On the future of writing - and Unreported Truths
No, I'm not going anywhere (for a while). But as AI cuts the cost of writing almost to zero, I am thinking more than ever about how best to work for you.
What happens to writers — and journalism — when the cost of writing falls to zero?
We’re about to find out.
Artificial intelligence engines can now write on almost any topic at a level that will satisfy most readers. They tell stories and make arguments. And they produce faster and more cheaply than any human writer can.1
With writing now effectively free, the amount of writing has exploded.
The book database company Bowker reported in March that 3.5 million books were self-published in 2025 — up 40 percent from 2.5 million in 2024. AI-created stories, articles, and posts account for much of what users see on Substack and X too.
Welp.
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Even as the competition for readers is fiercer than ever, sales of nonfiction books are in free fall. In Britain, they dropped 23 percent from 2019 to 2025. American trends are just as bad. The nonfiction that does sell is typically self-help or celebrity memoir.
This trend has several overlapping explanations: phone distraction and addiction; the excitement (for better or worse) of the daily news cycle; a secular fall in literacy; the rise of podcasting. The sheer volume of writing may hurt too; the paradox of too much choice can discourage people from choosing at all.
I hear this myself. The top reason Unreported Truths readers offer for canceling paid subscriptions is that they have more than they can read and want to cut back. (Other reasons include economic anxiety and dislike for articles critical of President Trump.)
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(I can’t do this work without you. I hope you will support it.)
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So what happens now?
Fortunately, Unreported Truths is still on solid ground. As you know, almost all new UT articles are free (Friday’s piece on the left’s contempt for men was a rare exception).
Still, I am conscious that Substack is only getting more competitive. Some writers now acknowledge using AI engines to “help” with their work — so they can write more, or more frequently.
I will not.
Last year, I promised not to use AI to write Unreported Truths articles. I have kept that pledge. If anything, I have become more militant about it, because I fear using AI to research or outline would inevitably bleed into my actual writing.
My main goal is to keep finding stories you aren’t seeing anywhere else, written with a style you can’t get anywhere else. I also want to do more podcasts, live events, and ideally even in-person events occasionally. The Unreported Truths audience is big but scattered, but I’d like to try. We are a community, and that community is worth fostering. (Oh yeah, and a merchandise store. My daughter finally sold me. Now it’s her job to set it up.)
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(A merchandise store. With T-shirts. Maybe not this T-shirt, though. If they come for me I’ll deny having posted it!)
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Ironically, I also want to diversify my writing with more long-form pieces, despite the tough market.
One reason I decided to write The Fatherhood Manifesto (available for pre-order on Kindle, coming as an audiobook and physical booklet on June 7): I realized I hadn’t written anything over 10,000 words long — basically, a long magazine article — in almost five years. From 2008 until 2021, I wrote 14 books.
Substack is a great outlet for pieces from 500 to 2,000 words, but long pieces work better on paper or ebook form. If the manifesto sells well, I may expand it into a full-length book. I still haven’t forgotten the drug book I polled you on last year, either.
Written well, books offer information in a depth and a harmony that no Substack article or even series can match. And they last. New readers still contact me regularly about Tell Your Children, which is now more than seven years old.
So, for the moment, I believe AI has not changed my fundamental relationship with you (my value proposition, as a consultant might say).
You are here to read me, my own reporting and insights and style, not an AI-generated version of me. And enough of you will still pay for my words to keep me from having to use software to speed and cheapen the writing process.
As long as you feel that way, I will keep working for you — without AI, and no matter how competitive the landscape gets.
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(And if that matters to you, you know what to do.)
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If you use these engines, you’ve seen this reality firsthand. If you haven’t, here’s all the proof you need: top universities are returning to blue-book examinations because professors can no longer tell if their students are using AI to write papers and essays. In other words, AI can now write as well as students at schools like Harvard.
👏👏👏 As a writer myself, I am so heartened to read this post. And as a reader, I am grateful for your commitment!
Keep up the great work — that YOUR brain is doing! It is much appreciated!
You are the only email in my inbox that I read... because you don't write too much and whatever topics you bring up are important and interesting. I am sad that AI is taking over writing. You can always tell if its a person or not doing the writing - I hands down prefer real people.