Should I Use AI On My Book?

Over the course of the last couple of years, we have heard plenty of questions surrounding AI usage and self-publishing. Can I get AI to edit my book? Can AI do my cover design? Should I use AI? 

Of course, as AI has evolved so have the conversations surrounding it. The question is no longer whether AI can help you with your publication, but rather should you use AI on your publication. In this article, we’re going to look into the implications of AI and publishing and what the attitudes towards AI in publishing are. 

What are the Attitudes towards AI in Publishing? 

The attitudes towards AI in publishing typically vary from scepticism from some, to entire rejection from others. The main arguments against AI include the threat to creativity, low quality and ethical concerns. 

Threat To Creativity 

Human creativity is at the heart of the publishing industry. For many publishing professionals, readers, and writers, AI poses a threat to human creativity. As reported by Capitol Technology University, “algorithms trained on existing works often prioritise popular trends and styles, which can discourage originality and innovation.” There have also been significant concerns about job displacement in the publishing industry, as AI-generated content can pose a direct threat, with the Bookseller reporting a rise in the number of illustrators losing work to Generative AI. 

Quality 

AI-generated content often lacks the nuance and depth that human writers bring to their work. Both AI’s writing style and the quality of the services AI can offer is a significantly lower standard than what a human can offer. As a result of this, the proliferation of AI-generated books is flooding the market with low-quality content, which human authors are forced to compete against. Simply put by The Bookseller: “Generative AI writing is not good writing.”

Ethical Concerns 

Ethical concerns vary from both the environmental effects of AI, to how AI utilises its data, which can include the theft of authors’ work to train LLM models, for instance, for there have been cases of AI ‘learning’ and replicating audiobook actors’ voices without their knowledge or consent. It also raises the questions about authorship and originality: is a book truly authored by a person who inputs prompts into an AI system, or by the AI itself? 

As a result of these ethical concerns, many readers, authors and publishing professionals steer clear of reading AI-generated content or using AI in their work. 

Case Study: Society of Authors Human Authored Campaign 

As a result of the rise of AI-generated content, the Society of Authors began a campaign: the Human Authored Logo Scheme. On their page, they say “readers who value the skill, empathy and imagination it takes to craft an original work should be able to clearly distinguish from these AI-generated content. Authors need to showcase and protect their creative labour whilst being paid fairly for it.” 

What Are The Risks of Using AI on My Book? 

The truth is that using AI to write or perform services on your book is a risk. The risks include the production of a lower quality publication, risk of your book being stolen by AI, as well as limiting your book’s opportunities with retailers, competitions, and limiting your readership. 

Risk: AI Book Theft

As discussed, there have been countless cases of AI book theft, where the models have utilised books put through AI to train future AI models. According to a Cambridge study, close to two-thirds of novelists say they know their work has been used to train AI Large Language Models (LLMs) without permission or payment. This same study cites that 39% of novelists say their income has already taken a hit from generative AI.

The concerns over AI book theft led to thousands of authors (including big names such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Phillipa Gregory and Richard Osman) to publish Don’t Steal This Book, an intentionally blank protest book, according to the Guardian. 

Putting your book through AI, whether to create a cover design, or for editing, could lead to your writing being replicated and stolen without your consent.   

Risk: Limiting Your Book’s Opportunities with Retailers and Competitions

Many retailers, such as Amazon KDP, Ingram Spark, Apple Books and Barnes & Noble Press need you to disclose if any generative AI has been used in the production or writing of a book or the cover design before making a book for sale. Such declarations are likely to become more common as consumers seek to differentiate AI-generated content. This may limit the number of retailers who want to stock your book, especially in physical bookshops. 

There have also been plenty of cases where books have been pulled from literary prizes because of AI use, such as the cases reported in The Independent, The Guardian and The New York Times, with many of these awards closing submissions to books which have had AI used in the writing or publishing process. 

Risk: Limiting Your Readership 

Many readers are against the use of AI in the publishing industry and, as a result, will not read books that have used AI in the production process. This means that using AI will inevitably lead to a limited readership. 

AI and Publishing Services 

Let’s have a look into different steps of the writing and publishing process, where AI can be useful and where its limitations lie. 

Can I Use AI to Write a Book? 

Nowadays, you can use AI to write a book. There are, in fact, AI writing software which will write a book for you. Whilst some authors find AI useful for planning, writing a whole book with Generative AI isn’t recommended, with a study from Cambridge found that 97% of novelists were “extremely negative” about AI writing whole novels, or even short sections (with 87% being “extremely negative” for this purpose). Books written by AI are often easily identifiable, and, as a result of this, many of your readers will know AI wrote your book, which may deter them from finishing it and incur negative reviews. 

Furthermore, as previously stated, retailers ask you to identify if AI was used in the production of your book. Having used AI to write a book means retailers may be less likely to stock your book, and readers less likely to purchase it. 

Can I Use AI To Edit My Book? 

AI tools such as Grammarly can be useful for identifying simple corrections, such as typos and grammatical errors, however, its scope for editorial work is far more limited than what a human editor can offer. Authors should also be cautious of putting their work into Generative AI, as of course there have been cases of authors’ work being used without their consent to train AI LLM models. 

The Generative AI Cambridge study reveals that “8% of authors said they use AI for editing text written without AI. However, many find editing to be a deeply creative process, and would never want AI involved. Almost half (43%) of novelists felt “extremely negative” about using AI for editing text.” 

