I will confess right here and now that I haven’t been an AI enthusiast. I’m just not crazy about a computer replacing a writer’s inspiration and craft. My concern about using AI when writing is not unmerited. Over the last couple of years, a glut of AI-generated scam books—including biographies, summaries, and even copycats—inundated e-commerce retailers.

Then it got worse.

Authors like publishing authority, Jane Friedman, discovered a handful of books on Amazon and Goodreads with their names listed as the author. The only problem: they didn’t write them. In Friedman’s case, someone probably gave AI a prompt, like how to write and publish an e-book quickly or how to craft a bestselling e-book, and the book pretty much wrote itself. Poorly, as it turns out.

While the books falsely attributed to Friedman were eventually removed from circulation after she communicated her fury in a 2023 blog post, there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of AI-generated books for sale on distribution platforms like Amazon. The publishing giant is trying to address the problem of people using AI when writing by bringing in a combination of machine learning, automation, and human reviewers to sniff out AI-generated content and kick it (and the books it’s in) off the website.

Amazon has also adopted a series of author guidelines, particularly within its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program, to contend with this truly regrettable rise of AI-generated content on its platform. Authors and publishers using KDP are now required to disclose whether any part of their content (text, images, or translations) is AI-generated. Lie about that, and you risk having Amazon refuse to sell your book. Of course, disclose it, and you could wind up with the same result. Better to avoid the AI content altogether.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t use AI to help with the creation of your book. Any kind of spelling and grammar assistance is fine. Ditto for any AI-assisted ideas you might come up with. When I googled this matter, the AI summary (ironic, I know) indicated that “Amazon distinguishes between AI-generated content (created by AI tools) and AI-assisted content (created by humans with AI tools used for editing or brainstorming). Disclosure is only required for AI-generated content.”

In short, you can definitely tap AI for inspiration. At least two of my clients writing fiction have used AI to come up with some terrific storylines, along with research to help supply authenticity to their prose. They’ve also asked AI to generate marketing and sales copy for their books. I’m sure using AI when writing sample endorsements and reviews to send to those people you’re trying to get quotes from would be brilliant.

So, I’m coming around. I’m curious to find out what AI has to say about the novel I’ve been noodling for way too long. If nothing else, I’m sure it will be a terrific jumping off point, one that might finally convince me to take the plunge.

I’ll keep you posted.