Like it or not, a world without AI is a thing of the past. It’s morphing the entire publication industry and is significantly impacting anyone and everyone in it—including how you, as an author, might approach writing your book or manuscript.
Regardless of what kind of work you’re writing, AI is likely going to play some kind of role. In this first installment of a two-part series, we’ll explore what that AI role might look like for genres such as fiction, biographies/memoirs, or nonfiction analysis of events or trends.
When it comes to AI in the book-writing process, there’s a pretty clear list of what to do, versus what not to do. When used effectively, AI can be a helpful tool to make the journey to publication faster and more efficient, with a much more attractive finished byproduct.
…But when AI is misused or abused, it’ll no doubt lead to an end result that publishers and readers can tell was essentially written by a computer, not a human being—and no one wants to waste their time and money on that.
Best Practices
If you’ve taken the plunge and have decided to write a book, trying to figure out the “do’s” and “don’ts” of using AI during the process can be intimidating. So, to start off, here are a few helpful tips for when AI usage is encouraged:
- Before sitting down to write, do your research on your target audience. One of the main purposes of AI in book-writing is to help an author tailor content, wording, and phrasing toward what’s hot at any given time. If your book is electronic, this will include sprinkling in those all-important SEO keywords as much as possible, along with organizing thoughts in such a way that highlights ideas trending in search engines or on social media. But even for a print book—which obviously doesn’t use these internet-based concepts—AI can still be helpful for this, because it highlights what’s popular among a reader base. But in order for this to be effective, an author must first have a firm grasp on current trends among a target market; without that knowledge base, these tools won’t do much good. So, do your homework and stay on top of who your audience is and what they want to see and hear about.
- Use AI to generate titles and headings. The title of a book is the first thing that readers notice. And to a potential reader who is skimming through, just to figure out whether or not they’re interested in your content, headings are probably the second most important element. So, coming up with clear, concise, and effective titles/headings is critical—and AI can be instrumental in making that happen. By simply typing in a few keywords, the machine does the SEO work for you, allowing you to focus on the “meat-and-potatoes” content of the book that AI can’t replace.
- Allow AI to generate your book’s outline. Any seasoned professional author will tell you that one of the first steps in writing a successful book is to come up with a logical outline. In the past, this was often a long and tedious process by itself—in fact, it was so tiresome, that many authors would experience burnout and abandon the project entirely before it started. Now, though, AI tools can complete much of this process for you. Once you come up with the right keywords, and know those trends your audience is looking for, AI can do the rest in terms of helping you set up your book’s structure. This way, you can focus on the content, which is the fun and rewarding part!
- Allow AI to assist in the proofreading process. As the steps before writing your book’s content can become exhausting, the part that comes afterward can likewise be just as draining. But with AI, it doesn’t have to be. In addition to helping generate content, AI can also be instrumental in catching spelling/grammar errors, along with making thoughts flow more clearly. (Tools like Grammarly and Sentence Rephraser are among the most popular forms of AI used for this purpose.) Just remember, though, it’s not the sort of thing that can, or should, replace human editing assistance; there is simply no substitute for multiple sets of non-robot eyes!
Pitfalls to Watch Out For
…Still, despite all of these ways in which AI can be a huge time-saver—and stress-reliever—during the book-writing process, it’s not without its flaws. As an author, take care not to fall into the following traps:
- Don’t assume all AI-generated content is factually correct. AI is designed to perform research, which theoretically cuts down on the amount of research you must do as an author.But here’s the big problem: AI can’t distinguish which information floating around is current, versus how much of it is out of date. Additionally, it can’t always separate hard facts from opinion-based material; these are the types of things only a human can do. ChatGPT, for example—arguably one of the most popular AI tools out there right now—has run into various known issues with data that is biased and/or too old to be accurate. So, while AI might be able to put all of the “facts” on paper, the author is still going to have to read through them and tweak them as necessary, eliminating (or, at the very least, contextualizing) those that are no longer relevant. This is, of course, especially important if your work is nonfiction, but it can even impact some forms of fiction writing, too (such as historical fiction, or a fiction novel that takes place during the present day).
- Resist temptation to hit the “copy and paste” buttons after using AI to generate content. Let’s say I’m reading a book that’s supposedly by a single author, and I suddenly run into a series of paragraphs—or a whole chapter—with a tone and voice that sounds totally different from the rest of the work. To me, that’s a red flag that something fishy was going on—it screams “AI-generated content,” which is pretty unappealing to most reader bases. While it might not be considered “plagiarism” in the traditional sense (at least, not yet, as that could certainly change in the future), it’s still off-putting. It is, after all, still your book—and readers want to see and hear your tone and voice, not the tone and voice of some robot!
- Don’t let AI totally replace the traditional methods of curing writer’s block. A generation ago, if you hit a wall and didn’t know what else to write, you looked for a cure in the old-fashioned ways, like taking a walk to clear your head or going to a social event to look for inspiration. In today’s world, an author might be tempted to nix those writer’s block cures entirely, and instead just head to a new AI website. But there is still no replacement for those tried-and-true methods of gaining inspiration—and if you allow AI to prevent you from using those classic forms of getting new ideas for your work, you’re just doing yourself a disservice.
Final Thoughts
AI can be an efficient and time-saving tool in the research and structure-designing phases of writing a book, and it can also serve an author well in clearly organizing thoughts. Still, though, it’s not perfect, nor will it ever be—and any savvy reader will quickly catch on if an author thinks otherwise.
When it comes to the right and wrong way to use AI, these “do’s” and “don’ts” are pretty much universal for all authors, regardless of the content and topic of their work. But if your book or manuscript is a scholarly or scientific undertaking, there are some more specific guidelines that also apply. The second installment of this post will focus on those rules and regulations for academic writers and works.
By: Anne Brenner
Anne is an Assistant Managing Editor at Technica Editorial
