216
coral.hart
2026 Press Kit
For press & media

# A publisher who writes.

Bestselling romance novelist. Founder of PlotProse. 216 novels across 21 pen names. The voice publishing turns to on AI — not because she apologises for the tools, but because she doesn’t.

Press & booking
info@coralhart.com
On the web
coralhart.com
Contents
Press sheet · Fact sheet · Bios · Talking points · Speaking topics
Updated
April 2026
Coral Hart Photographed for the 2026 press kit · Southern Africa
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit I · Press sheet
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Section I

# The press sheet.

One page. Everything a journalist, producer, or event booker needs to introduce Coral on the record.

01 · Press sheet One page. On the record.
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit I · Press sheet
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Press & speaking · One page

# Coral Hart.

Bestselling romance novelist. Founder of PlotProse. “A publisher who writes, not a writer who publishes.”

#### Biography · 150 words

Coral Hart wrote 216 novels across 21 pen names in 15 years and got death threats from 10,000 strangers for admitting how. The bestselling romance novelist and founder of PlotProse is now one of publishing’s most-quoted voices on AI — featured in The New York Times, NPR’s 1A, Brave New Bookshelf, and Writing With AI — not because she apologises for the tools but because she doesn’t.

She has taught more than 1,600 authors her craft-first methodology, The Coral Method, through her flagship Launchpad mentorship: one month, blank page to three published books. She wrote 96 novels the traditional way before picking up Claude. An Imbali Award winner and former Vice Chairperson of the Romance Writers of Southern Africa.

Writing is an art. Publishing is a business. I stopped being a writer a long time ago and became a publisher who writes. Coral Hart · On the record

#### Selected press

- The New York Times — Feature, Feb 2026: “Can AI Chatbots Write Emotionally Rich Romance Books?”
- NPR’s 1A / WAMU — national panel on AI in publishing, April 2026
- Brave New Bookshelf — Episodes 49 & 64, April 2026
- Writing With AI Podcast — with Fred Graver, April 2026
- Also — Indie Author Magazine, PublishDrive, Gizmodo, Futurism, Cornell Daily Sun, Jane Friedman

High-res pack at coralhart.com/press

#### Credentials

- Imbali Award winner — Romance Writers of Southern Africa. Regional equivalent of the former RITA.
- Former Vice Chair — Romance Writers of Southern Africa.
- Teaching since 2013 — craft, rapid release, market-first publishing.
- Weekly — Authors & AI Substack and show.

#### Contact

Press & booking · info@coralhart.com
Subject line: Press or Speaking inquiry.

216
Novels
published
21
Pen
names
1,600+
Authors
taught
15
Years in
publishing
Press sheet · Page 1 of 1 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit II · Fact sheet
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Section II

# The facts.

Career, business, recognition, credits, quotes. One page of numbers and one page of receipts.

02 · Fact sheet Everything quotable.
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit II · Fact sheet
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Fact sheet · At a glance

## Everything quotable,
on one page.

02
216
Novels
published
21
Pen
names
1,600+
Authors
taught
15
Years in
publishing

#### Career

- 15 years in publishing (first publication: May 2011)
- 216 novels published across 21 pen names
- 96 novels written pre-AI — the traditional way
- Pre-AI roles: trad, hybrid, indie author; editor; proofreader; blogger; cover designer; slush-pile reader at a Big Six
- Teaching writing craft publicly since 2013

#### Business

- Founder, PlotProse (plotprose.com)
- 1,600+ authors taught through PlotProse
- Creator, The Coral Method — market-first, craft-first AI-assisted publishing
- Flagship: Launchpad — one-month mentorship, blank page to three published books
- High six figures in 9 months of AI-assisted publishing · zero paid ads

#### Recognition

- Imbali Award — Romance Writers of Southern Africa. Regional equivalent of the former RITA.
- Former Vice Chairperson, Romance Writers of Southern Africa

#### Public platforms

- coralhart.com — main site
- Authors & AI Substack — weekly, coralhart.substack.com
- Authors & AI show — weekly
- plotprose.com — training & community

Fact sheet · Page 1 of 2 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit II · Fact sheet
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Fact sheet · continued

