Writing

AI Writers Think You’re a Mark

February 8, 2026February 8, 2026 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I shutter to call anyone who uses AI to cobble together something vaguely book-shaped writers, but with a title, one must get to the point. On Sunday, an article dropped from the New York Times that talks about a woman who is churning out AI written romance novels. The article expounds upon the fact that she makes six figures and has published hundreds of novels this year under a bunch of pen names. As you get farther along in the article, the real point appears: she is selling a course to teach people how to make money from making AI books, and she’s also selling some sort of proprietary AI for hundreds of dollars a month to write said book. With all other AI shills, it is a giant grift. She’s stealing from published authors in numerous ways, she wants to sell the dream of fame and fortune with a grift that looks suspiciously like a multilevel marketing scheme, and most egregiously, she obviously thinks readers are fools.

There’s a reason this woman picked romance as the genre to set up slop, I mean, shop. The article poses it as romance being the most fast-paced, voracious genre, but let’s be real, this woman (like many other writers) thinks romance readers are indiscriminate, mindless fools who will read anything as long as it meets a checklist of tropes, fits in a subgenre, and has a HEA. She, like all other AI writers, disrespects her audience. AI writers assume that their audience can’t tell the difference between something a machine cobbled together against something a human wrote. It’s quantity over quality because readers will just keep eating the slop if they put it in front of their faces. This mindset is probably what angers me most about AI writers.

On a fundamental level, authors owe their readers respect and trust. Writing becomes a business when you start selling your stories online, and once you exchange money, trust is established. Readers pay for your book assuming that you have done your best to put out a product that they will enjoy that will be as error free as possible. There’s also the implicit promise that you actually wrote it. If you’ve been part of the book community for any length of time, you know that readers and authors take plagiarism very seriously. So why are AI writers fine with using the plagiarism slot machine to vomit out something resembling a book that is made of millions of books that have been chopped up against the authors’ will and reused to create these works? Because they assume their readers will be too foolish to notice or that they are do indiscriminate that they won’t care.

Romance readers don’t care as long as it’s spicy.

They’ll read anything as long as it’s in Kindle Unlimited.

It doesn’t matter if they don’t like it because they already read it, and I got paid.

This is the mindset of AI writers. They’ve targeted romance because they think it’s formulaic enough that the plagiarism machine can’t go too off the rails and that the readers are women who are too busy being hot and bothered to care if the book absolutely sucks or doesn’t make any sense or is soulless. What they don’t understand is that romance is about human connection, and interpersonal relationships aren’t something a machine has the brains to figure out. Hell, a good chunk of human authors can’t write a satisfying romance because they can’t get the relationship dynamic right. Romance is a genre that spans all genders and sexualities, but the misogyny behind looking down upon romance readers remains. Take note in the article that while this author is proud to use AI, she still hides that she does and switches and retires pen names repeatedly. I can only assume this is because romance readers are discriminate and do dump authors who write slop that isn’t up to snuff, and she hides that she uses AI because people don’t want to read it. Am I surprised? No.

While the author states that she makes six figures off her AI drivel, I’m willing to bet that the six figures are before she subtracts the money spent on ads. This is a common tactic in author grifter circles, and if you’ve been around long enough, you know the type. She’s selling a lifestyle. If you use AI, you can also be a six figure author with a beautiful life who barely works or writes or even knows what they publish. A hands-off side hustle. Sound familiar? If you’re into anti-MLM/pyramid scheme content, this is the usual M.O. The people higher up the pyramid sell a lifestyle that involves making someone or something else do the work for you while you rake in the money and barely lift a finger. All you have to do is divest yourself of your integrity, self-respect, and creativity in favor of the machine. AI is the ultimate tool of group-think. It’s a homogeneity machine that spits out the most expected answer whether it’s correct or not. There is no innovation to be had with AI. It’s literally impossible. But much like MLMs, there is profit to be had from selling courses and supposedly proprietary AI. AI writers are trying to profit off the desperation of other authors. They post about their luxurious lives of leisure while selling you the course that will make you a bestseller or the program that will write a book for you in 48 hours. These people hope you are foolish enough and desperate enough to fall for their schemes because that is how they truly make money, not through books but through courses and selling a dream.

