Alright, I’m going to get controversial. Generative AI sucks in terms of what we can create by hand, and we can all agree on that. Using it for character art or language generation is ethically problematic, and the results? Glaringly unpleasant. But I’ve seen many authors wholly condemn AI in general, and this is where the controversial part is going to come in… I believe we’re going to get left behind if we don’t at least recognize it as a tool. Why, you ask? Because the corporate world is already using it. Which means trad pub as an outlet is also using AI for authors’ marketing efforts, blurbs, and more. As a content marketer and corp comms professional, I’ve had to get certified in and comfortable with AI use through a few different gigs, and I’m still employed as a working writer even though it exists. It simply cannot compete with the human element that goes into content creation – and, candidly, I’m skeptical that it will ever be able to replace that. Even if you were to nail down a formula for perfecting the exact elements of content creation, human thought cannot be replicated… And we all notice when it’s absent from a piece. With that being said, new tech isn’t coming after our jobs, so let’s dive into how we can make the most of AI as authors.

AI as a Longform Tool

Once upon a time, an article fell on my desk. It was “written” by an agency partner at my day job, and it just wasn’t resonating with anyone on the team that requested it. Nobody could pinpoint what was wrong with it, but it wasn’t working. So they tapped me in to fix this monstrosity. After sitting with it for a bit, I definitely had a headache – it was confusing, heavy on the exposition, and it just didn’t flow. 

And then I spotted the word “tapestry.” 

Don’t get me wrong – I like the word. I’ve used it myself, but it’s one I’ve scrubbed from my vocabulary since I discovered that it’s a word that AI-versed readers recognize. Suddenly, realizing this was an AI-generated article, I started analyzing what was missing. It had everything we had asked for in the story – all the product descriptions, all the value propositions they were asked to touch on – but the content hierarchy did not follow the natural flow of conversation or human thought. 

With a bit of restructuring and a heavy-handed rewrite, the article suddenly satisfied my stakeholders, including the c-suite. 

What’s the moral of the story, and why am I choosing to lead with this before we go into how to use AI? It’s because I have seen firsthand how generative AI can follow a prompt and satisfy the request without satisfying the reader. Even with high-tech and ever-adapting software, that human piece is absent, and readers notice. 

So if you ever have the temptation to generate a scene… take it from me: I wouldn’t have a day job if AI was good enough to replace writers. I wouldn’t be trained in using it if it was likely to replace me. Instead, I’ve been taught to use it as a tool. Let’s dive into that.

Ethical Use of Generative AI for Authors

The first thing I learned to use AI for was generating alt text for images. What is alt text? It’s a piece of digital accessibility that’s essential for helping your visually impaired friends and search engines understand the images on a webpage. It’s absolutely essential and also rather annoying to write – and I say that as a visually impaired individual. (I lost my vision from iritis for several months a couple years back, and scarring has left me with some blind spots in my left eye. True story, but one for another time.) Since that first training, whenever I use AI, it’s in a way that’s meant to save me time or take annoying tasks off my plate. Not to take creative endeavors from me.

And truthfully? That’s exactly why workplaces are pushing for its adoption – it’s a timesaver, not a replacement for human creativity.

AI can be an incredible tool for authors, and the Authors Guild has best practices outlined for us to reference. They point us toward several ethical considerations – with the caveat that we recognize that these platforms may operate using a large language model (LLM) “developed on mass copyright infringement.” (Bolded that because it’s a VERY important piece of the conversation.) Therefore, you should not generate any language or art you’ll actually use in your story. Instead, you might consider using AI as a tool for brainstorming and editing, according to the guidelines offered by the Guild.

I’d push that a step further, though – use it to explore marketing efforts. Paid marketers are using it in that way, and there’s no reason to not consider using AI as an author in that same respect. Give the platform you choose a high-level overview of what your story is about (and use placeholders for character names if you wish to preserve your anonymity and control) and ask it to generate ideas for a monthly social media calendar. An important thing I’ve been taught is that due to the water toll of using AI, it’s much better to send fewer prompts if you can, so ask it for a more comprehensive output (like a social media calendar, organized in a table with creative and image direction) rather than a smaller output (like applicable hashtags for a single social media post). With it doing high-level marketing brainstorming for you, you’re still operating as a creative agency… You’re just not operating without a brief anymore.