## Press credits & pull-quotes.

#### Press credits (major)

- The New York Times — feature: “Can AI Chatbots Write Emotionally Rich Romance Books?” (8 Feb 2026)
- The New York Times podcast — “Something Big Is Happening: AI Rocks the Romance Novel Industry” (13 Feb 2026)
- NPR’s 1A / WAMU — panel on AI in book publishing (22 Apr 2026)
- Brave New Bookshelf — episodes 49 & 64 (21 Apr 2026)
- Writing With AI Podcast with Fred Graver (21 Apr 2026)
- Also — Indie Author Magazine, PublishDrive, Killzoneblog, James Blatch
- Commentary in — Gizmodo, Futurism, Halifax Examiner, Aftermath, Cybernews, Gigazine, Cornell Daily Sun, Kathleen Schmidt’s Substack

#### Approved pull-quotes

- I stopped being a writer a long time ago and became a publisher who writes.
- Writing is an art. Publishing is a business.
- Readers are buying feelings, not books.
- AI can’t unlearn what it’s learned. I’m embracing this tool. I genuinely don’t think it will go away.
- We are on the hill. Get to the top of it. There’s no good reason to die on it.
- The most dangerous thing any person can be right now is afraid of AI.

#### Contact

- Press — info@coralhart.com
- Speaking — info@coralhart.com · subject: Speaking inquiry

Current as of April 2026 Full bios, talking points & topics in the complete press kit
Fact sheet · Page 2 of 2 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit III · Bios
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Section III

# The bios.

Three lengths, pre-cleared. Use whichever fits your word count — no permission required.

03 · Bios 50 · 150 · 350.
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit III · Bios
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Bios · Three lengths

## Use whichever fits.

03

All three bios are pre-cleared for use in event programmes, article intros, podcast show notes, and press introductions. No permission required — please use the version that fits your word count.

Short 50 words

Coral Hart wrote 216 novels across 21 pen names in 15 years, then got 10,000 death threats for admitting she’d used AI. The bestselling romance novelist, Imbali Award winner, and founder of PlotProse is the voice publishing turns to on AI — featured in The New York Times and NPR’s 1A.

Medium 150 words

Coral Hart wrote 216 novels across 21 pen names in 15 years and got death threats from 10,000 strangers for admitting how. The bestselling romance novelist and founder of PlotProse is now one of publishing’s most-quoted voices on AI — featured in The New York Times, NPR’s 1A, Brave New Bookshelf, and Writing With AI — not because she apologises for the tools but because she doesn’t. She has taught more than 1,600 authors her craft-first methodology, The Coral Method, through her flagship Launchpad mentorship: one month, blank page to three published books. She wrote 96 novels the traditional way before picking up Claude. An Imbali Award winner, former Vice Chairperson of the Romance Writers of Southern Africa, and on the record: “Writing is art. Publishing is a business. I stopped being a writer a long time ago and became a publisher who writes.”

Bios · Page 1 of 2 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit III · Bios
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Long 350 words

Coral Hart wrote 216 novels across 21 pen names in 15 years and got death threats from 10,000 strangers for admitting how. The bestselling romance novelist and founder of PlotProse is now one of publishing’s most-quoted voices on AI — not because she apologises for the tools but because she doesn’t.

She started in 2010, under a different name. Fifteen years and every part of the industry — traditional, hybrid, indie, ghostwriting, slush-pile reading at a Big Six, editor, proofreader, cover designer — before she ever opened Claude. Pre-AI, she wrote 96 novels the old way and won South Africa’s Imbali Award for romance writing excellence, the regional equivalent of the former RITA. She served as Vice Chairperson of the Romance Writers of Southern Africa and has been teaching writing craft since 2013, long before AI made it fashionable to do so.

In February 2025 she set herself an experiment: could she hit six figures writing AI-assisted fiction in a year with zero paid advertising? The answer came in nine months. 216 novels. 21 pen names. High six figures, no ads. The New York Times put her at the centre of the AI-and-romance conversation in February 2026 with “Can AI Chatbots Write Emotionally Rich Romance Books?” — and within 24 hours she had over 10,000 death threats, plus harassment aimed at her children. She has since appeared on NPR’s 1A, Brave New Bookshelf, and Writing With AI, and her own blog addresses the controversy head-on.

What she actually teaches — through PlotProse, her flagship one-month Launchpad mentorship, and her methodology The Coral Method — is not an AI get-rich scheme. It is the same market-first, craft-first fundamentals she has taught for over a decade: trope mapping, beat sheets, rapid release, newsletter marketing, reader psychology. More than 1,600 authors have been through her programmes. Her weekly Authors & AI Substack and show of the same name document the publishing-and-AI conversation in real time. Her signature line, on the record: “I stopped being a writer a long time ago and became a publisher who writes.”

