Just write; AI-proof skills; Wikipedia on the brink: Newsletter 8 July 2026

Newsletter 159. Learn to write and you’ll never be bored. Plus, Simon & Schuster puts self-publishing in its pocket, Hachette unionizes, three people to follow, and three books to read.

Endlessly diverting

What do you like to do?

Play golf? It’s torment, from what people tell me, but it’s an enjoyable challenge.

Plant a garden?

Build with Legos?

Do community theater?

For me, nothing is more enjoyable than writing.

Every piece of writing is a challenge. Who is the audience? What do I want them to believe? How can I convince them?

I have at my disposal every word I’ve ever read. That’s way more options than the gardeners or Lego builders.

I can write long paragraphs on one-word sentences. I can ask rhetorical questions. I can cite numbers. Whatever I deploy to solve the writing problem, it’s something no one has ever written before.

Because I see every writing job as a challenge I can solve with the infinite variety of writing methods, every job is fun.

Write a book about what I know? Fun.

Write a book in someone else’s voice to accomplish their goals — that is, ghostwrite? Pretty interesting.

Write an email that persuades someone to work with me? That’s a fun little task.

Write marketing copy? Short, punchy, catchy. Yes, bring it on.

Write a report about survey data? That demands making numbers interesting. That’s a cool job, for sure.

Write a comment on social media? Hmm, has to be very succinct. What an interesting challenge.

I like naming things. I like seeing and explaining patterns. I like changing people’s minds. I like words in ones, twos, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books. I like all of it.

Do I really get to do this for a living? It’s hard to believe.

I use tools to automate the drudgery of this work, just as I’ve always used a spell-checker.

But I see no reason to have a machine write anything, whether it’s a book chapter or a LInkedIn comment or an email.

Why would I let a machine do that when I could have the fun of doing it myself?

News for writers and others who think

Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books used to be the imprint for mass market paperbacks, a format that’s been phased out. So they’ve repurposed it as an imprint for self-published authors. Given S&S’s distribution power, this is a big deal. (Publisher’s Weekly, subscriber link)

Employers are using AI to extract workers’ expertise. Of course they are. Once this happens to you, do they need you any more? Rafe Needleman explains.

Counterpoint: Zeynep Tufekci says AI lacks judgment — and that’s what’s going to save our jobs. (gift link)

MIT Media Lab researchers conducted EEGs to monitor the brains of three groups of essay writers: one using ChatGPT, one using Google, and one writing without the aid of tools. ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”

Do you trust Tesla’s full-self driving? I don’t. And neither do these insiders at Tesla.

AI is smarter because of Wikipedia. And, not coincidentally, Wikipedia is under severe pressure. (gift link)

Publishing is under severe economic pressure — editors are asked to hold it together even as their compensation remains limited. That’s why the editors at book publisher Hachette have just voted to unionize, the largest editorial union in the book business. (gift link)

Three people to follow

Jonathan Goodman , author of Unhinged Habits

Nicky Mee , meme queen of proofreading fails

Mark Henninger , AI geek and celebrator of all that is human

Three books to read

A Miscellany of Weird and Wonderful Facts for Curious Humans Who Have Nothing Better to Do Than Read (You know who you are.) by Jess Zafarris and Shannon Miller (Media Lab Books, 2026). Don’t waste your time scrolling social media. Waste it with this book.

The Invisible Interface: How AI Turns Intentions into Actions—and Who Wins by Harry Glorikian (Ideapress, 2026). What does the world look like when AI is the primary platform? This distinguished author shows you . . . and tells you what your company should do about it.

Superskills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI by Rahim Hirji (Kogan Page, 2026). Curiosity, change readiness, big picture thinking, empathy, global adaptability, principled innovation, and augmented mindset. Learn these, and you’ll be mastering the AIs, not being replaced by them.