Hachette yanks horror novel Shy Girl from shelves after accusations of AI use

Accusations of AI use began cropping up around Ballard’s book (about a woman who is hired to act like a “pet” by a wealthy man) a few months back, not long after the author initially self-published it. (The book was pulled for the first time after Hachette decided to pick it up.) Those analytical efforts included Reddit threads, and then a very in-depth YouTube video, that looked through large portions of the novel for evidence of slopitude. Ballard herself responded to the accusations at the time that the video in question went online, claiming that she wrote the book entirely by herself—but then had an associate do large amounts of editing and formatting on it, suggesting that this unnamed person may have run the book through AI in order to do so. (The Times has a statement from Ballard this week in which she says something similar, although she refused to go into details due to pursuing legal action in the matter, writing that, “This controversy has changed my life in many ways and my mental health is at an all time low and my name is ruined for something I didn’t even personally do.”)

Shy Girl was one of the first books published under Hachette’s new Run For It imprint, a new listing dedicated entirely to horror novels. (Per NielsenIQ’s BookData information, the book has sold about 1,800 copies in the U.K.) The publisher’s zero-tolerance response has been a strong, and, if we’re being honest, an encouraging one; the publisher noted that it requires authors to disclose whether they’re working with AI on any part of anything they publish, while a spokesperson told the Times that “Hachette remains committed to protecting original creative expression and storytelling.”