As a novelist, I am anti Artificial Intelligence. Full disclosure, I use Spellcheck, Grammarly, and ProWritingAid to check my grammar (I suck at commas). I also use people—my critical and ARC (advanced reader copy) readers point out missed commas and typos. The rest of my writing, from the ideas to the descriptions to the character and story arcs, is all me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t call myself a novelist.

There are people who use AI to brainstorm ideas, create structures for their books, and even write the entire book. In a February 2026 New York Times article titled “The New Fabio is Claude,” Carol Hart produced 200 AI-assisted romance novels in one year. She said, “If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who’s going to win the race?”

This makes my head explode. Writing is not a race, unless you don’t care about the quality of your books.

And companies have pirated millions of books to use for AI training. By using AI to produce books, Ms. Hart is stealing from novelists.

What Carol Hart and others who produce books using AI miss is the high that comes when crafting a beautiful sentence or cleverly rescuing a character from a tense situation. I’ve laughed writing scenes and have teared up. Why on Earth would I give that up to mass-produce AI garbage?

These are strong reasons for an author to abhor AI, and I do. Now there are additional, perhaps unintentional, reasons.

Book Club Spam

Best-selling author John Scalzi wrote he no longer responds to book club requests because it takes too long to confirm if the request is spam. Scalzi says, “Bluntly, I can spend my days sorting ‘book club’ spam, or I can write books. One pays me money. The other does not. So until further notice, I’m not entertaining book club invitations from anyone, and I likely won’t respond to your invitation at all. I’m sorry, but this is the reality of the moment.” Increasingly, he says, it’s also hard to determine if conventions and book festivals are legitimate.

References

Around 57% of the information on the internet is AI-generated, and because of this, it’s hard to know what’s real. For instance, my editor asked me if I’d talk to a writer who was considering hiring him. No one had ever asked him for references before, so he was a little perplexed by it. Of course, I happily talked to the writer.

During our conversation, the writer mentioned she had “met” my editor through a Zoom call, but wanted to hear from people who use his services. She said anyone can post anything about themselves on their website. And because of this, it’s hard to know what to believe. She’s right, and she was smart to talk to actual human references. I’ve now adapted that practice.

Marketing Novels

Almost from the moment I had a completed manuscript, people promised great marketing opportunities. Soon after I released Carpe Diem, Illinois in 2014, two people from a publishing company called, offering to get the movie version produced. I was thrilled until they told me how much it would cost. That’s not how the movie industry works.

It’s easy for writers to get sucked into these scams. We love our books, think the world will love them too, and when praise hits, we’re blinded to common sense and reason. Now with AI, it’s harder than ever to see through these scams.

Recently, I received an email from Maria Pauling, Book Marketing Strategist and Reader Engagement Coordinator. The email detailed a marketing plan for Carpe Diem, Illinois. Suspecting spam but impressed with the quality of the email, I looked up Maria Pauling, checked out her website, and wrote back.

We exchanged a few emails, including one that laid out the costs. I’m not a novice in the world of publishing and know that three months of marketing efforts by an expert can run $1,000 to $3,000 per month. And rightly so. It’s a lot of work. However, Maria said the entire package would come to $1,099. That’s when I was 90% sure it was a scam.

Still, taking a page out of the writer looking for a reference for my editor, I wrote back requesting to meet in person or through Zoom. I received additional emails telling me time was of the essence. My last email to “Maria” simply stated, “I’d like to set up a Zoom meeting.” That was March 20th, and I haven’t heard back, nor do I expect to. Quite an elaborate scheme, spiffy website and all.

Fake Connections

Another email I received was perplexing. Supposedly from Australian author Madeleine Gray, it said she likes to connect with authors who write interesting premises. She asked how I came up with the premise for The Devil Particle. Again, I checked out her website, which is definitely legit, but wondered why an author who writes about millennial malaise, office romance, and infidelity (her novel Green Book) would be interested in a young adult dystopian novel.

Around 1:47 p.m., I answered her email, telling her the origin story of The Devil Particle (nothing anyone can’t already find on the internet), and pushed send. I immediately received a response—which would be 5:47 a.m. Sydney time. Yep, Madeleine Gray got up in the wee hours of the morning, waiting breathlessly for my email and then immediately sent a poorly written response.

I went back to Madeleine Gray’s website and found her agent’s email and Madeleine’s email address, which differed slightly from the one I was responding to. I emailed them that someone was impersonating Madeleine. When the impersonator reached out after not hearing from me, I let them know I’d contacted Madeleine.

Genuine Humans

These situations have trained me to be more cautious. They’ve also made me appreciate real human contact. Last year, I did many in-person author/book fairs and had my best year of book sales at live events (and I’ve been doing this for twelve years). The turnout was incredible. (In the picture, I’m with authors Meadoe Hora and Abigail Morrison at the Kenosha Book Festival last summer).

My feeling, generated by a good deal of hope, is that the AI bubble will pop, and people will reject it in favor of human connections.

How You Can Help

Before buying a novel, determine if the author has used AI creatively (not just for grammar and punctuation). This includes the cover (AI also steals from visual artists). If they have, don’t buy their books. Instead, buy only from anti-AI novelists who refuse to use AI. Support genuinely human creativity.