Should I Use AI to Write My Book?

The initial answer is… No!

You should not ask a GenAI system to write a book for you. There are two main reasons for this. First, you will not gain any sense of pride for your work. Second, in doing this, you will miss the magical process of actually creating content that you think will help or provide joy to others. Third, AI is simply not good at long form writing that adds value to the world. It might be great at helping with social media posts or short blogs, but it isn’t great at writing meaningful books.

As an editor, I can spot AI generated content a mile away and one of the most difficult things I’ve run across while editing is a manuscript that someone has written and then run through AI with instructions to “clean it up” or “make it more readable.” When I get these, I cringe, because undoing the damage to the writing is extremely difficult.

Now when I’m approached by someone for editing work, one of the first things I ask is if they have run it through AI or not. If they have, I ask if they have a copy of the original (pre-AI) version and suggest we work with that. If they haven’t run it through AI, I suggest that they don’t.

Having said that, there are a few AI tools like Grammarly that can help with grammar and punctuation, but having AI do the content or “fix” the writing of a large manuscript isn’t there yet. So for quality writing, I recommend the good old fashioned human way.

The second answer to whether you should write your book with AI is… Yes.

I commonly use AI to help me generate my ideas and outline a book. While I usually begin with a very clear idea of what I want to write, I might use ChatGPT, for example, by entering a prompt like this: I’m writing a book about climbing mountains. What are the ten biggest concerns that people have about climbing mountains? Or since I want to provide material relevant to the most people possible, I might ask: What are the 5 most popular mountains to climb? Note: Before you use any direct information from AI, it is always a good idea to fact check the information first. AI is good, but not always 100% accurate.

          While I suggest avoiding writing long content with AI, I encourage using AI as a sounding board. AI knows a lot of details about a lot of things. This allows me to quickly generate structures for my writing. I might also use AI for ordering. I’ll ask ChatGPT to suggest the order of these 10 topics or even to suggest any relevant subtopics to the main ideas I’ve plugged in. Often, the AI repeats much of what I’ve already done, but it sometimes reveals valuable things that I never thought about and that add to the value of the book.

As published author who takes writing very seriously, one of my pet peeves is to see headlines like, “Write a Bestseller in a Weekend with AI” or other statements promising an easy route to writing and publication. In my mind, producing books like this is a disservice to authors and to the individuals partaking in such short cuts that produce material, but not necessarily anything new, unique, or valuable.

There are also ethical and legal issues. Most AI platforms give users the right to use generated content, but copyright law is still catching up. Additionally, since AI draws from existing data, it can inadvertently produce passages that resemble other works too closely, potentially leading to plagiarism concerns. If originality matters to you, this is a risk to think about.

One of the areas where I have seen AI provide benefit to authors is helping them get past the blank page. If a writer is having a difficult time getting started, AI can definitely help provide this starting point, whether it’s a rough paragraph, an outline, or a character sketch that helps them move forward.

Many authors today are finding a balance that treats AI not as a replacement to writing, but as a collaborative assistant. Ultimately, the question of whether you should use AI to write your book comes down to intention. Ask yourself: What’s my goal for writing this book? Do I want to create something deeply personal or primarily educational? Am I willing to take responsibility for editing and refining AI-generated text? Will AI enhance or diminish the authenticity of my message?

In the end, used thoughtfully, AI can be a powerful tool to help you write more clearly, confidently, and efficiently. But no matter how impressive the technology is, the heart of a meaningful book is still human. Your experience, your insights, and your voice are what make your story worth reading. AI can help you express those things, but it can’t replace them.

If you have a book you’d like to write, I encourage you to write it, and I encourage you to revel in the writing experience that can be an inspirational and transformational journey. The value of a book might be meaningful content for readers of the book, but writing a book can also be extremely rewarding for the author who created something new in the world.