What I think gets lost in the sauce with AI evangelists is that they aren’t doing it because it’s suddenly made their lives truly better. It’s because they can sell you all something. They can sell readers subpar books while selling desperate authors programs and courses while lying about how they make the bulk of their money. AI is a ponzi scheme that is about to crash in on itself, and anyone telling you its the way of the future stands to profit from it.

Writing

No, You Shouldn’t Use AI, Even on the Small Stuff

July 13, 2025July 13, 2025 Kara Jorgensen4 Comments

If you’ve followed me on social media for longer than a few days, you know I hate AI. I am morally opposed on every level to AI because it not only destroys the environment but is a tool of fascism. As much as I would like to word vomit about that, instead, I would like to speak about why writers shouldn’t use AI, even for seemingly minor details as so many AI-using authors claim to do.

Here’s the thing, there are no truly minor details or unimportant parts of a book as everything needs to further the characterization and mood of the story.

I can already feel some writers rolling their eyes at that. Feel free to do so at your own peril. Writers who are willing to hand over parts of their project to AI to “free up their time” to do other things should instead look at their relationship to hustle culture and why they have chosen quantity over quality. Hustle culture is rife in the writing world with many author groups pushing a churn and burn mentality where authors need to publish every 3 months or be lost to irrelevancy. If you go onto Amazon’s top 100 category boards for books on writing, you’ll find books about writing more or writing faster. While those can be useful, writing more isn’t the same as writing good or better books. The hustle side of the writing world stresses that readers don’t care about the books themselves. They’ll read anything as long as it checks off a few boxes for them, and that once you have hooked them, readers will come back every 90 days to choke down whatever book you throw at them.

I despise this mentality. For one, it is patronizing to readers. Readers won’t stick around if your book sucks or if the quality goes down over time. We’ve seen this with readers noticing an author with a massive backlist has turned to AI, and they abandon them when the writing becomes nonsensical or the quality change becomes noticeably bad. I don’t like when authors treat their readers like shit or take advantage of them by assuming they will always be there no matter how they treat them or how crappy their books are. If you’re a writer, I believe you should write for yourself first, but anything you sell to readers should be the best it could possibly be for them since they’re the ones supporting you monetarily.

What I hate even more about the hustle culture mentality is the way corporate speak has made its way into creative fields. Creativity can and should make you money. Artists should be paid fairly for their work and be able to make a stable living off of it. At the same time, I don’t think creativity should be treated like a business in the way that corporations expect exponential growth at all times. It is unsustainable. We cannot write more books every single year and increase our yearly word counts exponentially. It is impossible and will quickly lead to burn out and quality loss. In order to meet these unsustainable quotas, authors turn to AI because others have convinced them that if they outsource the tedious parts of writing to the machine, they will free up time to write more of the things they enjoy or just write faster. The problem is that those tedious parts aren’t useless; everything in your book should serve a purpose.

What many of these “write more in less time” gurus purposely ignore is writing as a craft. There is almost no discussion of how to make your writing better, only how to do it faster. If they did care about craft, none of them would be suggesting using AI. As someone who teaches young writers how to better their work, every piece of writing I have seen from AI is far worse and emptier than anything brand new writers in my classes have come up with. AI writing is confusing, devoid of charm or character, and just flat-out bad. 0/10 do not recommend using it because it will take way more time to edit than just writing something yourself. A study with people who code showed that while they thought they were taking less time using AI, they were actually taking longer because they had to review it, fix it, etc (source). This is on top of the environmental harm, the fact that it is a tool of fascism, and a plagiarism machine.

