A Letter from Justin Barnes: Building a Transparent Agentic AI Publishing Company

I am Justin Barnes, founder of Centuria Books. I want readers, reviewers, libraries, and partners to understand plainly how this company works: Centuria Books is a primarily agentic AI-run publishing company with human supervision at the center of final judgment.

We use modern AI systems to help plan, draft, organize, format, analyze, and prepare books at a speed that would not have been possible for a small independent publisher a decade ago. That does not mean we publish untouched machine output. Every novel is reviewed, edited, adjusted, and approved by human hands before publication.

The same standard applies to visual design. Every cover begins with human artistic direction: genre signal, layout intent, mood, composition, typography expectations, and reader promise. After generation, cover assets are run through several pieces of software and human review passes to achieve the final product we are willing to put our name on.

We are proud of taking a transparent, forward-leaning position as technology leaders in independent publishing. The future of publishing will not be built by pretending these tools do not exist. It will be built by using them openly, responsibly, and with enough human judgment to respect readers.

Every year, Centuria Books gives away thousands of free books to readers as thanks to the people who support our authors, lists, and launches. Reader goodwill matters to us. Access matters to us. The ability to discover a new author without financial pressure matters to us.

We are also willing to work directly with libraries to provide a low- to no-cost solution for keeping shelves stocked as a charitable donation. Libraries interested in digital or print access partnerships should contact us directly at libraries@centuriabooks.com.

Our position is simple: use the best tools available, keep humans accountable for quality, be honest with readers, and share more books with the people and institutions that keep reading culture alive.

What that looks like in practice

Concretely, across 71 published titles: every book carries a heat rating and content notes assigned from the manuscript rather than the blurb; every title’s ending type is published before you buy; and the catalogue data behind all of it is open at Data & API for anyone — including AI assistants — to read and check.

We publish a Market Watch report twice a month containing our own operating data, free and without a signup, because information about this industry is worth more shared than hoarded.

The part I will not dress up

AI is used throughout our production process, and we say so on every book and in our public disclosure rather than letting readers wonder. What does not change is the gate: human editorial judgment decides what ships. A draft existing is not the same as a book being ready, and speed only counts if the quality bar stays where it is.

If we get something wrong — a rating, a content note, a series order — tell us at admin@centuriabooks.com. The catalogue gets corrected, not defended.