in book’s a real book. It’s a real, if you wrote it and it’s published, even if you wrote it, and it’s not published and it’s lying around, it’s still a real book.

What makes trad real? What makes Indie not real? What makes my AI book not a real book? Who decided? Also, who decided that writing has to be hard? I’m gonna say something. Writing has never been hard for me. Writing has never been hard for me, with AI, without AI, it has never been difficult for me to write a book.

And I used to get a lot of flack, because I could write fast. I could write a 60,000 word book in a week, ’cause I can write 10,000 words a day sustainably without AI. I was one of those lucky authors. So why? Why? Because I can go fast. Even then I was invalidated, ’cause I can go fast, so it can’t be good.

I’m not suffering for it. I didn’t take six months to write it, so it must be [00:22:00] terrible. No,

Danica Favorite: It’s so weird, these standards we put on authors of what makes a good author. Like I think about Charles Dickens, and his books used to be serialized in magazines as little stories, and you had to wait to get each little, each story.

I mean, that was the beginning of, serialization. And we haven’t really talked about like things like Ream or some of these other serialization apps.

Coral Hart: Yeah.

Danica Favorite: They’re out there, and who would argue that Charles Dickens isn’t a real author at this stage in literature, but back in the day, he wasn’t a real author.

So like, stop it. Stop it.

Coral Hart: No, and like that, that for me is like, I’m, when they call me not a real author, I’m like, or like, it’s not human. I’m like, pretty sure I am. Like, if I’m not somebody, please let me know. I can start adjusting my, my identity. I feel like it’s fear, [00:23:00] and I remember back, so I’ve been in it since 2010, right?. When Kindle first came out. Okay. And eBooks were not real books, eBooks were not real books then. And Kindle was the devil, not AI. And it was gonna kill bookstores and nobody was gonna buy a print book ever again. Here we are in 2026. There are still bookstores. People are still buying print books.

I’m pretty sure my Kindle books are pretty real books.

Danica Favorite: Right?. And let me let you in secret, the here is a secret publish drive is about to release probably in the next month or so. So I don’t know if it’ll be released before or after this episode, but do you wanna know the category of publishing that grew the most in 2025 for Publish Drive? Print books.

Steph Pajonas: Oh, really? That’s interesting.

Danica Favorite: Yeah, isn’t it? I was really shocked. I was like, are you sure those numbers are right? Because everyone is saying that print is dead and she’s like, here are the numbers, and I’m like, holy crap. And so we get [00:24:00] in our head these stories of what we think is actually happening and it’s not true.

And there are real humans doing the real work. And like I, I mean, I just love the fact that Coral has said over and over here, she has written 90 books without the assistance of AI. So the, and a lot of the guests that we have here are people who have written that number of books. And then they say, okay, how can I translate this knowledge to AI?

How can I use my skills as an author? And that’s what Coral is teaching is, it’s not just, oh, get rich quick on AI. It’s okay, how do you as a writer craft a story? And so I would love to hear a little bit about what you do craft wise and what you’re teaching about craft and how good craft is the human part [00:25:00] of what makes AI writing good.

Coral Hart: Well, you can’t just tell Claude or ChatGPT to write the book. Like that’s, that isn’t how this works. It’s not magic. We wish, but no. First of all, I don’t have any classes that claim to help anybody earn any amount of money. I will teach you business principles. I will teach you writing fundamentals.

I will teach you how to rapid release a book. I’ll teach you how to write quickly. I’ll teach you how to edit. But I am at no point teaching anyone how to make money, because I can teach you all of the steps. If you’re not willing to put in the work, it’s not going to work. So no author can make money without working for it.

How hard you work equals how much money you get, like any other job in the world, right? Doesn’t matter. But fundamentally, most of my classes are based around [00:26:00] understanding the market. Reader psychology, readers are buying feelings, not books. Okay? They’re signing up to escape reality. They’re buying a feeling, not a book.

How are you delivering that feeling to your reader? Do you know who your reader is? ‘Cause if you don’t know who they are before you start writing a book, you’re wasting your time. You need to know who that reader is. So a lot of what I teach is market, based on identifying your reader, understanding your reader.

Can you deliver as a writer with or without AI? Can you deliver on what that reader signed up for? Can I give them what they signed up for in my books? Other things I teach are rapid release. Authors don’t understand the funnel, the process, how to stack, how to cycledraft, these all things I did before AI as well.

