Recently there have been discussions in a couple of the cozy mystery Facebook groups I’m in regarding AI-generated books. Like me, many readers don’t want to spend their hard-earned money or their time on something that hasn’t been created by a human author. A living, breathing author has poured themselves into developing their setting, plot, and characters, and has then invested countless hours bringing those elements to life with their words. On the other hand, anyone can produce an AI-generated book in the space of a few hours simply by giving the AI some prompts. Although Amazon and other book sellers require people publishing on their platforms to inform them if generative AI has been used to produce a book, the retailers don’t pass that information on to buyers.
So, the question is: how can you tell if a book has been generated by AI? While I can’t claim to be an expert on this matter, I did inadvertently read an AI-generated cozy mystery recently, an experience I’ll blog about another time. Through that read and my research afterwards, I’ve picked up several pointers that can indicate that a novel has been produced using generative AI. The fact that a book has one or even several of the elements I’m going to point out does not mean that it’s definitely AI-generated; however, if many or all of these elements combine, this can be a big signpost that the book has not been written by a human author.
This blog post isn’t meant to be a definitive guide, but hopefully it will inform readers who don’t wish to unwittingly buy, read, or promote books that haven’t come from the mind and keyboard of a real human being.
Does the book have an AI-generated cover?
A number of human authors are choosing to use generative AI to create covers these days, so a book with an AI cover doesn’t necessarily also have AI-generated contents. However, if the book doesn’t have an AI-generated cover, you can be sure, certainly at the moment, that it was actually written by a human being.
What is the text formatting like?
There are several things I’ve noticed about the AI-generated book samples I’ve looked at that seem to be standard for an AI text, although they do also sometimes appear in human-authored novels.
Paragraph style. Standard fiction formatting as designated by The Chicago Manual of Style and used by traditional publishers is that the first paragraph of a chapter or section isn’t indented but all other paragraphs are. AI-generated books seem not to have any indented paragraphs at all.
Speech marks and apostrophe style. Again, as per The Chicago Manual of Style and traditional publishing, it’s standard for speech marks and apostrophes to be directional (curly) as opposed to straight. Every AI-generated book I’ve looked at has straight speech marks and apostrophes.
Do the chapters have titles?
Some authors do give their chapters titles, of course, but many choose not to and simply number them. Again, all the AI-generated novels I’ve looked at have chapter headings.
Has the author published a large quantity of books in a short time?
This is the big tell, as far as I’m concerned. Some human authors are quite prolific and can publish a number of books in quick succession, and others might write several books in a series and then publish them one after the other as a strategy. But the quantities of books I’m talking about are excessive. One AI author I looked at had published 17 books in a month, and another put out 115 books over a period of four months. If the author of the book you’re looking at has published a ridiculous number of books in a short time, then you can bet that the books are AI-generated. No human can write that fast.
Does the author have a website or social media presence?
If you do a web search for the author of your suspect book, does an author website, Facebook, Instagram, or other social media profile appear? Not all authors have their own websites or choose to be active on social media, but many, if not most, do. If the author you’re searching for only has search results for Amazon, Goodreads, and similar, then there is more likelihood that their books are AI-generated.
What’s the author’s Amazon image and bio like?
Does the author have an actual photograph of themself on their Amazon profile? Some authors do use a graphic of their initials or an avatar, so this isn’t foolproof. However, I have noticed that AI authors tend to use some kind of graphic with initials or even an AI-generated photo.
And what about the bio? Does it sound like it’s describing a real person? Does it contain quirky or interesting facts? Does it tell you about the author’s background, their writing influences, their pets, their hobbies, any information that makes them unique? Does it detail any awards that they might have won for their writing? All these pieces of information point towards a real-life human being. AI bios can sound like they’re about a real person, but they tend to be quite bland and don’t include that human touch.
What kind of books has the author written?
Is there an absurdly diverse range of subjects and genres to the author’s name? While we know that authors do diversify and don’t just write in one fiction or non-fiction genre, if it appears that the author is an expert in a certain field or focuses on a certain genre and then suddenly starts publishing books in a wide range of other fields or genres, especially ones that are unrelated, this could well point to them producing books with generative AI.
How can I support real human authors?
As I said earlier, no single characteristic in my list, apart from being ridiculously over-prolific, proves that a book has been created using generative AI, but taken together they can be a strong indication that it has quite possibly not come from the mind and pen of a human author.
As readers, we can continue to support human authors by buying their books, giving ratings, and writing reviews on sites like Amazon. If we have our own websites, blogs, or social media accounts or channels, we can talk about them and promote them, giving links to their websites and social media.
Another very important thing we can do is not download AI-generated books from sites like Amazon. Every download registers interest in the book and pushes it further up the rankings, which in turn pushes books by human authors down. You only have to look at the top 100 free cozy mysteries, for example, on Amazon to find that several are AI-generated.
I hope that this whistlestop tour has given you a few useful pointers to help you identify and avoid books likely to have been generated by AI. Let’s continue to do all we can to support and enjoy real-life human authors who pour their heart and soul into using their own natural creativity to bring us stories to enjoy.
If you’d like to read another take on identifying AI-generated books, software developer Steve Fenton has written about his learnings from inadvertently buying an AI-generated non-fiction book.