Bloomsbury chief executive Nigel Newton believes AI will help authors beat writer’s block and spark creativity – just like in all the other arts including painting and music
Authors will increasingly use AI to spark creativity and beat writer’s block, the boss of Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury believes. Nigel Newton, the publisher’s founder and chief executive, said the technology can support almost all of the creative arts but that it would not have the power to replace big names.
Nigel said: “I think AI will probably help creativity, because it will enable the eight billion people on the planet to get started on some creative area where they might have hesitated to take the first step.”
He used the example of writers’ block, saying: “AI gets them going and writes the first paragraph, or first chapter, and gets them back in the zone. And it can do similar things with painting and music composition and with almost all of the creative arts.”
Mr Newton, who signed JK Rowling to the publisher in the 1990s, acknowledged concerns that AI could be used to write entire books, saying that would be a “problem”.
But he stressed that, ultimately, readers want to read books penned by well-known writers.
“We are programmed deep in our DNA to be comforted by the authority and the reliability of big brand names, and that applies more than ever to the names of big writers,” he said.
“There will be some shoddy content out there so people will turn increasingly to sources of authority for reassurance” that they will spend hours reading something good, the chief executive said.
The Harry Potter franchise remains a bestseller for the publisher, 28 years since the first book was published.
Mr Newton said Gen Z readers were driving a resurgence for physical books, with Sarah J Maas’s series an example of those that have been popularised by social media.
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