Right?. I used to rapid release, I used to cycledraft. I used to stack. Write one. Edit one. Launch one.

I’m just doing the same thing quicker, so I’m not, it’s [00:27:00] not like I’m not making a get rich author class. I’m literally teaching the fundamentals. And then in craft, I’m teaching things like story structure, right? Not every book is about saving the cat. In fact, have a whole piece in one of my classes about killing all the cats.

Please, can we just stop with saving the cat, because…

Steph Pajonas: I’m gonna laugh at that real quick.

Danica Favorite: I really wanna take your class now, just so I can get that module on killing all the cats. And not that I’m unfriendly to cats. I like cats in theory, but I’m super allergic, so I want this.

Coral Hart: If we’re writing romance, we don’t want to be saving cats.

We want to be romancing the beats. If we’re writing thrillers, we don’t want to be saving cats. We want to be writing the Fichtean curve. If we’re writing fantasy, we don’t want to be saving cats. We want to be writing a hero’s journey. And if you don’t understand those things, so I equate it in my class to this, right?

What you’re delivering is the story. So say the story is a sofa. You [00:28:00] cannot deliver the sofa on a scooter. The story structure is the scooter or the truck, or the flatbed or the trade or whatever you deliver that story on. You cannot fit the sofa on a scooter. It doesn’t work. Save the cat is not this universal story you can use for every single book in the whole wide world.

It actually doesn’t work, particularly if you’re writing with AI. Because if you haven’t got the right structure plugged into that thing from the beginning, it’s going to solve the murder in chapter two, or they’re going to only kiss each other at the end of the romance novel that’s supposed to have five chili peppers of spice.

If you don’t understand story structure, if you don’t know what a beat is, if you don’t understand what save the cat or the Fichtean curve or romancing the beat are, those things are fundamental. So. I don’t think you can write with AI or at all really, if you [00:29:00] don’t have a basic understanding of craft. If you don’t understand that a character requires an emotional wound and that not every emotional wound is an abandonment wound, and not everybody has to be an orphan…

Danica Favorite: I think that’s so important, because what you are saying here is something that I don’t think a lot of authors understand in general, that I really appreciated what you’re saying about not every book is Save the Cat. And as a romance writer who has been to more conferences than I would like to count or admit to, the number of authors who seem to teach Save the Cat as a universal principle is like…

Coral Hart: Kill the cat.

Danica Favorite: Yeah. Kill the cat and…

Coral Hart: Kill, kill the cat.

Danica Favorite: And I think it’s really telling about your knowledge as a romance author, as an author who can switch genres, because it’s not just about I know how to [00:30:00] write a good book, it’s I know how to write a good book in X genre. And that isn’t something that the AI can do without you explaining to it, explaining how to do it.

I was, one of my experiment books that I’m working on, I was trying to get it to write a romance. It was something I, it was an area of romance I hadn’t written before, but it was so funny because it was like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, pause here. We need to go back and redo this, because what you need to understand is why they can’t be together as a couple, because that’s so important in a romance.

And you have to figure that out, and you have to keep them apart, but also you have to have the reasons to put them together. The AI was like. Oh yeah, that’s right. You are absolutely. But it only said that, because I told it that, and all the things that people get the AI to do is because we tell it that based on our knowledge.

And so if you are trying to write a book solely based on [00:31:00] one style of, you know, even A Hero’s Journey, which I love that you brought up, because again, I went to a million classes on Hero’s Journey and I get very frustrated if I try to tell AI, please plot this book according to Hero’s Journey, because Hero’s Journey doesn’t work as well for romance. And you have to know how to tweak the pieces of Hero’s Journey to make it fit romance.

Coral Hart: That’s it.

Danica Favorite: Yeah. And it is. It’s that knowledge that you have that every author has, and that’s the point.

Coral Hart: And I taught, I taught these classes before AI. I taught these classes to traditional writers.

I sat down and spoke about market. I spoke about craft. I spoke about story structure. I spoke about understanding seasonal marketing, understanding when are the good months in the year to publish a book? When are the crap months in the year to publish book? If it doesn’t have Santa Claus on it, we don’t publish in December.