Voice approved 22 April 2026 Permission granted for editorial reuse of any bio, full or excerpted
Bios · Page 2 of 2 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit IV · Talking points
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Section IV

# The talking points.

Approved positions, verbatim on-record language, and explicit boundaries. Pull from this for any interview, panel, or introduction.

04 · Talking points On the record.
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit IV · Talking points
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Talking points · On the record

## Approved positions,
pre-cleared for press.

04

Pull from this document for any interview, panel, press inquiry, or introduction. All quotes are verbatim from on-air appearances (April 2026) and pre-cleared for press use.

#### Key stats — all confirmed on-air April 2026

- 15 years in publishing
- 216 novels across 21 pen names — 96 pre-AI
- 1,600+ authors taught through PlotProse since 2013
- High six figures in 9 months of AI-assisted publishing — zero paid ads

- 10,000+ death threats in 24 hours after the NYT feature
- Imbali Award winner — regional equivalent of the former RITA
- Former Vice Chairperson, Romance Writers of Southern Africa
- Weekly Authors & AI Substack and show

#### What Coral will engage with — on the record

“Why do you use AI at all?”
“I look at it this way. AI can’t unlearn what it’s learned. It’s learned from my books, from all the books, from everything out there. I’m embracing this tool. I genuinely don’t think it will go away.” This is the Kindle conversation from 2010 all over again — and the same people who said eBooks would kill bookstores are now saying AI will kill authorship. She has lived through every wave of publishing disruption since Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and the self-publishing explosion.
“Isn’t AI stealing from authors?”
She makes a legal distinction the press often gets wrong: the Anthropic settlement was about pirated sources, not about whether AI training is copyright infringement. “The ruling wasn’t about the copyrights. They said the copyright was fair use, but Anthropic was in trouble because those 500,000 books were obtained through pirated websites.”
On inspiration vs. theft: “There is no original book idea in this world. There’s no trope that hasn’t been told. There’s no story that hasn’t been told. It’s how you tell it.”
Talking points · Page 1 of 3 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit IV · Talking points
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“What about the environmental impact?”
“I don’t care how much water ChatGPT uses. Netflix uses more, and so does Facebook, and so does the Instagram you’re on hurling insults at me. Before I used AI, I used about 7,000 notebooks a week. That’s paper. That’s chopping down the rainforest.”
“Are you a real writer?”
She refuses the premise. “I’m pretty sure I’m an author. I have an Imbali Award — the highest award for romance writing in my country. What is a real book? If you wrote it and it’s published, it’s a real book. Who decided the answer is different now?”
“Do you disclose AI use to readers?”
“I disclose everywhere the law and the platform require it — Amazon, and every platform that asks. There’s no requirement that I tell readers ‘I wrote this with AI’ any more than ‘I wrote this on a MacBook’ or ‘with a 2H pencil.’”
On the consequences of disclosing publicly: “The minute I did disclose it, I received about 14,000 death threats in one day. And readers didn’t know the difference. They had been reading the books and enjoying them.”
“What do you actually teach? Isn’t it a get-rich-quick scheme?”
No. The methodology is the same market-first, craft-first fundamentals she has taught since 2013: trope mapping, beat sheets, rapid release, newsletter marketing, reader psychology. “If writing books was a get-rich scheme, I’d be living on an island. It’s not easy.”
Her Launchpad mentorship is live, month-long, and explicitly about accountability. “I am there in person literally kicking their asses to do the work. There is no magic bullet. There’s no magic system.”
“Will AI replace authors?”
No, but it will sort them. “Good books will always float to the top. A reader will read one rubbish book by an author and never read them again. Successful authors know how to build a bridge from their books to their readers.”
Talking points · Page 2 of 3 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit IV · Talking points
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#### Signature lines — verbatim, encourage hosts to use

- I stopped being a writer a long time ago and became a publisher who writes.
- Writing is an art. Publishing is a business.
- Claude is my ghostwriter. I am the creative director.
- Readers are buying feelings, not books.
- Before I used AI, I used about 7,000 notebooks a week.
- We are on the hill. Get to the top of it. There’s no good reason to die on it.
- The most dangerous thing any person can be right now is afraid of AI.
- Your voice is your golden ticket. Protect it.

