South African author and PlotProse founder Coral Hart has written over 370 books since February 2025 by pairing custom prompt engineering with artificial intelligence models. The strategic turn to generative AI began as an experiment after a major publisher cancelled her traditional ghost-writing contracts in favour of automated tools.
Read: Anthropic files for historic Nasdaq IPO
The shift has proven highly lucrative: Hart estimates she has sold over one million books across 21 distinct pen names, generating more than $1 million (approx. R16.55 million) in revenue in 2026 alone.
Rather than relying on a single platform, Hart combines several large language models (LLMs) based on their specific stylistic strengths. She uses ChatGPT for dialogue generation, Anthropic’s Claude for structural plot organization, and xAI’s Grok for specialized romance scenes.
Hart emphasizes that raw LLM output yields poor narrative quality without structured guidance. Her process relies on defining the core concept, character profiles, writing style, and chapter-by-chapter outlines upfront:
- Evolving Prompt Efficiency: While initial workflows required generating text paragraph-by-paragraph, refined prompt chains now allow her to draft full 50,000-word manuscripts in a single sequence.
- Developmental Edits: Drafts undergo multiple rounds of automated developmental editing before a human proofreader conducts a final pass to eliminate AI artifacts and refine the prose.
- Commercial Scaling: While one title achieved Amazon Top 100 bestseller status, the majority of her output relies on precise market research targeting specific sub-genres.
See also
Originally established in 2020, Hart’s platform PlotProse has evolved into an educational hub and software suite designed to help independent authors build scalable, AI-assisted publishing operations.
Through PlotProse, Hart delivers over 19 annual workshops covering AI writing tools, cover design, Amazon search optimization, and marketing strategies. The group is also preparing to launch Authorythm, a specialized software platform tailored for AI-assisted authors.
The business offers full end-to-end production support, delivering complete 50,000-word manuscripts paired with editorial reviews, cover art, sales copy, and metadata, allowing authors to maintain high production volumes without relying on traditional paid advertising campaigns.