On the social media note, I do want to mention that I recently tested this particular concept to fill gaps in my own calendars when I’m in a creative rut, so I’d like to show you how they can be used to inspire rather than create. These are some of the ideas it provided, based on a prompt that informed it about a dystopian romance manuscript with pirates, biopunk elements, slow-burn pacing, and high stakes in a lore-rich world: 

“Meet the Crew” Carousel – Include aesthetic moodboards for each key character. Add a “Which character are you?” quiz link in your stories for bonus interaction.Slow Burn Snapshot – Use a dramatic or dreamy image of a single bed or a half-empty glass.Things [Your Character] Would Never Say Out Loud – Gritty or emotionally charged black-and-white portrait with a conceptual quote.Lore Teaser: Grungy iconography or geometric symbols couples with worldbuilding details.

I haven’t used any of these ideas yet, but they are clever. I’ve saved them because if I ever find myself having a slow day and need to fill in my social media calendar, they’re there. One quick prompt created a document I’ll reference for organic initiatives for a year, at least. And ironically, these ideas have oiled the gears in my brain with creative juices – a lore teaser moodboard carousel, for example, would be really fun to bring to life. Like, breaking down each story element into a pretty moodboard? Heck yes. That sounds so aesthetic. It’s incredible that we can create long-lasting, forward-facing resources with a single well-written prompt.

Which actually leads me into another point I’d like to mention – if you’re going to use AI, use it sparingly. Preserving our creative efforts will always serve us, but you’d be surprised at how using AI to overcome creative blocks can actually push your natural creativity even further. If you’re going to use it at all, seriously consider using it for asks that will serve you for ages and keep those creative juices flowing. And if you are considering using it for more creative tasks, seriously research what Fairly Trained certifications are and why they’re important.

And, again, on the note of using it sparingly… One ChatGPT query is comparable in energy usage to 10 Google search queries. That’s also comparable to the amount of energy required to keep a light bulb on for 20 minutes. Whether you’re ChatGPTing or Google searching your day away, you might consider turning to old-fashioned bookish research if you’re looking to lessen your environmental footprint.

AI Prompts Authors Might Consider Using

Of course, generating usable concepts requires a strong prompt and, potentially, a bit of in-platform training. If you’re new to writing prompts, I’d like to give you the easiest direction imaginable – start simple. Remember that the goal of using AI as an author or marketer is to save time.

If you’re looking to generate a prompt, especially in terms of marketing activities or editing, consider some of these tips: 