There are plenty of reasons why people feel so negative about using generative AI for editing. 

1. Losing your voice: using AI to edit can actually weaken your writing style, as AI models have a particular ‘voice’ and, when they make suggestions, what they often suggest detracts from your authentic voice and moves it towards AI’s more robotic and very identifiable one.
2. Inability to infer meaning and understand context: AI also cannot infer meaning or understand context, which can lead to it flagging ‘errors’ that aren’t actually incorrect, or making rewording suggestions that do not fit in that context.
3. Legal safety: though AI can detect plagiarism and may be able to reproduce information about legal hurdles, it will miss other issues. These could include instances of copyright, slander and libel. Again, it all comes down to real understanding and context. Though your editor may not take personal responsibility for fixing or removing legally problematic content themselves, they will flag it to you for you to address. There are also growing ethical concerns with data bias, transparency and copyright with using AI software itself, which is not a problem when you go to a human editor.
4. Limited Editorial Direction from AI: on their Instagram, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) pointed out that “AI can offer feedback, but its responses are shaped by the questions you ask and the direction you give it. A human editor brings an independent perspective. They can challenge assumptions, ask difficult questions and raise issues you might not have considered. Sometimes the feedback you didn’t ask for is exactly what your work needs”. Check out their post here.
5. Theft of work: as previously stated, with nearly two-thirds of novelists knowing their work has been stolen by AI, inputting your manuscript into AI for editorial use is incredibly risky. 

To learn more about the difference between AI and human editors, check out our article Can AI Edit My Book? AI Vs Humans: Who Offers The Best Editing Services.  

Can I Use AI to Create a Book Cover? 

Whilst AI can technically create book covers, these book covers are often unsuitable for three main reasons: the low image quality, the identifiable AI design and the fact that it is uneditable. 

1. Low image quality: Especially for print books, your covers need to meet a certain image size (300 DPI). Typically, AI platforms produce covers in 72 DPI, which printers cannot use.
2. Uneditable: AI produces cover designs as JPEGs, which means that the file will not have ‘layers’. These layers are what enable cover designers to edit aspects such as the title, the images and so forth. So if you create a cover design on AI, you will not be able to amend it at all.
3. Identifiable AI design: AI tends to produce things of the same style, which are often identifiable as AI and miss that unique touch that an artist can provide. This could lead to your cover getting lost in a busy market place and not getting the interest it otherwise could have or, as AI covers are identifiable, could lead to people avoiding your publication, due to their preference for human-created publications.  

Can I Use AI To Create Book Illustrations? 

There has been a rise in authors using AI tools to create book illustrations, however, using illustrations generated by AI can pose some issues, including low image quality, identifiable AI design and concern over copyright. 

1. Low image quality: like with the cover design, most AI platforms will produce an image that is too small (72 DPI as opposed to the required 300 DPI). This is especially problematic with children’s illustration books, as the books themselves tend to be larger, and they are also more popular in print format. This means that your illustrations will be too low quality for the format that the target market use the most.
2. Identifiable AI design: again, AI tends to produce things in the same style. For illustrations, utilising AI rather than an artist means that a core part of your book will lack a unique touch. As mentioned, many consumers also prefer human illustrated books to AI illustrated books.
3. Concern over copyright: as AI has been trained by other people’s work (and generally without permission), there are questions about whether you can claim copyright over the generated artwork as your own. Whereas when you work with an illustrator at Troubador, the author gets full copyright. 

As always, the loss of work for human illustrators remains a key concern, and as raised earlier, the Bookseller has reported a rise in the number of illustrators losing work to Generative AI. 

Can I Use AI To Create An Audiobook? 

There are platforms that can create AI audiobooks, which of course can be more cost effective and time-efficient than hiring a human narrator. However, concerns surrounding AI-generated audiobooks range from ethical concerns, AI’s inability to understand interpretation and tone (and therefore creating a lower-quality product), limited distribution and the impact on the creative community. 

1. AI’s Inability to understand tone: AI’s inability to understand tone can lead to audiobooks with emotionally flatter scenes, lack of characterisation and a miscommunication of tone such as irony or humour. These are all crucial parts of the audiobook listeners’ experience: no one wants to feel like Siri is reading them an audiobook!
2. Limited Distribution: Using an AI audiobook will also limit your distribution. Our audiobook platform, ACX, does not accept AI audiobooks, and retailers like Amazon have started requiring that you declare if AI was used. Stricter guidelines could be issued in the future, therefore limiting the options you might have for your book. 

On the topic of AI-narrated audiobooks, The WGGB Books Chair Simon Guerrier said: “AI narration and production of audiobooks means a worse product for listeners. Despite improvements in artificial speech, it still sounds odd and jarring, especially at any length, which means we can’t lose ourselves in the story being told.” 

Of course, AI generated audiobooks need to be identified and so the old AI label, as previously stated, does act as a large deterrent to many listeners. 

To learn more about the difference between human narrators and AI narrators, check out our article here. 

Should I Use AI On My Book? 

Whilst you can use AI on your book, and there are advantages such as increasing efficiency and reduced cost, there are significant risks and disadvantages of using AI, varying from a lower quality product, risk of your work being stolen, ethical concerns, deterring your readers, and more. 

As stated by the University of Cambridge: “literature is not just about words on a page, it is about human connection… AI may imitate this gesture, but can it truly replicate the human hand that reaches across time and experience?”