The thing that a lot of writers using AI for the “boring parts” don’t seem to understand is that the minor details are incredibly important to your story. One of my most hated posts online is the whole, “Only English teachers care that the drapes are blue. They’re just blue. The author just gave it a random color. It isn’t that deep.” Sure, that can be true occasionally, but 99% of your descriptions and details should be purposeful. When you are creating a world, even if a story takes place in the real world, you are building a microcosm specific to your characters and the story you are telling. Therefore, there is an added level of cohesion and purpose in those details that might not appear in our material reality. When you are setting the scene, you need to think about how you want the reader to feel while interacting with this part of the world, how the structure fits the function of this setting, and how the point of view character effects the way the world is interpreted or experienced. For example, a character with a phobia of dentists is going to view, experience, and describe a dental office differently than someone who doesn’t think getting their teeth cleaned is a traumatic experience. If you just let AI fill in the description of the dental office, you are losing that context. Even if the character isn’t scared of it, they will still notice details other characters won’t, and while you’re writing your story, that should be something you focus on.

The other place I’ve heard people using AI for “busy work” in books is dialogue. This really makes no sense to me because dialogue is one of the best ways to insert characterization, motivation, and movement into a story. Even if you feed a chat bot relevant information about your character, it isn’t going to understand the context of your work and anything about the character below a surface level. Any dialogue it spits out will be generic, boring, and probably ill-fitting for the moment. This is one of those situations where editing extensively will be necessary and will probably take longer than just writing it yourself.

But what if I’m stuck? Why can’t I just use AI to fill in the gap for me?

Because that’s cheating! It’s cheating yourself out of using your brain to puzzle out what should go next. It’s like saying, “I find this exercise hard, so I’m going to use a motor to move the dumbbell for me.” It isn’t going to help you, and at some point, your writing muscles are going to shrink and atrophy until you can’t write anything without constantly circling back to AI. Using AI long-term causes cognitive problems (source). If you continually use it to help write your books, you will become more dependent on it and eventually get worse at writing. The best way to combat this is to face the things that challenge you head-on. Why are you stuck on this dialogue? Why do you struggle with description? Do you not know when you need to add it, or do you simply need some resources to help you name things?

There are a ton of writing resources online made by authors for authors, many of which are free. Instead of using AI, slow down and invest time and effort into getting better at your craft. I know hustle culture says write more, write faster, publish quicker, but the best way to get ahead as a writer is to take time for yourself and do things to be a better writer. Sometimes, that looks like taking a break to read good books, watch shows that stoke that creative fire, do other crafts to refill your well. Other times, it’s dissecting how other authors write well and figuring out how to do that in your own way. Writing takes work, and work means effort on your part. Using AI to write the things that you struggle with or find boring means that you are cheating yourself out of the opportunity to learn, grow, and become a better writer. Before you run to ChatGPT for help when you get stuck, look up a resource on Google that can help you with this particular thing. If you are struggling, others have too, and there’s a 90% chance that someone has made something to help you figure it out on your own.

Writing

8 Things New Authors Should Know

February 23, 2025February 23, 2025 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I’m the first to admit that I do not have the answers when it comes to writing or being an author. Hell, I’m still shocked they let me teach students, but after ten plus years of being an indie author, publishing ten books and a bunch of short stories, I have learned a thing or two. It’s funny because I posted a similar blog a year or two ago, but after teaching my novel writing class this past semester, I realized there are a few things I really think new authors should know.

