AI-written books are outselling human authors in some cases

David Lesondak waved his hand cheerily toward the room where he sees patients every day.

In the middle of the room sits a flat padded table, similar to one you’d find in a chiropractor’s office. A desk is shoved into one corner, a bookshelf in another. Many of the books bear Lesondak’s name.

For the past three decades, Lesondak has studied the body’s fascia, the connective tissue that wraps around everything underneath the skin and ties it all together. It was long dismissed as a less important part of the body, but fascia is now considered trendy.

“Fascia seems to be trending everywhere,” Lesondak marveled. “People are jumping on the fascia bandwagon, but the science behind it explains a lot of things that have been known to work for years that didn’t seem to have a solid scientific or medical explanation. Yoga, for example, tai chi, different forms of manual therapy, manual medicine, bodywork, employ fascial approaches that were hard to quantify or explain.”

That bandwagon led Lesondak to write his first book aimed at a general audience. The book flows between providing medical information and anecdotes about patient experiences — with names changed — to explain how pain is felt throughout the body and educate readers on their symptoms.

It reads like a book written by someone with experience and knowledge. But Lesondak, who is one of the experts in his field, found himself facing surprise competition when his book was finally published: A book with a blue-green cover and a woman’s figure, authored by a woman he’d never heard of, Talia Cantarel.

“I know a lot of the players, I know a lot of the researchers and a lot of the writers,” Lesondak said. “I can find no credible information that they’re actually a real person with a practice.”

Cantarel, who has authored several books, claims to be a wellness advocate and research enthusiast, as well as a “certified holistic coach.” Her book, “The 28-Day Fascia Reset Method,” is an encouraging step-by-step program with a stated goal of easing chronic pain. It features recommended exercises and anecdotes, though it’s unclear who the characters with names like Maggie and Diane are.

Case of the Missing Author

11 Investigates tried to get in contact with Cantarel, but could find no information about her outside of her Amazon author page. Her headshot was flagged by AI detection software and featured several irregularities, including mismatched earrings, offset lips and marks on her ears and neck near her hairline, which are all known errors produced by AI.

The text, too, was flagged by AI detectors. WPXI submitted six sample pages to Pangram, the industry-leading text analyzer, which determined with high confidence that none of the 1,400 words were written by a human.

Lesondak said Cantarel’s book outsells his four to one.

By the time Lesondak sat down for his interview, Cantarel’s book had been joined by half a dozen others. Most of them featured the same blue-green background, the same figure of a woman on the front cover and the same title.

One book, written by a Clara Whitmore, cites a nonexistent reference list and gives a shout-out to “Names of early readers” and “Name of Reviewer.” Whitmore has also published books on subjects ranging from breadmaking to dog training and plant foraging.

Another book, authored by Sophie Caldwell, is littered with misspellings and formatting errors, as well as two near-identical copyright pages.

Becoming More Common

AI use in writing has been growing for years. Earlier this year, a study by computer scientists found that 25% of all online book sales were titles that had significant AI authorship.

AI texts have traditionally been more common in fiction books like crime, romance and sci-fi novels where computers can draw from vast libraries of characters and plot lines to generate a story that appeals to a hungry audience.

Duquesne University Professor Dr. Jim Purdy said AI use has also appeared in the nonfiction world in areas like travel guides for the same reasons.

Purdy said many AI-generated books are independently published and printed on demand.

“There have been stories in the news about controversies for authors who have gone through more reputable publishers,” he said, citing Mia Ballard’s “Shy Girl,” which was pulled from shelves and canceled earlier in 2026 after readers claimed the text was generated by AI software.

He said there were greater concerns, like an AI-feedback cycle where future AI-generated books draw from each other instead of human authors.

He, like Lesondak, expressed concerns that humans would get incorrect information from fictitious authors that could lead to real harm. Lesondak pointed out that Cantarel’s book hallucinated a nonexistent study and provided incorrect information about how a type of connective tissue worked on the same page.

Purdy also said there were legal questions governments have not yet wrangled with.

“Can a non-human agent commit plagiarism?” Purdy asked. “These are the kind of questions we’re going to have to decide in an age of AI.”

Questions for the Book Trade

Cantarel’s book was published by Rosali Publishing, which was founded by UK-based artist, author and life coach Estelle Rosenfeld, who goes by Estelle Rose professionally.

Rosenfeld did not respond to four different requests for an interview or comment ahead of this article’s publication. However, she published two more Cantarel books during the two weeks this article was being written and edited.

“It’s not going to discourage me from future books,” Lesondak said. I have several ideas, and they’re again they’re books that I don’t see quite out there, and that’s always of interest to me. … I think it’s really hard for AI to make things come alive for the reader.”

When reached for comment, Amazon pulled down most of the books WPXI sent to the company’s press team, but not Cantarel’s.

“We are committed to a bookstore that readers love and publishers and authors trust, with multiple safeguards we continuously strengthen to protect their experience,” a spokesman wrote back, pointing to guidelines that require authors and publishers to disclose when a book contains AI-generated material. “We continually monitor our store and enhance these protections as technology and the publishing industry evolve.”

Barnes & Noble responded to an email with a lengthy statement saying it does not stock self-published books in its physical stores except in exceptional circumstances.

“The stock in our stores is deliberately curated and subject to scrutiny at the level of the individual title,” a spokesperson said. “AI-written books do not get through this.”

The statement went on to say that the company is developing AI detection tools and the titles submitted to it were being analyzed to figure out why they slipped through filters online.

Thriftbooks, where 11 Investigates purchased Caldwell and Whitmore’s books, did not respond to a request for comment.

“I think what will happen is that we’ll kind of settle into a place where there are some kind of regulations on the books,” Purdy said. “So there, in other words, there will be penalties for booksellers that are just pushing out nothing but AI slop text and making money from that. … How quickly that comes about and who controls that, I don’t know.”

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