Should You Trust AI Publishing?
Artificial intelligence is being slapped into every product and every industry these days. If you’re in marketing or tech it’s all anyone wants to talk about. New home appliances even have AI baked in because nothing can make Grandma’s secret cookie recipe any better except AI. Now big tech and AI are making their way into writing and publishing. So now that we have AI publishing and AI writing, what should we do about it?
Well, the answer kind of depends on what you’re looking to do with it.
First off, there’s a couple of different types of Artificial Intelligence and not all of them are bad. We here at StoryForge are against generative AI but there’s several other kinds so that’s a post for a different day. Publishing AI can be one of a couple of these so really, it’s going to depend on how you want to use it.
How AI Publishing is done
Do you want AI to write a book for you? There’s sites and programs out there that you can do that with. However, that’s going to be generative AI and many people consider that to be stealing from other authors. Some people still use it and flood the market with (excuse our French) crap.
This kind of AI publishing and writing is for someone who isn’t dedicated to the craft of writing and just wants to publish something, anything. They think they’re going to hit it big. These are the kind of AI publishing and AI writing you want to stay away from.
Now probably the most popular use of AI in publishing recently is using it to review a book. In theory, that can seem like a good idea. These kind of AI publishing companies are popping up all over the place which kind of tells you that the idea can be replicated either easily, cheaply, or both. If you aren’t sure what that means, that’s not a good thing.
Having AI check your spelling or grammar is one thing. Grammarly is technically a version of AI but it’s looking mostly at spelling, punctuation, and grammar. That’s something an AI can and should do well.
The problem with using AI Publishing
A lot of these AI publishing companies are doing the same thing but can you trust these AI bots to understand intent? Maybe your character has broken speech due to a brain injury or that’s just the way people in your fantasy book talk. You could have a language you made up all on your own. Your characters could be nothing but sarcastic to one another. These AI publishing bots aren’t going to understand that. You’re going to get a manuscript sent back full of edits to review that an actual person wouldn’t have given you.
When you go cheap, you get what you pay for and there’s no replacement for actual human feedback.
Not ever AI Publishing company is the same
There are some publishers out there using AI for some better things. Some are using it to position story layouts for use in e-books. There are others who use it to determine an expected reader demographic or even comparable titles. Not all publishers that use AI are bad, after all. The key is that they’re using AI in a way that doesn’t remove the human experience.
That being said, if you do want to use one of these, make sure you understand how the publisher uses their AI. Confirm they don’t use submissions to train AI for other things and that your data isn’t kept by the AI. Those are going to be pretty big red flags.
In the end, it’s your choice to use AI Publishing or not
So in the end, what you put in is what you get out. AI publishers are more than happy to take your money and help you put out a properly finished product. AI writing programs will help you quickly produce a mid to low quality work.
Should you trust AI publishing? Maybe. Just make sure you do your research and understand how the AI is being used. Don’t let an overwhelming desire to get a book published let you jump into bed with someone less reputable. You can’t have a bestseller if you can’t sell it.
