Roughly half of all internet traffic, from what I’ve been able to gather, comes from bots. Let that sink in. An overwhelming army of non-human scrapers and crawlers are clicking, copying, analyzing, and spitting out information that humans use to find stuff. Which means that the old days of buying ad space and sitting back to await the results are kaput.
Think about it. You pay $1000 for an ad, and half the responses are not sentient human beings looking for your product. You’ve just tossed $500 into the dumpster, and the dumpster is on fire.
Five years ago, someone searching for a good book to read might head over to Amazon and put in a search term like “Action packed thriller” and see a bunch of cover thumbnails. Then they could browse, like in a bookstore. That made keyword selection in KDP so important. Maybe it still is, but increasingly readers will go straight to Google or an LLM for a search. So how do we optimize for the bots? Like being in love, it’s complicated, and life is complicated enough as it is. Thus, I have not done a deep dive on this, but if you want to you can start with this post from Thomas Umstattd’s AuthorMedia podcast.
I would rather spend my time doing what I do best, writing the next book. Because, in the end, that is still the #1 marketing tool.
Why? Because of trust.
There are only two ways to grow a business. The first way is to find new customers through marketing and advertising. The second way is to sell more to satisfied customers.
The first way is expensive and, now, increasingly difficult.
The second way works if—and only if—your product delivers the goods.
For a novelist, the goods are stories that readers love. If they love one of your books, and that gets them to read another one, and they love that, too, you’ve made a fan. Which is why an email list is crucial. This lets you keep in communication with happy customers. Writers do this via emails/newsletters, which avoid the fog and noise of the internet space. The care and nurture of your list is a subject beyond the scope of this post. But if I may offer two bits of advice:
- Don’t hard sell.
- Don’t overstay your welcome.
These days, people are looking, across the board, for people they can trust because they have been hosed so often.
This, I think, is what’s behind the recent news of a Big 5 publisher pulling a book because of suspected AI use. The pub knows that most readers want a human being to be the sole author, and don’t want their reputation for providing that to be compromised. I’m not going to delve into the various uses of AI tools. I’ve stated that my “red line” is at the actual text that appears on the page. This is not, however, an opinion shared by all. One bestselling (and controversial) author openly states:
“Artificial Intelligence was used in both the research and composition of this book. I have asked the AI to mimic my writing style so you, the reader, will not be able to tell what was written by me and what was generated by the AI. I am also not going to tell you or make any indication of what was written by me and what was generated by the AI. It was I, the writer, who decided what words were put on the pages of this book, so despite the contributions of the AI, I still consider every word of this book to be mine. And I don’t care if you don’t.”
You know what? I have to give kudos to this fellow for being open about it. I don’t agree with his practice, but at least he isn’t trying to hide it. That’s far better passing off AI-generated text as one’s own words, which is what these scandals are all about.
In an episode of Downton Abbey, when it becomes clear that the old ways of life are on the way out, Carson the butler muses, “The nature of life is not permanence, but flux.”
Hoo boy. We’re in flux right now, on steroids.
What hasn’t changed—and never will—is the value of trust. Whatever you do, however you do it, don’t violate that trust in your work.
Comments welcome.
It’s a slippery slope but I think it is good that it is being discussed. In the article, Frey says, “Who cares whether I found this information in a book, on Google or using AI! And when I use it, it’s not actually for the narrative composition of the book but to include data along the lines of: “There are 756 billionaires in the US, with a total of 5,5 trillion dollars in assets. Seven of the top ten richest people worldwide are American.” When I need this kind of information, AI serves it up at a snap of my fingers. I take its answer, I modify the language, so it looks like I’ve written it and I stick it in the book. And instead of spending all day on research, it takes something like an hour.” which makes it marginally more acceptable to those of us who loathe AI with a passion. It does make me want to read the book so, good marketing tool??? Who knows. I also think it is inevitable. PS I can’t stand AI book covers but I wonder if I am recognizing all that are created by AI…
Like you, JSB, I draw the line at letting what the AI spits out become prose on my pages. (And as I mentioned in a comment a while back, AI content is now being watermarked so it can be recognized.)
The days of keywords as discovery tools are fast fading, and we now have to learn how to create descriptions with wording that will get found by those readers using search engines to find their books.
“Write the next book” has always been the best marketing tool, and it still is. I know I trust certain authors to deliver the goods and go straight to their new releases.
Great advice, James. Despite all the gloom and doom surrounding this topic, I agree readers will always respond to the human touch. We care about what others think and feel and do.
Yes, computers can outdo humans in some ways, but our fascination with human activities will never die. We have forklifts that can lift far more than the strongest human, but fans still flock to Olympic weightlifting competitions.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Some say it’s only a matter of time before AI starts producing work that is indistinguishable from human authors. But because the LLMs draw from millions of words and “predict” what might come next when prompted, it is forced to produce a certain “sameness” without the soul of a single writer writing at the top of his or her game. IOW, the author with a singular voice will always stand out against the machine product. Always. And that will be our key to survival. Sincerely yours, Sarah Connor.
No AI in my books ever.
I’ve decided to focus on personal contact rather than try to master online marketing. Book fairs, speaking appearances, farmers markets, teaching, book clubs (but not the scammy ones!). Talking in person with readers consistently results in sales. It’s slow, one book at a time, but it’s more rewarding than shouting into the bot mobs online.
Word of mouth recommendations count the most. Readers trust other readers to steer them to good books.
Jim, you’re so right that trust is crucial in this age of distrust and deceit.
FWIW, I have found whenever I do a personal appearance I sell a few ebooks later, and if I bring books, I usually sell a few.
Trust is essential. At least Frey is open and honest about his AI use, but I’m sticking to 100% me in all my books. I want to write and I don’t consider prompting AI to generate text and then editing said generated text to be actual writing.
Writing is communication between one human brain (and heart) to another human brain (and heart). It’s a very human act, and especially now, we have to win reader’s trust in order to engage in this communication and connection.
Money graph: “These days, people are looking, across the board, for people they can trust because they have been hosed so often”
Hoo boy (as you say). Truer words never spoken in these turbulent times in all facets of life, from politics to the state of your romaine lettuce.
Could not agree more about the building a fan base thing. Why do I keep buying Jess Walters’ books? Because he has never disappointed me. I got hooked on his stuff wtih Beautiful Ruins and sought out almost all of his books, even his most recent So Far Gone (wonderful, funny-poignant tale about an ex-reporter who can’t cope with current journalism and politics, feels he can’t trust anyone, so goes to live off the grid — until he finds out his grandkids desperately need him. And yesterday, I ordered (from my fave indie bookstore) his Edgar winning early novel Citizen Vince.
I trust Walters to deliver. Wish I could find other suchheroes. 🙂 Thanks for the good post to chew on.
Full credit to the author for putting AI’s participation on the line until he said, ‘And I don’t care if you don’t.’
If you don’t care what the reader thinks, how are you supposed to reach them?