If you are reading this, you likely have interest in writing and sharing your own books. Or you may be a book publisher, where you print & distribute other people’s books. Or you may just have a passing interest in books. No matter the case, there is one crucial thing you need to know about, as it’s sweeping the book market: AI, also known as artificial intelligence.
Used in everything from photographs, to social media, to even advertising, it’s no secret that AI is a booming industry. The majority of people are using AI in their daily lives. A few people are even using it for companionship. Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay. But just because it’s such a powerful tool, doesn’t mean that it’s perfect for every single task. When it comes to books, when should we use it, and what should we use it for? To get a better understanding, we should look at the steps that are taken to create a book, and analyze them one by one to see what works.
The Steps to Book Creation and AI
When you first do research for your book, you may have to do some preliminary research on the subject you are writing about. AI can do the research itself, but may get certain details wrong. Instead, try asking for links to articles about the subject.
When it’s time to write the book, AI can be used to help, but shouldn’t be used to write the book for you. AI is a great tool to use to draft the general structure of your book (such as mapping out the general plot beats), or get a few suggestions on how to continue the story. This is especially useful in case you have a serious bout of writer’s block. You should almost never use AI to write the book for you. The way that AI and other learning models write out sentences tend to be mechanical and choppy, it’s more like a buddy that you can go to for help.
When you need to format or revise your book, AI is also a great tool to use. This sort of logic-based approach to writing is what AI excels at, you can run a manuscript through an AI and it will notify you of typos or of ways to change the formatting of your book so that it’s easier to read.
When you need a cover for a book, especially if you are a beginner author with a limited budget, AI is a perfect tool to use. With AI, you can create a cover that’s eye-catching and very close to professional quality in the span of minutes.
When it’s time to list your book online, AI unfortunately can’t make a listing for you. Thankfully, it is still a great resource to use if you are having trouble even beginning to list your book. It can offer suggestions on what services to list your book on and can guide you through the process of listing, telling you what options to click on, and where. A few storefronts (such as Amazon) also have different options on their listing services that can fill out select information for you, though you should always double-check what it says.
And finally, when it’s time to market your book, AI can’t market for you, but it can offer solutions and ideas for you to market your own book, many of which are novel and effective. Thus, it still serves as a great resource to use.
The Caveat
One thing to keep in mind, though: AI isn’t perfect. Nobody is. It’s trained off human-written, human-created data, and is attempting to process them much like a human would. And as humans, we make mistakes. In the past, AI used to be much more egregious with these mistakes, often dubbed “hallucinations” by AI enthusiasts. The initial wave of Google’s “AI Overview” feature contained data trained off reddit, so sarcastic joke answers would slip through the cracks and be presented as fact. A few of these overviews have even suggested viewers add school glue to pizza (to “prevent the cheese from sliding off”), and to eat rocks. Many of these hallucinations have been patched out, but there’s still a chance they may pop up again. It’s very important to double-check everything an AI gives you, or at least take it as a suggestion. Think of it like group brainstorming: You are bouncing ideas back and forth between other people to see what sticks.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the average person is very cautiously optimistic about AI, and it may be a turn-off to some. According to studies done by the Pew Medical Center, more than half of all U.S. adults think that the rise in AI will ultimately lead to fewer jobs being available. Another study, conducted by Stanford, shows that an increasing number of people are more optimistic about the future of AI, with 34% of people reporting being “excited” about the future of AI, up 12% of the previous year. At the same time, however, 64% of people in the US reported being “nervous” about AI, a number that is also rising.
Yet despite the reservations, people continue to use it: According to the same study, 86% of surveyed college students use it, and even 61% of the faculty surveyed reported using it, too. Most people involved in creative fields, such as the visual arts and creative writing, have much stronger reservations about AI due to the nature of how datasets are scraped: often without prior permission, and often pulling exclusively from one or two sources instead of a transformative blend of many sources. Many of these people even see the use of AI as tantamount to plagiarism (despite legislative systems ruling otherwise).
This is not to say AI is bad, not at all: AI, like many other programs, are a tool first and foremost. Using AI in limited amounts is not only perfectly acceptable but can save tons of time and money. Ultimately though, it’s up to you to know your audience. It depends on the kind of book you are writing and the type of people you are writing for. For example, a non-fiction research book with an AI cover and passages written with AI would do well with tech enthusiasts, and AI may even be a big selling point for them given how contemporary it is. But for a fiction book (particularly one with a strong appeal to other authors), it may be best to keep AI in the research and drafting stages.
Ole Reißmann is the director of AI based in Germany’s Spiegel-Gruppe. In his words, you need to consider AI from the start & carefully examine all steps. This is where the opportunities lie. It’s not one big magic button, but many small magical buttons. With this, you can save countless amounts of time.
Written by Connor Mayhorn
ChatGPT was used for additional research for this article, along with articles and studies linked above.