It’s like, things that authors don’t know that AI is not gonna tell you either. My most [00:32:00] popular class is my Launchpad mentorship, which is a month long class. You know why it’s popular? ‘Cause I am there in person literally kicking their asses to do the work. There’s no magic bullet. There’s no magic system.

They have to physically stop procrastinating, stop thinking about doing things, stop putting it off, stop wondering what, if this, if that, do it. Get the thing done and finish it this week, and I’ll see you on Thursday. And we are gonna look at what you’ve done, and we’re gonna see what’s great about it, and we’re gonna see what’s crap about it, and we’re gonna see if it’s gonna work.

Awesome.

Danica Favorite: Who just felt personally called out by that?

Coral Hart: Like first week of class, everyone’s like, I feel attacked. I’m like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Because we do, let’s be honest, authors, we are great at thinking about things, at thinking about doing things, at putting off, at procrastinating. Like maybe I should write that book sometime.

Okay, when is [00:33:00] sometime?

Danica Favorite: Number one, ideation, number two, intellection. I feel that very deep in the core of my soul.

Coral Hart: So for instance, this week I have got my, I’ve done August Launchpad, October Launchpad, and we are busy with our February one. So one of my August Launchpads is like a hair away from her six figures.

She’s over the moon, but she has worked every single day. She has held herself and others in that group accountable every day. She is there, she’s commenting. Are we doing this? Are you marketing? Did you send your newsletter? Have you done this? Did you see this promotion? Have you hopped on that promotion?

I have five authors from my October Launchpad, all with books in their category, top one hundreds this week.

Steph Pajonas: This is fantastic.

Coral Hart: Not because I gave them a silver bullet. Because for a month I kicked their ass and showed them that it is possible if you work hard. [00:34:00] Some of them have day jobs. One of them has two kids under two. Okay? She’s still doing the work. So for me, that class is more about taking your craft fundamentals, taking your rapid release business principle, taking newsletter marketing, and I am literally going to push you to do those three fundamental sets of things that any author should be doing in their business.

I’m gonna force you to do them for a month. I’m gonna hold you accountable every week. And every week, I’m gonna teach you the next step of the process and then hold you accountable for it next week. The only difference is that mentorship used to take three and a half months to teach, ‘ cause I had to give them a month to write a book.

They get a week now…

Steph Pajonas: You’ve…

Coral Hart: ‘ cause we have the tools.

Steph Pajonas: Yeah. You’ve accelerated it.

Coral Hart: Accelerated.

Steph Pajonas: Mm-hmm.

Coral Hart: So I’m teaching them to use the tools to accelerate it, but [00:35:00] then we pause to edit it, to make it good. Go back to craft. Is it a good book? Is it gonna hit the reader in the feels? Are they gonna sign up for the next one because you’ve delivered on the promise?

And nothing I teach is actually about making money.

Danica Favorite: No, but it sure is the way to get there.

Coral Hart: That’s it. There are steps to get there, but it’s a…hell, listen, if writing books was a get rich scheme, I would be living on an island or a yacht or something.

Steph Pajonas: I need to remind people that it’s not a grift.

Coral Hart: It’s not easy.

Steph Pajonas: It’s not easy. It’s still a lot of work. People out there who have read the article are saying things like, you’re a grifter, and I’m like, no, this is a lot of work. A grift is like, is going out there and taking advantage of people who don’t know any better, right? This is not a grift, this is work.

Danica Favorite: And it’s not cheating.

[00:36:00] It’s not cheating. Like everyone keeps saying, oh, it’s cheating. It’s stealing, it’s cheating. Where? Where is this cheating? Because you still have to know the information and you still have to know how to craft a story…

Coral Hart: A story…

Danica Favorite: if you’re gonna be successful. And so this AI generated crap flood that people keep talking about, I’m so freaking sick of hearing about AI slop, because sure, it’s out there. And trust me, as Publish Drive, we reject hundreds of books every day for being AI slop. But the stuff that Coral is putting out, that the authors that we talk to, that we are working with, it isn’t slop. It is AI mastery, and it is author mastery.

Coral Hart: My best, my best moment this week has been some of the, I would never read it, comments on there, are ones that have left five star reviews on books that are a hundred percent AI generated without [00:37:00] even knowing it.

So I had a little really moment. You wouldn’t, you would know, would you though, would you? I, on purpose, I made some pen names, they’re AI, you can pick up that they’re AI. And it was on purpose. ‘Cause like I said, I wanted to test that limit. But the books that I edit, you are not going to be able to pick it up. Right?

