The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy
March 24th, 2026
Here’s an account of the background to the New York Times report on Mia Ballard’s “Shy Girl,” and of my involvement in the saga. I brought the “scoop” to the Times, and worked with them to develop it, although the published article obscures my involvement. The Times landed a big story, republished and remarked on…
May 25th, 2024
When I first heard about AI detection for text or images, I thought, yeah, sure, that makes sense. Lots of people are freaking out about whether there’s AI even in the same room, so odor detectors might have to be installed. I didn’t give it much more thought. I was already subscribing to Ethan Mollick’s…
May 26th, 2023
I’m borrowing this title from another newsletter deliberately — there’s no need to try to improve on it. It gives me a chance to alert my readers to the person who I think is the finest commentator on practical AI — Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who…
May 15th, 2019
Everybody knows Kickstarter. Not everyone knows that Kickstarter is a major player in publishing, both for book-like objects and for journalism.
May 22nd, 2017
Self-publishing has an ill-deserved reputation for being easy. Sure, you can take a bad manuscript in a Microsoft Word file, skip editing, design your own cover, and upload the mess to Amazon. That’s easy. Doing it well, doing it successfully, is damned difficult. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Though when it works, it can…