You have to be your biggest fan. I often see writers who come from a fanfic background get down about the lack of validation and encouragement when they come nonfanfic writers because your stories go out when they’re finished rather than as they work on them. You are probably never going to get that same validation on your work unless you post the draft live on your blog or on Patreon, so my suggestion is to become your biggest cheerleader. You need to love what you’re working on and light your fire for your characters. That isn’t to say there aren’t going to be hard days where you are frustrated or hating the process. You just have to be excited to see these characters go on their journey more than anyone else. Write for yourself first and foremost to keep that excitement alive.
Take care of your body. My partner and I are both from artistic backgrounds, and the number one thing they always remind me of is to take care of my body. If you want to have a long and sustainable career as a writer, you need to take care of your hands and your back. Resist the urge to curl up like a shrimp while you type, make sure your wrists are in an ergonomic position to avoid carpel tunnel, stretch those fingies and wrists, and take breaks. I’ve been stressing this to my students lately because what you can do at 18 or 21 is infinitely harder at 34.
Avoid burnout. Something we all need to know the warning signs of and try to prevent is burnout. Burnout is basically when you run your brain into the ground by overtaxing it and not giving yourself enough rest. It can also be caused by compounded stress. Sometimes, it is unavoidable due to bad things intersecting all at once, but if you can help it, be on the look out for suddenly feeling run down, actively avoiding your work, everything suddenly being far harder than it normally is. This can be due to other health issues, but if this feels more mental than physical (or is mental and turning physical), it may be burnout. Radical rest is the best medicine. Your deadlines and readers can wait for you to take care of yourself. Being burnout for a long prolonged period can lead to permanent damage, so please rest when you feel it coming on.
Learn about taxes early. I know this is probably not as big of an issue outside the US, but please learn about how taxes work for independent creators in your state. I always thought taxes were very scary, but the IRS is not going to bust into your house like the Kool-Aid Man and arrest you. What you can figure out is what counts against your taxes (losses/things needed to create your products), how to do quarterly taxes (which will save your money in the long run if you make a decent amount per year), and what the threshold is for upgrading to an LLC or having a professional handle your taxes and advise you. I know it is stressful and varies from state to state, but figuring this stuff out took a lot off my plate. If you want to sell things on Etsy or from a storefront online, you should also figure out how to do sales tax and such as well.
Learn that authors are not your competition. They are your coworkers. No reader exclusively reads one author and no one else, so there is no reason to treat other authors like the enemy. I know that often this comes from a place of jealousy, but treat the people who are doing better than you are inspiration or case studies. See what they are doing in terms of marketing or interactions and try to apply that to your work. Don’t copy people; learn from them. Other authors are your community, and they are often the ones who step up to help out newer authors. Fine supportive people. It may take a bit, but also don’t be afraid to leave groups that are catty or mean spirited. They aren’t your friends, and you can do better.
Be true to yourself and your vision. This is sort of similar to point one, but it can be easy to get caught up in doing what everyone else is doing. Authors see people are making book boxes or Tiktoks or book trailers, and suddenly, you’re worried that these things are the key to success. No one thing is, and if doing Tiktoks isn’t something you want to do because you hate video, then don’t do it. It’s best to stay focused on what you want and how you want your writing life to look and focus on how to make that work rather than fling spaghetti and do everything while hoping something sticks. If you try to do everything, you will burn yourself out and get less done.
Remember that not everything you see online is real. People lie. Shocking, I know, but yes, people on the internet lie about their success or pull a Wizard of Oz to make their success look grander than it really is. There are a lot of people online who are grifters who just want to sell you their course or get you to listen to their money-making podcast, so they tell you what you want to hear. They have the secret to make a million dollars or how to make four figures a month. Someone can make a million dollars over fifteen years and call themselves a million dollar author, or they might make $50k in a month, but what they don’t say is that they spent $30k in ads. You might also see authors who claim to have personal assistants when, in reality, it’s a chatbot or them under a different Facebook or email account pretending to be someone else. Trust me that it is more common than you would think, especially from people who try to act like authorities online.
Don’t use AI. There are also a lot of people who will tell you AI can help you write faster or that it can help you with research. It can’t. AI is basically the mediocrity machine. It picks the most common dreck and smooshes it together on command, but it cannot think, it cannot create emotional depth, and it isn’t consistent. There are TONS of resources online that can teach you to become a better writer, but AI isn’t it. It isn’t a shortcut to success, but it is a shortcut to losing your career because most readers do not want to read AI written or aided stories, and yes, you can tell. From a creative writing teacher perspective, every bit of AI writing I have seen has been far worse quality than anything newbie writers in my classes have turned in. It’s soulless. If you can’t convince yourself to write and have to turn to AI in order to do it, you are in the wrong field and should leave to make room for those who do give a shit about craft and their readers.