We ain’t got no Marcus Chens in there. There’s no military precisions. There’s no ragged prayers or tangled in the sheets…

Steph Pajonas: Is there any ozone? What about ozone? You see an ozone in those stories. No?

Coral Hart: And the boardrooms do not smell like success.

Danica Favorite: Rude.

Coral Hart: Promise.

Danica Favorite: I’ve always wanted to go into a boardroom that smelled like success.

Haven’t experienced it yet, but I would like to.

Coral Hart: No, they generally smell like secondhand smoke and chaep cologne, if you’ve ever been in one.

Steph Pajonas: Yes.

Coral Hart: Definitely not success. But also I asked Claude once, I was like, Claude, what does success smell like? [00:38:00] Why do you keep saying that? And he, his answer was quite funny, at the time, like I, I had a fat giggle, but eventually I was just like, I’m just gonna ask why you keep doing this, because I don’t understand.

But I, and I teach my students to get the best first draft you can from your AI. And then stop and put the human back in. Stop the process there. Don’t do your editing AI. You’ll be here for 10,000 years. Take it and put yourself back into it. Because asking it to sound like you is like, first of all, let’s just be honest.

We might as well bang our head against the wall, because it’s a very long process. It can, you can get it there, but that’s not a quick way to do something. If you want it to sound like you, and you have an established voice, that’s not gonna happen. Not quickly. Not even with a style sheet, even, even with a style sheet, with prompting and everything, and then you’re still gonna edit it to sound like you anyway. So just take the rubbish first draft, that it gives you. A [00:39:00] first draft as you exist and be rubbish. It has one job. That’s it. It exists and it’s rubbish. Fix it. And my system is not teaching them to grab a finished first draft.

You’ve got to make it human again. And I think like a lot of uh, the, the comments I’ve taken offense to are the ones that I don’t love books so that I’m teaching this get rich scheme. I, none of my classes are about making money. And I invite anybody who thinks that that’s what I’m teaching, hit me an email.

I’ll put you in a class and you’ll see, the first thing I say is, this is not about money. You’re going to work hard to get the results, but here is what I do every day. Here is the steps to getting your newsletter to perform. Here is the steps to plotting to market. I can’t make you use those steps. That’s on you.

Unless you’re in Launchpad, then I literally will kick your ass for the whole month to make you do things. But, I just, I think when the New York Times came to me, I was in two minds, because I knew this would happen. Like [00:40:00] honestly, I knew, but I also think this is a conversation that needs to start happening more loudly, more publicly, more openly.

Because back when Kindle came out, we didn’t have this conversation loudly. We didn’t have this conversation openly and publicly, and it was a very ugly time in publishing.

Steph Pajonas: It was, it was a very ugly time.

Coral Hart: It was a lot of people. That’s it. And then a couple of years later, when Kindle Unlimited came out, we were opposed and against and for Kindle Unlimited.

And again, it was this vicious time. Kindle Unlimited was the devil, and it was this, and it was that, and it was going to kill everyone’s everything. And if you were in Kindle Unlimited, you were the bad guy. And if you weren’t in Kindle Unlimited, you weren’t gonna make any money.

Do you remember…

Steph Pajonas: This, this dichotomy is kind of crazy, right? If you’re,

Coral Hart: I’m like…

Steph Pajonas: going into to Kindle Unlimited, you’ll make money, but you’ll be the bad guy. But if you stay out, you won’t [00:41:00] make any money. And you know, you might not even find any readers.

Coral Hart: I got bills to pay. I got bills to pay. At the end of the day, I got kids to feed like, you wouldn’t moan at me like I I, I made the lawnmower analogy today. If I was a gardener and I cut the lawn with the lawnmower and not the nail clippers, are you gonna be upset?

Danica Favorite: Yes. Right? Exactly. Well, this has been, time has flown by. I think we could all just like talk for at least another hour or more.

So we definitely wanna have you back so we can actually talk more about the stuff that you do and not our feelings about this article, but it’s important I think, for us to continue to have these conversations. Because authors really need to understand that things like the New York Times article, while it’s helpful for the conversation, it’s not telling the whole story. And we’re going to be here week after week telling the whole story from the perspective of…

Coral Hart: That’s it.

