Am I Getting Left Behind?

Living as a scribe in the age of the printing press

Image by Jose Antonio Alba from Pixabay

AI use for creators has become a controversial topic, with some claiming that if you don’t use it, you’ll be left behind (I’m not saying they don’t have a point, but these also tend to be the same people selling templates, masterclasses, or coaching services).

Others tell you that if you use AI, you’re not a real writer (and I won’t disagree with this camp if you write with AI and try to pass it off as your own).

I recently read a BookBub blog post from a guest author I won’t name. He was breaking down how to market books, and it was genuinely an interesting article… until I got to the question of how frequently authors should be releasing books. His answer: 4 weeks!

I don’t know if you’ve ever written a book, but I’m currently working on my third, and spoiler—it’s taken me a LOT longer than 4 weeks. I know everyone writes at their own pace, but it’s difficult for me to fathom planning, researching, writing, editing, formatting, cover design, etc. happening in the span of 4 measly weeks.

Now, I’m not full-out accusing him of writing with AI, but the thought certainly crossed my mind.

As a reader, I expect books written by humans for humans.

As a writer online, I’ve noticed that creators fall somewhere on a spectrum ranging from a firm no to anything AI to acknowledging some AI use to full-out advocating for AI, and P.S., sign up for my masterclass today! (That’s a joke, by the way—don’t ask me for an AI masterclass; I’m seriously the wrong person.)

And while I’m clearly poking some fun here at "AI experts," I’m by no means trying to say that you should never take one of their classes or that you shouldn’t bother learning anything about AI. I am, after all, running my own online business of sorts as an author and online writer.

The Jack of All Trades Problem

If you’re a creator, I get it. Doing everything yourself can be exhausting—all the writing (or creating art or anything else), keeping your platform up-to-date, designing social media posts and ads, engaging with your audience, marketing, tracking sales, trying to stay up-to-date on industry trends—all while creating your next project. It’s a lot for one person.

AI can certainly help shoulder some of that burden. And in truth, just the idea that it can help you save time or design better ads or copy is tantalizing.

But the thing about AI that is wise to keep in the back of your mind is that however much it might help you, it can also hurt your efforts.

I’ve seen more than a one-off or isolated post from people saying that if they see AI-generated art, they automatically block the account or unsubscribe. Because at the end of the day, artists hate AI replacing them as much as writers do. And for that reason alone, I don’t use AI images in my work.

Personally, I don’t really care if you use AI-generated art for things like visuals for your stories, but I know this can be a touchy topic, so I would rather use a generic stock image than offend my audience.

An Ever-Broadening Landscape for AI Use

Using AI for images is just scratching the surface. AI can be used for anything from research to outlining to full-out writing for you. It can be used for editing and feedback and repurposing content. With all of the uses and potential time savings, where do you draw the line?

This isn’t a rhetorical question, by the way. I’m really asking you. Where do you draw the line with your AI use? Because if you don’t have personal guidelines in place for your own ethical AI use, you’ll find your line slowly shifting over time.

Where do authors stand?

According to a survey done by BookBub¹ of over 1,200 authors, 45% use some form of AI, while 48% don’t (and don’t plan to start). That leaves 7% that don’t currently use it but might in the future.

This presents a nearly 50-50 split between those who use it and those who don’t—with those who don’t reporting ethical concerns among the top reasons why.

In an effort to bring some transparency to just how many people use (or don’t use) AI for their content, I’ve created a poll.

Answers to the poll will not be associated with your name. If you use AI in more than one way, answer the way that you use it most.

The Ethics

And there are ethical concerns. First and foremost in my mind is the training material used for AI. Someone show me an LLM (language learning model) that has been trained on ethically sourced material (not stolen from artists or writers).

This is a front that is slowly improving as some AI models begin to create agreements with writers to use their work for training, but it’s far from perfect, and stems from thorny issues of how these models were initially trained (and how some continue to be trained).

As a writer myself, I don’t particularly enjoy finding my book on pirating sites; it’s even worse then to find that AI has also used these pirated books to train its algorithm.

Check out this article from the Writers Guild discussing a possible class-action lawsuit against Meta for using pirated books to train its AI, which also features this LibGen search tool to find out if your book is on a pirated site. (Don’t panic—pretty much every book gets pirated.)

Let’s not forget the copyright implications that get a little sticky. (To read more about AI and copyright, see my post “A Win for Humanity.”)

