Don't Use AI To 'Write' Your Books, You Losers!

This was always going to happen. The moment that generative AI went mainstream, and the moment every corporate giant decided to embrace it, we knew that someone was going to end up with pie on their face. Hachette Book Group, one of the largest publishers in the United States, pulled a forthcoming horror novel from its release schedule after it was alleged that the author had used AI to ‘write’ it.

Shy Girl by Mia Ballard was pulled from both Amazon and Hachette’s website. It will no longer be released in America and it will be discontinued in the UK, where it has already sold about 1,800 copies (pretty great for a debut.)

“Hachette remains committed to protecting original creative expression and storytelling,” a Hachette spokeswoman told The New York Times. She added that Hachette requires all submissions to be original to the authors, and asks authors to disclose to the company whether they are using A.I. during the writing process. Seems like a contradiction to me, to be honest. It ain’t original if you used ChatGPT, kids!

Mia Ballard denied using AI but said that an acquaintance she hired to edit the book when it was initially self-published had used it. Ah yes, the old, ‘my girlfriend lives in Canada and isn’t a robot’ excuse.

Shy Girl had done well on social media platforms like TikTok, which has become an increasingly crucial part of the marketing process for major publishers. BookTok is seen as a barometer for what readers are embracing, and they initially liked Shy Girl. But soon, reviews started to grow more negative, with many describing it as confusingly written and full of generic metaphors that reeked of AI slop. One reviewer on YouTube dedicated two hours and 40 minutes to deciphering the book and their assertion that it was AI Slop. This video now has 1.2 million viewers.

This will not be the last time we see crap like this happen. More and more ‘authors’ will be exposed as users of the plagiarism machine. Eventually, a big name writer will admit it and receive no pushback because they make too much money. We’ll get a ton of smarmy think-pieces claiming that people are just jealous of AI and actually it’s sooo much better at writing than you are. It’s exhausting enough that every ebook platform I frequent is polluted with obvious AI slop, and that it’s made finding new indie authors near impossible. We just have to embarrass these losers into having some integrity.