The era of the AI-generated book is upon us, and it is rather ugly. Fortunately, these immensely subpar works are still easy to spot, and are highly unlikely to ever be printed by reputable publishers, such as Faber & Faber, Penguin, or Vintage.
But, with the future of entirely human-written books being gradually placed further into a realm of doubt and uncertainty, I want to dedicate this post to outlining the ways AI and its generative (or regurgitation) abilities are gradually starting to hurt the world of publishing, and not just when it comes to the authoring side of things.
Self-Publishing Is Being Flooded
The self-publishing realm has always been a tad complicated when it comes to finding works of consistent quality, not to mention the output has become vaster and more rapid as budding writers have started to embrace the idea of getting their work out there in one form or another. In a sense, it has become messier with each year, and I imagine readers are growing more reluctant to buy self-published works amid concerns of quality and the overall time spend creating, then refining, each book.
However, with the advent of generative AI, I would wager finding publications where every word has been typed out by human hands is becoming increasingly harder, thus readers are becoming even more reluctant with their purchases.
You do not need me to tell you that it has become all too easy to negate our critical thinking and literary skills, then simply beckon a faceless, non-feeling entity to ‘write a paragraph on x, y, or z’ instead of bothering to do it ourselves. On a similar note, I doubt you’d call me a liar if I suggested that such activities are plaguing the self-publishing platforms, exploiting their minimal regulations on quality or author reputation.
Whilst such things currently affect self-published fiction to a lesser degree, the world of self-published non-fiction—so-called ‘educational’ or ‘a history of’ works—is being ravaged. Readers now consistently risk parting with their cash to stare down a publication clattered together by AI, whilst also digesting down whatever information it scraped from Wikipedia and other key online sources that can’t always be relied on, and therefore may misinform readers.
The sad reality is that authors looking to make a quick buck now don’t have to do the bare minimum of researching a topic and planning out their book. They can simply wing it by getting ChatGPT (or whatever other branded mind-number) to pinch the work of others and spew it out in a very corporate, faux intellectual tone. It comes at no real cost to them or their time, and if they publish under an alias, there is zero reputational damage for trying to short-change their reader with AI slop.
It likely won’t come as a shock to know that most authors who actual do all the work by hand—planning, research, writing, editing—are being pushed out by the AI-generated sewage that is gushing down the self-publishing pipe. They simply cannot compete with its output, and that may encourage some brilliant writers to lower their standards or even hop aboard the AI train themselves, even if only in moderation.
Any outcome that encourages people to take the lazy, unrewarding route is a bad outcome. And, believe me, this continual and growing reliance on AI to do most of the heavy lifting will only kill the self-publishing industry in the long run, not aid it. My advice would be to never financially support any author or publication you suspect is taking the generative shortcut. Greed, as per usual, has overrode ethics and dignity.
Soulless Book Covers
I expressed concerns about AI-generated art becoming commonplace on the front of books back in late-2024. However, it seems my concerns are being proved correct, little-by-little.
Whilst big and reputable publishers have seemingly kept their distance from relying on artificial intelligence to compose art for their books, the self-publishing sector once again suffers this automated blight.
I understand that a publication being produced by a lone author in their spare time needs all the help it can get, but an AI-generated cover is the literary equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. No one will take it seriously, and it only raises concerns that the author also relied on AI for some of the writing inside the book. It’s almost like a cancer or scar on the work itself.
AI images often appear soulless. Yes, they are becoming eerily better when prompted to generate within a particular art style that is harder for our brains to register as not man-made, but it’s often apparent that ‘art’ is AI-generated when people, animals, or architecture look a little uncanny or warped in some way.
I am of the controversial opinion that you do judge a book by its cover, just as you would with most other products. The cover establishes a tone, theme, and sense of quality—they subtly, and subconsciously, inform readers. Speaking from personal experience, it is the artistic and abstract covers, the unique ones, that stick with you and are the cover you think of when the book is mentioned. Even if you were not fond of a book, you may love a particular edition because of its aesthetically pleasing cover.
AI takes that and bins it. It lowers standards universally, and it slowly threatens the career of (future) designers who work to perfect the covers of particular editions.
Believe it or not, some reading fanatics do collect specific editions of books, often for the sake of a consistent collection or because they prefer it. I strongly doubt anyone would proudly collect editions of books with soulless designs pumped out by a sterile AI in mere seconds. I also cannot picture Booktok and Bookstagrammers showing off mediocre-looking books with obvious, generic AI designs on the front, majorly killing the word-of-mouth advertising that social media provides to authors.
Book Summaries
Although it might sound tedious, there are people whose job it is to write those book summaries on book-buying websites like Waterstones. However, across the past year, I have noticed some retailers that I frequent containing summaries with the heading: ‘this summary has been generated by AI’.
How can we trust that AI knows what is inside a particular book? How can we trust it to recognise the themes within a novel, or to assess the quality and accuracy of the contents inside a non-fiction publication? The simple answer is that it plucks key words from other people’s reviews—like the ones here on The Steady Read—to formulate its soulless stance.
