The Tsunami of Excellence: Why AI Isn't Creating More Bad Books

Countering the "flood of crap" narrative with what's actually happening

“AI is going to flood the market with crap.”

You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. At this point, it’s become the background hum of every publishing conversation — the anxious certainty that a tidal wave of garbage is coming and “real” authors are about to be drowned out forever.

But what if the opposite is happening?

What if, instead of a tsunami of crap, we’re actually witnessing a tsunami of excellence?

I Didn’t Come Up With This

I first heard this reframe from Joanna Penn on her Patreon and podcast, and it stopped me in my tracks. Because she’s right.

The AI tools available to authors right now are genuinely good at writing. Not “passable if you squint” good. Actually good. And more importantly, they’re making authors better — helping us catch what we’d miss, think through what we’d skip, and finish what we’d abandon.

The flood is coming. But it’s not a flood of crap. It’s a flood of quality.

The Two-Part Myth

Let’s break down the fear, because it usually comes in two stages.

Stage 1: “The market will be flooded with garbage.”

But the algorithm doesn’t reward bad books. It never has.

Amazon’s recommendation engine, the visibility systems on every platform — they’re designed to surface books that readers are more likely to purchase, engage with, finish, and review positively. A poorly written, unedited mess doesn’t climb the charts. It sinks.

The challenge for indie authors has never been “too many good books are competing with mine.” It’s always been discoverability. That hasn’t changed. Bad books have always existed. They’ve just never been your real competition.

Stage 2: “All AI-assisted books are low quality.”

This is where the argument usually retreats when the first point doesn’t land. “Okay, fine, but AI books are still inherently worse.”

This assumes authors are pressing a button, getting a book, and uploading it. That’s not what’s happening.

Authors are using AI to brainstorm ideas and stress-test plots. They’re catching inconsistencies they would have missed on their fifth read-through. They’re getting cleaner prose on the first pass so editing is tightening, not salvaging. They’re finishing books — projects that had been languishing for years.

The human is still steering. The craft knowledge still matters. What’s changed is that the floor has risen. AI is, frankly, a better baseline writer than most humans. That’s not an insult to authors — it’s an observation about the technology. And when you combine solid AI output with an author’s taste, vision, and revision skills? You get better books.

We’ve Seen This Movie Before

If you’ve been in indie publishing for more than five minutes, you’ve heard this panic before.

In 2014, when self-publishing was exploding, traditionally published authors warned that indies were a “tsunami of crap” that would destroy the industry. (Sound familiar?) Indies were told they weren’t “real” authors. That they were cheapening the craft. That readers would never accept them.

Then came rapid release in the mid-to-late 2010s. Authors publishing a book every month or two were accused of cheating — they must have ghostwriters, or they weren’t editing, or they were somehow gaming the system. The truth? Some people just write faster than others. And the jealousy was palpable.

And let’s be honest about what actually flooded the market with problems: the KU page-stuffing scams, the content mills churning out garbage under a thousand pen names, the diamond giveaway manipulation (remember that one?). That was sketchy. That was people exploiting the system.

AI isn’t that. It’s a tool. A powerful one, yes — but a tool used by real authors with real stories to tell, who are using it ethically to write books readers love.

What AI Is Actually Doing

I’ve received countless emails from authors about how AI has changed their process. Here’s what they’re telling me:

• Catching plot holes they would have missed until a reader’s angry review pointed it out

• Better brainstorming that leads to stronger first drafts instead of months of wandering in the weeds

• More consistent prose because the editing pass is polishing, not reconstructing

• Finishing books they’d started and abandoned, sometimes years ago

• Accessibility for neurodivergent authors who now have tools that work with their brains instead of against them

• Recovery from burnout — authors who thought their careers were over finding a way back

This isn’t replacement. This is amplification.

“It Was Like Being Able to Breathe”

I want to share something from an author friend who wrote to me recently. She’s published 59 books and has been writing full-time since 2020. She’s been indie, trad, and hybrid. She’s seen every iteration of “you’re not a real author” gatekeeping this industry has to offer.

Then 2025 happened.

She was dealing with a new diagnosis, family bereavements, and became a caregiver for an elderly relative facing serious health challenges. Then, she went from producing one book every six weeks to one book in six months.

She’d always been able to write through everything — since she was a teenager. And suddenly, that ability was gone. She watched her royalties drop and felt her dreams slipping away.

AI tools and a supportive community gave her a way back. She started working on a passion project she’d been stuck on for three years, and for the first time in over a year, she could breathe again. She’s done explaining herself to people who’ve already decided she’s wrong. And she’s back to doing what she does best: writing books.

I loved getting this email because her story is an affirmation of what I’ve already heard from many others. AI has changed their life for the good.

The Jealousy Factor

Let’s name what’s really going on with a lot of the AI resistance: it’s not about quality. It’s about watching other people succeed in ways that feel unfair.

Fast has always been suspicious in this industry. If you write quickly, you must be cutting corners. If you’re productive, you must not care about craft. If you’ve found a way to work that doesn’t involve suffering, you must be cheating.

This is jealousy dressed up as principle.

I get it. I’ve never been a particularly fast writer, and I used to look at rapid-release authors with a mix of admiration and envy. But here’s what I’ve learned: comparison is the thief of joy. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Someone else’s success with AI doesn’t diminish your work. Someone else’s speed doesn’t make your process wrong.

The resentment isn’t about protecting readers from bad books. It’s about the discomfort of watching the rules change.

The Real Question

So here’s what I want to ask you:

Are you going to be part of the Tsunami of Excellence? Or are you going to sit on the shore and watch it roll by?

AI has democratized storytelling. It used to be that only a handful of people could write a whole book — you needed a certain combination of time, energy, ability, and persistence that excluded a lot of would-be authors. Now more people than ever can tell their stories. The barriers are lower. The tools are better. The possibilities are wider.

That’s not a threat to publishing. That’s publishing’s future.

The revolution is happening. You can join it.

Ride the Wave

This isn’t about replacing authors. It’s about more authors telling more stories.

The tools are here. The quality is real. The gatekeepers are losing their grip. And the authors who embrace these tools — who use them ethically, who bring their craft and their vision to the process — are writing better books than ever.

You can be one of them.

Ride the wave. 🌊

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Have thoughts on the “tsunami of crap” narrative? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments. Next week it’s back to more writing tips and fewer posts on the social aspects of AI in the writing community, I promise.