If you’re thinking about creating an eBook, either as a lead magnet for your email list or to sell as a digital product, for the love of all things holy, please do not use AI to write it.
Just because AI can spew out words in a mathematically coherent order, does not mean it is good at writing. Even its information retrieval is sketchy at the best of times. It hallucinates, makes things up, and gets simple facts wrong. You want that in your published work?
Your eBook should be an extension of you, something you care about deeply. It should be a labour of love, something you invest time and effort into because it is important to you, to your mission. It shouldn’t just be a money-maker or a way to snag some email addresses.
What Makes A Good eBook, Anyway?
A well written, well thought out eBook takes time. Months, potentially. But once it is done and published, it will pay dividends for years and years to come, providing it is actually good of course (and that bit is entirely on you).
“Good” is subjective. I love Stephen King, for instance, but plenty of my friends could care less about him. Pinning down “good” is, therefore, something of a fool’s errand. Everybody’s got their own ideas about what’s good and what’s not.
But it is true that all good things share certain attributes that separate them from bad things – or lesser quality things. And most of the time, it is these things which make people think the thing is “good” in the first place.
And they are, in my humble opinion, as follows:
- Good things take time. No one writes a best-seller on their first try
- Good things, in a creative format, tend to come from and are based on lived human experience. Look at all the best films and novels, all the best self-help books. They’re always based on lived experiences.
- Good things tend to be unique, have their own voice and style. They’re taste-makers not taste-chasers.
- Good things are more often than not viewed as authentic. This applies to jeans (Levi’s is a good example), books, movies, and food.
AI content cannot do any of these things. It’s a word sequencer, nothing more. It uses mathematics and its training data to put words in, what it believes, are the right order based on your prompt.
Getting meaningful prose from an AI, therefore, is like expecting your dog to understand gravity because it can catch a ball.
If you want your ebook to be good, I’d recommend you get acquainted with the fact that there is no real shortcut to writing a good one. You have to enjoy the process, be compelled to do it, otherwise what’s the point?
An eBook is The Simplest Way To Sell Yourself or Your Brand
If your eBook forms part of a wider branding exercise, it is your first contact with a potential client or subscriber.
You only get one chance to make a good first impression, so mugging them off with a 100% AI written eBook probably isn’t the best way to start.
You also need to understand the power of a book too.
You’re literally speaking to someone’s subconscious mind. If you can do this for extended periods of time, like if they read your entire book, you’re literally reshaping their reality with your words.
The True Power of Books (Inc. Free eBooks) When They’re Done Right
Half of the people I follow on the internet came into my life through a book. The process of how I discover them is usually always the same too:
- I want to learn about something new or understand something better, so I start looking for books on the subject.
- I find one that people seem to like and rate, download it and start reading.
- If I like the book, I’ll Google the author, follow them on X or Bluesky, subscribe to their Substack or email list.
- I’m now actively invested in them as a creator. I want to hear more from them. I like them and I trust them because they delivered value to me.
That’s why ebooks and books are so powerful. They have the power, more than any other type of media, to turn casual readers into rabid fans because the experience is more intimate, more personal.
This is why books are still popular despite everything being available online. Reading is like meditation. It’s special. Those that have a reverence for it, unsurprisingly, also tend to also write the best books.
Now imagine what a good ebook could do for your business? Crazy, right? The sky’s the limit when it comes to subject matter too. It doesn’t even matter what niche you operate in. People have problems, you have experience. Have a think about this and start working on concepts for a book.
Why Do People Use AI To Write Books Then?
Most big creator-led brands and businesses have a book or an eBook associated with them. Ali Abdul has one, Tim Ferris has a few, Mark Manson, the list goes on.
A popular book or eBook is one of the quickest ways to not only develop a personal brand but also make yourself a known expert about your chosen field of expertise.
They’re great for quickly building authority in Google too, it turns you into an entity and associates you with your chosen topic or niche which, in time, earns you a spot in Google’s Knowledge Graph.
If you’re popular, or the book is good enough and gets decent reviews, they’re also great for generating an income too.
If you have a winner on your hands, you can get guest slots on popular podcasts too. It doesn’t have to be Diary of a CEO or The Joe Rogan Experience, either. Smaller podcasts can drive big sales numbers and help establish you as an expert in your field.
The Grifter Problem
So, we have three things or reasons why books and eBooks are used by creators: 1) making yourself a known entity in Google’s Knowledge Graph, 2) developing and growing your personal brand, and 3) as a potentially passive income source.
Ironically, these are the exact same reasons why eBooks are so popular with SEO grifters and spammers. Anything that can earn them a quick buck or game Google’s algorithm is fair game.
This is the grifter credo.
I’ve lost count of the amount of Kindle Unlimited titles I’ve immediately returned because they’re clearly 100% AI written. Lead magnets too. If you’re going to sell something, either for a price or in exchange for an email, it cannot be some thoughtless, vanilla drivel spewed up by ChatGPT.
It sets the wrong tone right off the bat. It makes you look lazy and, worse, like a spammer. Don’t be that person. If you want to go professional as a creator, your credo needs to be different. It has to be based on only putting out stuff you will happily stand behind and defend, something you’re proud of basically.
While nothing is sacrosanct in the age of AI slop, it always feels worse somehow when you download an eBook and it’s obviously been written by an AI with little to no human input. I guess if you love something, books and the written word, in my case, it just feels more heretical.
Also, keep in mind that something like 900 million people now use ChatGPT. They know what its output looks like, so when they download your eBook and spot its generic, trademark tone and style, you’re rumbled. Is that what you want for your brand? To be associated with AI slop and not caring?
Write it yourself, put your heart and soul into it. And if you cannot do that, hire a good ghost writer to write it for you. AI content has no place in literature or non-fiction books.
Sharing is Caring!