Danica Favorite: a lot of different authors and a [00:42:00] lot of different people who are successful with AI, and every single one of them is going to tell you the same thing.

Steph Pajonas: Yes. In fact, we’re gonna continue on this path of educating people about AI and publishing. That is like our whole mission here at Brave New Bookshelf.

It’s our whole mission in general. We…we’re so, we’re pleased you were here with us Coral, but we’re also kind of sad about the way you were treated over the New York Times article. So we’re gonna hope that this actually opens people’s eyes to what’s going on out there. I think that a lot of people believe that this is just a little underground movement and only a few people are doing it. But no, nope. This is a fairly large segment of the author population who is picking up AI in some shape or form to help out their process. Some are just using it, you know, to help them brain brainstorm or outline or do anything like that.

And then other people are doing more like what Coral is teaching,

Coral Hart: And they [00:43:00] shouldn’t be terrified to say, this is what I’m doing. I shouldn’t have to hide what I’m doing away. I shouldn’t be terrified that if somebody knows what I’m doing, I’m gonna be kicked out of my friend groups, out of my author communities, be slammed on social media, we doxed, and things like that. I shouldn’t be afraid to say, Hey, I’m using these amazing frigging ninja tools that are out there to do my job.

Danica Favorite: And that is really the thing we have to remember, is those voices who are anti AI, number one, it’s an echo chamber and it’s the same people, over and over. Although it was really funny because I’ve had a couple of people send me comments, oh, I can’t believe such and such author is saying this. I’m like, I don’t even know who that is. So, um, good for them, I guess. But there are far more authors that I know, and I know who they are. They are big names.

They are using AI, [00:44:00] whether or not they are public about it, and a lot of them are not public about it, for all of these reasons that we talked about, and again, like I hope that authors who want to start coming forward will feel safer doing so, knowing we have your back and there is a bunch of us that have your back.

Yeah, and the people who are making it difficult, who are doing the bullying, please stop.

Steph Pajonas: Just stop. Just stop. Alright, well this is a good place to end the conversation for today. We’re definitely gonna have Coral back at some point. I love talking to Coral in general and I love talking about all of this as well.

Thank you so much for being here, Coral. We really appreciate it, especially since you’re…

Coral Hart: Thank you.

Steph Pajonas: you are so many, so many time zones in the future from us. Thank you for staying up to talk to us.

Coral Hart: Thank you for having me. And I think tonight was different, and I think it’s important also that we let our feelings out there and don’t just stew in them as well.

I do [00:45:00] think that giving it a voice and saying some things is important, and I love that about the Brave New Bookshelf and your groups and things like that. It’s a safe space, so let’s keep safe spaces open, like that’s important as well.

Steph Pajonas: It is.

Coral Hart: Thank you guys for having me.

Steph Pajonas: Thank you for being you.

Okay, so everybody who has been listening come on by the bravenewbookshelf.com. Actually, it’s bravenewbookshelf.com. Come by bravenewbookshelf.com. Read the show notes. Definitely check out the New York Times article. We will link to it. I apologize ahead of time that it is behind a paywall. I got a lot of people saying, oh, but it’s behind a paywall.

Yes, we pay for good journalism out there, right? Yes, we do. So come on by. We’ll have all the links there. We’ll also have links to all of the stuff that Coral’s doing, the Plot Prose. If you listen to this episode and you were like, oh man, I wanna learn all that stuff, guess what? She’s the person to go check out.

So we will have links to it as well. Danika, how do you [00:46:00] wanna finish up?

Danica Favorite: Yeah, just remember to like and follow Future Fiction Academy, Future Fiction Press, Publish Drive, Brave New Bookshelf on all the different socials you can find particularly. Go watch us on YouTube and follow us on YouTube.

You will see we are real human beings. And, yeah. So please keep doing that and also make, keep your comments nice. Be nice. If you can’t be nice, don’t say it or we’ll delete it.

Steph Pajonas: Yeah, be nice, everybody. Be nice. All right, well, thank you guys for joining us today to talk about this awesome topic. We’ll be back again next week with another episode.

Talk to you soon. Bye

Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on The Brave New Bookshelf. Be sure to like and subscribe to us on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. You can also visit us bravenewbookshelf.com. Sign up for our newsletter and get all the show [00:47:00] notes.