Whether you write computer code, create digital art or graphic design, or write for a living, AI is threatening creative human jobs. And the bottom line is that it’s to save time and money. Because it’s not enough to underpay people anymore. Now we have to cut them out entirely.

So what? The skeptic might argue. Such is the way of new technology. The printing press essentially put scribes out of business and made it cheaper and easier to mass-print materials (and also increased literacy rates).

To which I might answer: fine, if that’s how you see it.

The Future of AI

I can’t stop people from using AI, and neither can any of you reading this right now. So what should we do? Should we all give up and despair? Should we pursue less-threatened vocations?

[Small voice whispering into your thoughts] Should we just cave and use it? Everyone else is. If I don’t use it, I’ll just get left behind—a scribe in the age of the printing press.

If you’re looking to me for the answer, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have it. Truthfully, no one has the answer for you but you.

The best defense you have against an ever-evolving landscape is to equip yourself with the knowledge to handle it and to write down your principles. Knowing where you stand will help guard against the temptation to shift the line by small degrees over time.

Holding Yourself Accountable

This is for me. Where I draw my line is with my writing. I’m careful to curtail vows of what I would or would never do in the future (pre-kid me had a lot to say about what I would do after having kids that did not line up with what I now do with said kids—don’t judge, parenting is hard and tiring). That being said, I will put my foot down here because I don’t want that line to shift. I want my writing to be just that, my writing. I do not let AI write for me.

But AI is more than creating images or writing. And if you want to learn how to use it to research or outline or strategize, you won’t find judgment from me. Doing it all yourself is hard, and burnout is real. How much you augment your processes with technology is up to you. This is a very personal issue that every creator must grapple with.

But if you churn out a new book every month, I will squint my eyes in suspicion, and I probably won’t be buying your books (sorry).

Know AI’s Limitations

Using AI for research can save hours of time, but the responses are only as good as its sources, and AI can even “hallucinate”—a term assigned for when AI simply invents an (incorrect) answer.

Grammar checkers can be powerful for proofreading (spelling and punctuation), but just know that they probably won’t catch plot holes and inconsistencies. And sometimes the “correction” they offer is blatantly wrong (no, I don’t want “corpse” instead of “copse”). There’s also a difference in these checkers for proofreading vs. allowing AI to rewrite sentences for you (at what point is it your writing vs. AI writing?)

AI voice-overs beat the audio recording capabilities on my laptop—but they don’t always pronounce names right, and sometimes they put the emphasis in a weird place in the sentence.

Do What Works for You

I’ve heard of people using ChatGPT for feedback on their writing because they weren’t getting human feedback, and I understand. In a digital age, we’ve never been more connected while simultaneously being more isolated.

Technology is changing. Make sure you’re prepared, because it’s becoming less black and white.

Resources:

I’m not going to leave you without some helpful resources to make human content.

Copyright-free images and video clips:

When you use images for things like ads, make sure the licensing allows free commercial use.

• Pexels.com

• Unsplash.com

• Pixabay.com

Design and Image Manipulation Software:

• For computer-savvy people who don’t want to buy Photoshop, there’s a free alternative: GIMP. (You may need to watch YouTube to learn this program.)

• Canva: An online design site with free and premium options (it’s easier to use than GIMP and has templates you can customize). I created my author bookmarks using one of their templates (to get the size right) and also used this for social media and the image at the bottom of this post.

Note-keeping and Writing:

• Notion

• Trello

• Microsoft OneNote/365 (the online version is free)

• LibreOffice

• app.plotrise.com: the online story planner by Substacker

  Tal Valante Kilim

Video Editing:

• CapCut

• Canva

Music:

• Pixabay Music

• SoundCloud (make sure you use the royalty-free music or follow this link)

Helpful hint: Want to save this list of programs? Did you know you can save posts to reference later? You just hit the little Substack icon in the bottom right corner of the post on your feed or click the ellipsis (…) and hit save. You can find saved posts in your subscriptions inbox under the “saved” tab.

Subscriptions

You can also use the share button to copy and paste the link to your personal notes.

If you’re looking for a note-taking app, check out my post where I break down OneNote vs. Notion.

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Janine Eaby is the author of Beyond the Water’s Edge—a fantasy book series influenced by her faith, love of nature, and desire for adventure. Ideal for fans of portal fantasies to other worlds, like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

1. Robertson, Carlyn. “How Authors are Thinking About AI (Survey of 1,200+ Authors).” BookBub, May 15, 2025

I’m not an affiliate for any of the resources or sites listed above. Use at your discretion, and follow all terms and agreements.