#### What Coral will not engage with

- Social media pile-ons or point-by-point replies to critics
- Revealing all of her pen names — safety / doxing risk after the NYT fallout
- The premise that she is “not a real writer” — she declines the framing every time
- Individual client or publisher names from her ghostwriting work
- Comparisons of specific authors’ writing quality
- “Can you prove a human wrote this?” hot takes — defers to Derek Newton / Verify My Writing for detection-tool questions
- Political framings of AI beyond industry-specific policy

#### Topics Coral is happy to go deep on

- Craft and story structure (Romancing the Beat, Fichtean Curve, why Save the Cat is not universal)
- Reader psychology and trope-mapping
- Rapid release and newsletter marketing (pre- and post-AI)
- The economics of indie vs. traditional publishing
- What the Kindle & Kindle Unlimited transitions taught us

- The Anthropic lawsuit — piracy vs. training, the technical distinction
- Running a portfolio of pen names
- Writer-to-publisher mindset shift
- What to say to new authors starting now
- Ghostwriting at scale & when to hand off

Voice approved 22 April 2026 Signature lines pre-cleared for editorial reuse
Talking points · Page 3 of 3 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit V · Speaking topics
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Section V

# The speaking topics.

Five bookable keynotes. Virtual versions available for all. Booking via info@coralhart.com — subject: Speaking inquiry.

05 · Speaking Five topics.
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit V · Speaking topics
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Speaking · Bookable keynotes

## Five keynotes. Any stage.

05

For publishing conferences, author conventions, industry forums, and craft-focused events. Virtual keynotes available for all topics.

#### Formats available

Keynote · 30–60 min Panel / fireside Workshop · 60–120 min Podcast · radio · print
01
For publishing execs, agents, associations, industry conferences

### Don’t Die on the Hill — What Kindle Taught Us About AI

In 2010, authors who refused to move to eBooks said they were protecting the craft. Fifteen years later, the hill they were dying on is a parking lot. Coral was there for Kindle. She was there for Kindle Unlimited. She is living through AI now — and has 10,000 death threats to prove she hasn’t stayed quiet about it. What the last three waves of disruption actually taught us about who survives, who gets left behind, and what “embracing the tool” looks like in practice for working writers.

Takeaways The pattern repeats; the hill-dying authors never win; the real question is not whether to learn but how fast.
02
For authors, indie publishing conferences, writing-intensive workshops, marketing teams

### Readers Are Buying Feelings, Not Books

The single most important sentence Coral teaches her Launchpad cohort is this: readers do not buy books — they buy feelings. They are signing up to escape reality, and their loyalty is to the emotion, not the author. A market-first, trope-first approach to fiction — before a single word is written — is what separates authors who make a living from authors who write books nobody reads.

Takeaways Marketing is not what happens after the book is written; trope-mapping vs. idea-first writing; the commercial sofa you cannot deliver on a scooter.
Speaking · Page 1 of 2 coralhart.com
Coral Hart · 2026 Press Kit V · Speaking topics
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03
For authorship conferences, publishing panels, literary festivals, MFA programmes

### The Publisher Who Writes

Coral Hart does not call herself a writer anymore. She is a publisher who writes — creative director, developmental editor, line editor, marketer, and CEO of a portfolio of pen names. It is the role working authors will actually have in the next decade. What that looks like in practice, what it demands of craft, and why the lone-writer-in-a-garret model is already gone, whether we want it gone or not.

Takeaways The expanded role of the modern author; creative direction vs. drafting; how this frees craft rather than eroding it.
04
For author associations, women-in-publishing panels, mental-health-in-publishing forums, industry ethics events

### On the Record — Surviving the Backlash

When The New York Times featured Coral in February 2026, her inbox registered more than 10,000 death threats within 24 hours. Her children were harassed online. Her pen names were targeted for doxing. This is the talk she wishes she had heard before going public. What she learned about her industry, her peers, and herself — and what colleagues owe each other when the pile-on starts.

Takeaways Going public is a strategic decision, not a moral one; how to preserve safety while still speaking honestly; what authors and associations should — and should not — do when one of their own is under attack.
05
For working authors, writing-craft workshops, craft-focused conferences, mentorship programmes

### The Coral Method — Craft-First AI-Assisted Publishing

The Coral Method is not “ask Claude to write a book.” It is 15 years of publishing craft — trope mapping, beat sheets, story structure, character wounds, rapid release — applied with AI as a tool, not a replacement. A walk-through of the actual methodology behind 216 novels, taught live inside her Launchpad mentorship, and the five rules that separate authors who use AI well from authors who hate the output.

Takeaways The role of craft in AI-assisted work; the five-bullet-chapter outline rule; why asking beats telling; when to let AI leave the building.
Based in Southern Africa · travels internationally Booking · info@coralhart.com · subject: Speaking inquiry
Speaking · Page 2 of 2 coralhart.com