Now, instead of getting a bespoke summary tailored to that retailer website, you get rehashed content plucked from reviews that journalists or reviewers likely committed hours of their life to reading, writing, and refining. All to be stolen, without even a whisper of credit or gratitude.
AI is not only hurting books themselves, but the entire consumer climate around them. An industry fuelled by passion, both from expressive authors and invested readers, is being ground down and reduced to nothing more than corner-cutting and raw efficiency at the expense of soulfulness.
Content Theft
On the above note, consider websites like The Steady Read, which self-funded and operated by one person. Think of how many book-focused websites and blogs exists that are in a similar situation to The Steady Read, and the effort put into them from these hobbyist writers, reviewers, and bloggers.
Now, consider a bad actor, someone wanting to create a book-focused website that hosts reviews and recommendations, but lacks the will to put in the hours to read each book and write a nuanced, personalised review of each. Instead, they turn to AI to generate weekly reviews of works that are both popular and been published for at least a handful of years, if not decades.
Suddenly, at their behest, an AI is pinching from a myriad of other people’s reviews, and this bad actor is sitting back, simply relishing the ease of this so-called ‘work’ they are doing by ‘optimising’ their duties through generative AI. Better yet, if they manage to get some solid traffic and no one vocal notices the content theft, they might even manage to monetise that website and make solid earnings from slyly stolen, marginally modified content with minimal human input.
Imagine what an insult such a concept like that is not only to myself, but to everyone in my position. In the two years I have ran The Steady Read, I’m certain I’ve given it at least a thousand hours of my time, if not more, when factoring in reading, research, writing, website design and maintenance, brainstorming, and all other miscellaneous duties. I suspect there are thousands of solo reviewers out there that have dedicated several times more to their own websites and literary projects, perhaps ones they’ve run for a decade or more, long before the concept of generative AI was well-known to the masses.
Whilst I like to imagine no one is doing this to any detrimental capacity, the cynic within me believes there are plenty of self-proclaimed ‘book reviews’ and ‘book critics’ relying on such slimy tactics, thriving off of other people’s hard work. And, quite honestly, goodwill means nothing nowadays—I am certain the laziness, greed, and ignorance of these kinds of individuals would forever go unpunished as AI-generated articles, summaries, and reviews become increasingly commonplace and accepted, for some bizarre reason, as legitimate or credible. It really is madness.
Self-Advertising & Review Botting
Another major issue of AI is its use in botting and skewing information or polls. Botting has always been an issue, but they often had to be programmed in a bespoke manner to suit the intended agenda or operate as needed. Nowadays it is much easier to falsify information thanks to self-learning AI that can figure things out with minimal input.
Think of how many books hosted on Amazon, Kindle, or equatable platforms, have had their ratings inflated by phony reviews. A telltale sign is when there are dozens of short, overly positive reviews with the odd, incredibly harsh one littered among them.
As for how extensive this issue is, I could not begin to answer. I suppose it depends on how much you want to snoop around reviews under listing to buy books. However, if you rely on certified human reviews, such as the ones found on The Steady Read and many other worthwhile websites and blogs, you will often get a more accurate outlining of a books strong and weak points, alongside its overall quality.
Seriously, find some reliable reviewers online! I’m not just saying that for the sake of myself, but all those who run websites similar to my own. We try to write honestly for the sake of you, the potential buyer and reader.
And, regarding self-advertising, botting is a good way to lure some people to your book reviewing website or inform them about your latest publication through sheer spam on other people’s work or on popular platforms. Fortunately, no serious authors and online writers do this, but it may worsen with time. Considering how many automated bot accounts contribute to what is known as the Dead Internet, it seems daft to try and assure anyone that such a plague would never begin to pester the literary world.
Rest assured, as much as I wish I was, I am not fear mongering. Everything mentioned above is quite easy to verify if you poke around the web enough, and perhaps you have even encountered some of what I have highlighted before.
Books and the publishing industry are resisting the alluring ease of AI fairly well. Thousands of rising authors are putting in the work themselves and sticking true to their passion, but hundreds are also faltering and taking the easier, quicker way to short-term income. The more that abandon their self-respect and care for their readers, the worse this generative cancer spreads, which will likely pull more honest souls into its lucrative and low-effort depths.
It is important to remember that what you choose to buy is always your choice as a consumer. However, for the sake of this industry and all the honest souls working within it, I would advise you never to financially support any works that utilise AI, regardless of how minimal or if they disclose their use of it upfront. Moreover, give them zero publicity. I could have pointed to dozens of works tarnished by AI for the purposes of making an example, but I refuse to give any subpar publication a mention, even if wholly negative and mocking.
AI is hurting books, yes… but the extent it hurts them is down to all of us who enjoy reading, writing, and collecting them. Please do what is in the interest of your long-term self, and for everyone else that is part of this passionate hobby, and do not let this situation worsen into an irreversible catastrophe that cripples one of humanity’s greatest, most historically important art forms.
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