AI can write your book now. That’s an astoundingly dumb idea.
I received this email:
I wanted to share [name redacted], an AI writing partner for books. For the business authors you coach, this could be an interesting tool to add to their writing workflow . . .
Building [name redacted], I focused on making AI assistance actually useful for book-length projects.
It wasn’t the first time I heard this. A colleague had previously shared with me a (paid) article in a hustle-porn magazine site, which read:
Publishing a book remains one of the highest-leverage moves an entrepreneur can make. It builds authority, generates leads, and opens doors that cold outreach never will. The problem has always been bandwidth and budget.
[Name redacted] is an AI book-writing solution that solves both . . .
Having AI write your book is a disastrous choice
Let’s ask two basic questions that every prospective nonfiction author should ask.
- Why would someone read your book?
- Why would you write your book?
Why do people read advice and trends books?
It’s not too complicated. People read advice or trends books to learn something new. It might be how to better accomplish a goal they have (for example, networking, time management, hiring, or innovation). Or it might be to expose themselves to a new idea (digital disruption, vibe coding, identifying promising investment trends).
Any book you create with AI is not going to be fun to read. AI-generated text is tedious, repetitive, boring, and rife with clichés. It’s the opposite of entertaining.
It’s also going to be filled with ideas that are rehashed from elsewhere. Putting aside the plagiaristic aspects of such ideas, they’re not going to teach people anything they can’t find in a dozen other books or a thousand other blog posts. No one wants a book of old and rehashed ideas.
The makers of these tools will tell you that you can enter your ideas and let the AI application do the rest. Even if your idea is new, justifying that idea takes case studies, stories, and evidence. If you don’t do that part yourself, the AI tool is going to collect old and rehashed evidence for your idea. A new idea with hackneyed evidence is almost as dull as a tired, old idea.
By using AI, you’ve eliminated any reason that a reader with the smallest modicum of intelligence would spend time with your book.
Why do people write advice and trends books?
People write books for a variety of reasons. Based on my experience and the author research we did here, those reasons include:
- To become visible and influential as a thought leader. Lackluster AI content won’t help with that.
- To boost a speaking career. Speakers are known for the persuasive power of their ideas and their storytelling. An AI-generated book delivers neither.
- To generate consulting work. People hire consultants based on their unique knowledge and skills. The knowledge in an AI-generated book isn’t unique or novel, and it does the opposite of demonstrating skills (unless you think laziness is a skill).
- To generate leads for their business. A lead happens when someone reads a book and says “This person’s company is a leader, I want to work with them.” AI-generated books demonstrate that you are a slow follower, not a leader.
- To make money from selling books. If nobody wants to read the book and nobody tells anyone else it’s any good, you’re not going to sell them to anyone but your mom. (And even she may be embarrassed for you.)
You might think an AI-generated book would make no significant impression. But it does make an impression. It impresses people with how little you can think for yourself, how much you lack creativity, and how willing you are to cut corners.
An AI-generated book isn’t eligible for copyright protection, but that’s the least of your problems.
By publishing a book like this, you’re actually spending money to advertise that you are a vacuous, credulous idiot. Whatever you hoped that the book would accomplish, it’s going to backfire. People will notice. AI detectors may be fallible, but if you have a whole book of AI-generated content, it will be quite noticeable. You will not only fail to accomplish your goals, you’ll blow a hole in your reputation.
I’ve shown you the sinkhole. Please don’t fall into it.
Want to use AI to help with research? Go for it. (But vet the results carefully.)
Want to us it to help you brainstorm? Have a blast.
Seeking a word that has the exact meaning you’re looking for? It’s pretty good at helping with that.
But coming up with a good idea, finding the sources and statistics and stories that back it up, writing that out in an interesting way, and pulling that all together in a useful package? You’re going to have to do a lot of that work yourself.
A human ghostwriter can help you with those ideas and that writing, but that’s a human collaboration, not delegating the interesting parts to a heartless, mind-numbing machine.
Please listen: Do not use AI to write a book. There’s enough slop in the world already. Putting your name on slop is a career-ending move.
I help authors succeed. With this post, I’m trying to stop a few from failing. I’ve tried to make the AI sinkhole a little more visible. Please, for love of Gladwell, don’t fall into it.
(AI was not used in any part of the writing for this post. Of course.)