Dear Harlequin: Nobody Asked For Your Weird, New AI Video “Microdramas”

On Monday Harlequin announced that it would partner with the AI company Dashverse using their proprietary production studio to offer 40 short-form videos “inspired” by Harlequin Romance books. These little short films, or microdramas, will be “mobile-first” and animated, and in the press release this is all framed as great news, as if this was the announcement of a product we’ve all been waiting for.

Why wouldn’t authors and readers alike, the Harlequin execs seem to be thinking, be delighted that a publisher is aligning with a partner that uses “cutting-edge technology” to promote books? What could go wrong?

Add these new book-inspired microdramas to the piles and piles of AI-generated products that no one actually wants, and that authors didn’t ask for in the first place. They’re yet another instance of a publisher spending time and money chasing the new thing, when all readers really want—all we have ever wanted—is to read good books. And most authors, if I may speak on behalf of most authors, want to be paid well and edited well and read well, and they don’t want to see their work bastardized by generative AI.

It’s particularly tough to see Harlequin frame this new partnership as a benefit for authors because “authors will receive royalties from the videos,” according to Harlequin publisher Brent Lewis. Posts on social media indicate that the authors had not been consulted before the deal was made or announced, so there was no way they could opt out. As with much new generative AI technology, corporate executives proceeded with the project without the consent of the writers whose work would actually power the output.

Wouldn’t it be better for the entire publishing ecosystem if publishers would take the time and money to put care into the editing and marketing and distribution of each and every book on their list.

This decision is extra confounding because the romance genre is booming, gaining more and more readers every year since 2020. Harlequin in particular is having a great big New York Times bestselling moment with the success of the Heated Rivalry series. Back at the end of 2025 when Heated Rivalry first took off, fans just wanted Harlequin to make sure the series was available in stores. This was a basic problem to solve; no need for generative AI.

I’ve written a lot about how there are too many books being published at once, and that editors and other book workers are therefore massively overworked and underpaid. Quantity is more compelling for corporate publishers than quality is.

This means that books can fall through the cracks; some are under-edited or under-publicized even if the people working on these books are trying their best. Wouldn’t it be better for the entire publishing ecosystem if publishers would take the time and money to put care into the editing and marketing and distribution of each and every book on their list, rather than chasing new technology?

There are so many basic problems that publishers could solve without needing to work with a partner who has invented something entirely new, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying. In the 2010s there were hundreds of book startups that promised to “disrupt” publishing, and spoiler alert: none of them did. And when publishers believed that readers wanted their reading experience to be interactive, “enhanced ebooks” were briefly en vogue. At nearly the same time, book trailers were going to be the new visual medium that would captivate readers who might not otherwise be familiar with the book. These, too, have fallen out of fashion.

It’s not the experience of reading that doesn’t work. That part isn’t broken and never was. “Some of the most powerful stories in the world already exist, they just need to be experienced in new ways,” said Sanidhya Narain, CEO and co-founder of Dashverse. As if generative AI, the thing publishers have to worry about inadvertently including in their books, could also be the key to unlocking the potential of a book. We can’t have it both ways.

On Tuesday, Harlequin’s parent company HarperCollins (also my publisher) announced that later this spring they would publish a new book by alleged couch fucker JD Vance about converting to Catholicism as an adult. Vance is currently the least popular member of the flailing Trump administration. I imagine most readers are anticipating this book just as much as new romance-inspired microdramas (not at all) but at least the Vance book has an audience in the Super PACs that will buy it in bulk…