Start with a strong prompt foundation. When I use AI, I usually start with something like “I’m a dystopian author and content marketer looking to expand my organic marketing strategy for a book about pirates with slow-burn romance and biopunk elements. [Here’s what I am asking for.]” In much simpler terms, you could say “I’m a [title]. I want you to [perform a task] in [output format].” “I’m a social media manager and author. I want you to generate a month’s worth of social media post ideas for a book about dystopian pirates in list format.” Boom, one query that will serve you for ages.Ask it for awareness-enhancing critiques, like performing a voice and tone analysis. I like to follow the rule that we, as authors, should know 20 things about our main characters that readers don’t. As such, I often freewrite scenes that will never appear in my published work. Change the character names, feed it to ChatGPT, and ask it to analyze your particular voice and tone to learn your strengths and weaknesses as a storyteller. Why do I suggest this? More than half a decade ago, pre-pandemic, when ChatGPT was first open as a “research preview,” some coworkers and I played with it. I fed it the opening chapter of a book I wrote circa 2008. It was horrific, as I’ve mentioned in about half the blog posts here. What it told me about my young, aspiring author voice was that it was earnest, slightly poetic, and academic-meets-philosopher. Moving between warmth and foreboding is my specialty. Nuanced characters? Check. Emotional realness? Check. Overwritten prose, pacing issues, and too many dialogue tags? Also check. I learned through developmental edits and growth just how accurate those critiques are, but I unfortunately learned them years before I experimented with AI and fed it my earliest work. If I could go back and save my baby author self some additional rounds of editing via that one AI prompt circa late 2019, I would. It’s a different world, and AI is here to stay – why not use it to learn and improve upon our weaknesses?Create some content pillars. As an author, you’re a brand. You know what brand builders love? Content pillars. If you have a website or web-based presence like a blog, you can ask AI platforms to crawl your website and analyze your content pillars. These can inform content strategy for blog posts, social media calendars, and even adjacent genres you might consider writing in. For the sake of this article, I had ChatGPT crawl this very site for its content pillars. It highlighted Speculative Fiction with Social Commentary, Fantasy with Mythological Elements, Writing Craft and Author Resources, and Indie Author Community Engagement as content pillars of my brand. I see a little bit of those elements in my social media presence, but definitely not enough. As a brand-based marketer, that’s actually something I might take back to the drawing board to noodle on, as brand cohesion is essential for memory recall.Explore tropes and target audience information. I’ll be the first to say that I’m a content marketer, not a media buyer. I write ads for the audiences our media buyers tell me to. As such, I’ve used AI to analyze rough in-the-moment summaries of my books to narrow in on my target readership. According to AI, adult SFF readers hungry for deep, character-driven plots and political dramas with teeth, not just aesthetic are my ideal readership. Readers of “more angst, less smut” who like literary-adjacent literature will resonate with my work. Now, that’s one hell of a broad audience, but asking it to create personas and comp titles from there can help tremendously with marketing and targeting efforts.Generating newsletter ideas. I keep talking about marketing, but let’s discuss a real-life digital marketing use case. Your readers may be sick of those “book update” emails, but working off your recent blog posts, social media posts, or social appearance updates can inspire ideas that will keep your customer base hooked.

With all these items in mind, also remember to be careful with prompt bias. You think your story is good, but seriously, if you’re using AI for any editing… Request brutal honesty. Don’t let it get to your head. I’ve had many freelance writers reject critiques from me as an editor because they asked AI to explain why their writing is good when their corporate client told them it isn’t. Bias exists, both in prompts and generated content, so stay diligent in watching for that.

Author Disclosure of AI Use

If you’re going to use AI, disclose that fact when it matters. Not because someone’s going to slap your wrist for using AI to brainstorm which tropes apply to your story – but because it can actually impact contracts and copyrights.

Readers want to know that you are the voice behind the story. If you use AI to generate full scenes or dialogue (which, again, I really don’t recommend or find to be honest), that’s a different conversation… According to the Authors Guild, AI-generated characters, plotlines, and text can violate contracts. If there is AI content in your story, your agent or publisher will need to know upfront so they can properly register and protect your manuscript.

But if you’re using AI like I do – to generate alt text, brainstorm content calendars, or come up with audience targeting measures – you still preserve the integrity of your work and ideas. Let’s be honest… Most of us write because we love it, so it is important to hold tight to the preservation of our efforts. And it’s also equally important to continue supporting our fellow artists, whether they’re character artists or fellow authors. It’s absolutely essential that we act as a community to support and celebrate what human artists add to the world.

Above all else, the Authors Guild encourages transparency, and I agree. But I also think we can be nuanced. A footer that says “AI was used to draft this email” is not necessary if the only thing the AI touched was subject line themes you immediately ran with and wrote based upon. Use common sense. Be honest. Don’t let tech take the wheel.

You’re still the one driving.

AI Won’t Replace Us Artists

At the end of the day, the goal of AI isn’t to replace us – it’s to assist us. Whether you’re writing newsletters, crafting paid social media campaigns, or just trying to decide the best day to launch your book, AI can be the tool that helps you get there faster. It’s not magic. It’s not evil. It’s a glorified autocomplete that sometimes spits out a genius idea and sometimes suggests the word “tapestry” 47 times in a single draft. But we can take a deep breath… Even the most brilliant ideas it provides can’t replace a single drop of your creativity.

So let’s stop pretending AI is the end of creativity as we know it. You are invaluable, and your stories deserve to be told. Use AI wisely. Use it sparingly. Use it with a little side-eye. Protect your craft, but don’t be afraid of where the future is taking us.

Keep writing like only you can.

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