I really take your advice to heart. I want to say thank you for taking the time to share of your experiences and thoughts. Thank you, from a true author who uses AI to steer her career in the right direction. Keep up the good work!
Having read our press books as my job, I *know* what’s possible and how we center the author and the story inside of AI usage. I hope people really take this to heart and at least know that we are breaking down another gate that the gatekeepers can’t possibly defend forever.
Great post. There are times I think the output is awful and others where it produces some great material. A combination of me with AI is however producing far better books on a much faster basis than I would without. A by product of this , maybe a consequence of above, is that my enjoyment of being a writer has gone up enormously.
My only concern is the backlash from the AI haters and whether that group contains people who matter eg Amazon, publishers even if I keep this low key.
I’ve been around the Indie publishing industry to remember the various doom and gloom, the sky is falling, pronouncements when a new way of writing or publishing comes along. This is another one of those. AI is a tool, we can choose to use to be better writers, or choose to ignore it.
One place where AI helps me in my writing, especially essays, is my middle is solid but my transitions, openings, and closings need work. AI helps me see where and how to do this, then I modify its suggestions to fit my voice and my piece. Rather than taking days, trying to figure out how to transition from one thought to the next seamlessly and guide the reader through my essay, AI can show that to me in seconds.
I’m also an intuitive writer. Working with AI has shown me that I do understand structure, even though I can’t consciously tell you what that structure is. It lays out the journey I’m intuitively taking the reader on. It always blows me away when it does this or when I ask AI about the underlying benefits and problems my essay may solve and it comes back with so much depth I didn’t see in my writing. It’s helped me be a better writer.
Love seeing more people have this conversation. I'm self-publishing from the indie/nonde film space. I have seen a lot of the anti-ai folks claiming it's not "real" writing/filmmaking if you use AI in any step of the process. When really the thing they are most angry about (or so I've seen) is that they all now have to start building a brand to stand out. Because of the influx of "competition," they blame AI for "making it easier" for those who are succeeding with it. They conveniently ignore the fact that it's not just AI making these people's execution of the work better... its their ability to market their work better. Could that be a correlation/related to the hate as well?
I’m sure there will be people who will go directly to the AI to get a “book” to their tastes and specifications. But then there are readers who prefer the tastes and decisions that certain storytellers make. They want to be surprised by the world, dragged into things that someone else dreamt up, and solve mysteries they don’t know the answers to. There will always be those humans who want stories from other humans. AI can be employed in any part of this process as a tool as well. It is not one or the other. Oftentimes it’s both.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts & insights on this topic Steph! I completely agree, especially with the point that AI is empowering people who wouldn't of had the opportunity to write before & removing gatekeepers.
Well, I think we will feel this wave of excellence, but right now, whatever good comes out of human-AI collab, is drowned by that tsunami of slop created with the help of AI.
Once this is down to "normal" we can begin to work on the excellence tsunami.
I really take your advice to heart. I want to say thank you for taking the time to share of your experiences and thoughts. Thank you, from a true author who uses AI to steer her career in the right direction. Keep up the good work!
Having read our press books as my job, I *know* what’s possible and how we center the author and the story inside of AI usage. I hope people really take this to heart and at least know that we are breaking down another gate that the gatekeepers can’t possibly defend forever.
Great post. There are times I think the output is awful and others where it produces some great material. A combination of me with AI is however producing far better books on a much faster basis than I would without. A by product of this , maybe a consequence of above, is that my enjoyment of being a writer has gone up enormously.
My only concern is the backlash from the AI haters and whether that group contains people who matter eg Amazon, publishers even if I keep this low key.
I’ve been around the Indie publishing industry to remember the various doom and gloom, the sky is falling, pronouncements when a new way of writing or publishing comes along. This is another one of those. AI is a tool, we can choose to use to be better writers, or choose to ignore it.
One place where AI helps me in my writing, especially essays, is my middle is solid but my transitions, openings, and closings need work. AI helps me see where and how to do this, then I modify its suggestions to fit my voice and my piece. Rather than taking days, trying to figure out how to transition from one thought to the next seamlessly and guide the reader through my essay, AI can show that to me in seconds.
I’m also an intuitive writer. Working with AI has shown me that I do understand structure, even though I can’t consciously tell you what that structure is. It lays out the journey I’m intuitively taking the reader on. It always blows me away when it does this or when I ask AI about the underlying benefits and problems my essay may solve and it comes back with so much depth I didn’t see in my writing. It’s helped me be a better writer.
Love seeing more people have this conversation. I'm self-publishing from the indie/nonde film space. I have seen a lot of the anti-ai folks claiming it's not "real" writing/filmmaking if you use AI in any step of the process. When really the thing they are most angry about (or so I've seen) is that they all now have to start building a brand to stand out. Because of the influx of "competition," they blame AI for "making it easier" for those who are succeeding with it. They conveniently ignore the fact that it's not just AI making these people's execution of the work better... its their ability to market their work better. Could that be a correlation/related to the hate as well?
Let's assume you're correct.
In what way aren't you a middle-man between AI and the end-user, who would get a more fulfilling book from the AI directly?
I’m sure there will be people who will go directly to the AI to get a “book” to their tastes and specifications. But then there are readers who prefer the tastes and decisions that certain storytellers make. They want to be surprised by the world, dragged into things that someone else dreamt up, and solve mysteries they don’t know the answers to. There will always be those humans who want stories from other humans. AI can be employed in any part of this process as a tool as well. It is not one or the other. Oftentimes it’s both.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts & insights on this topic Steph! I completely agree, especially with the point that AI is empowering people who wouldn't of had the opportunity to write before & removing gatekeepers.
Would love to connect!
Well, I think we will feel this wave of excellence, but right now, whatever good comes out of human-AI collab, is drowned by that tsunami of slop created with the help of AI.
Once this is down to "normal" we can begin to work on the excellence tsunami.