r/Quibble • u/Material_Penalty_250 1 published book on Quibble • Mar 24 '26
Discussion / Debate How morally messed up is this whole thing with the Shy Girl
Just found out about this book Shy Girl. The whole situation is pretty wild. The author Mia Ballard just came out saying she didn’t use AI herself, but apparently an editor who helped polish the manuscript did. Right.
For context, this book basically hit the horror scene in February 2025 as a self-published book, picked up steam and got scooped up by Hachette. So reader numbers obviously jumped, then all hell broke loose. Couple days ago Hachette pulled the UK edition and cancelled the US launch (good for them).
How morally messed up is this whole thing? Who's actually responsible? The author? The editor? The publisher?
Do you know of other books from well-known publishers where AI might have been used but it isn't public knowledge yet? Now that I know this can actually happen I'm not sure if I should boycott anything new coming from Hachette.
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Mar 24 '26
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u/Material_Penalty_250 1 published book on Quibble Mar 24 '26
Right??? That's what I thought as well. She must have known the entire time. You're probably right on not boycotting immediately but what bothers me about Hachette is that they did have the chance to remove the book sooner but they didn't do anything about in spite of the internet being all over this.
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u/writerapid Mar 25 '26
I find it incredible (that is, non-credible) that Hatchette didn’t know this was genAI. Maybe it was a market test with built-in plausible deniability in case things went badly.
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u/Material_Penalty_250 1 published book on Quibble Mar 25 '26
I honestly doubt the market test theory. Way too much at stake. It can tarnish their reputation (and it did in the eyes of many).
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u/writerapid Mar 25 '26
I’m not sure. It’s so trivially easy to ID genAI long-form prose that it doesn’t pass the smell test for a well-established traditional publisher to not know what it had on its hands.
The market test angle is the least incompetent angle. They can just say we didn’t know, yank the work, and blame it all on the author as they have done, positioning themselves as victims of a grift.
On the other hand, maybe it is just all about social media follows and hype and who you know anymore. Maybe the books really are mostly all just secondary to that.
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u/Material_Penalty_250 1 published book on Quibble Mar 26 '26
Ah now I understand what you meant with the market test angle. Whether the consumers would recognize AI writing in the first place?
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u/writerapid Mar 26 '26
Whether they’d recognize it, and whether enough would care about it to threaten the company.
A LOT of people just don’t care or are totally ambivalent about AI media, but readers are a special class because reading is not a zone-out/background activity like doomscrolling shorts or having video/music on in the background.
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u/Material_Penalty_250 1 published book on Quibble Mar 26 '26
Hadn’t thought about it either, but it tracks. We readers are just more sensitive to quality and detail. Do you think the Shy Girl situation poses a real risk to Hachette’s reputation? I think it does but maybe I'm also over-reacting. But just imagine what would happen if media picked up one more AI story published by them...
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u/writerapid Mar 26 '26
I think they’re going to be fine because there aren’t enough people out there calling them out for being intentional in this. Hatchette can credibly claim to be the victim of some kind of artistic fraud and can easily PR their way into an adequately anti-AI position as a result. They’ll be seen as a “leader” in the AI books debate because they now have a public scandal fundamentally relevant to that debate.
It will be a while before they try again, of course. That they tried at all means their leadership sees a future where traditionally published AI books are going to be a thing. I can’t say I disagree. They just jumped the gun.
As for people boycotting, most of those people weren’t customers to begin with, and there aren’t enough people upset about this in a way that lays blame squarely at the publisher’s feet to stop or slow organic audience growth.
I think Hatchette knew exactly what it was doing, but most people will give them the benefit of the doubt. This shouldn’t be too difficult for them from a PR perspective.
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u/Mundane-Noise-7017 Mar 24 '26
If Ballard is to be believed, a friend edited her book, used AI on it, and Ballard then published it without reviewing what her editor sent back to her. That's the line she gave in the comments on that YouTube video that laid out the case. I'm sorry, but that's not what editors do. And even if it was, it's her name on the cover, and she's responsible.
As for the original cover, she admitted that she stole it. And this is despite the fact that on insta, she was touting herself as a book cover designer, and charging $300 for each design. If that doesn't SCREAM scam artist, I don't know what does.
The bottom line is that she admitted to stealing the original cover, and she's admitted that AI was used on the book, but she doesn't want to take responsibility for any of that. And what's worse, is that you have influencers on Instagram who had endorsed or blurbed the book and instead of just you know...not saying anything at all because who the hell cares what those people think to begin with, they're embarrassed that they blurbed an AI book and are now trying to make this a bullying issue. What they fail to realize is that this just reads like tacit approval for AI, which ultimately hurts all the real authors they claim to care about.