It’s a dilemma I’ve seen many clients coming to me with in recent years. They spent time, effort, and in many cases, a lot of money using AI prompts to try to write a book that matched their vision. But it turned out to be worthless – and they don’t know where to turn next. Here’s a look at how and why this happens, and how to deal with it.
The creation of slop
It’s easier than you think to churn out AI slop, even if you consider yourself to have discerning taste. It starts out simply enough: you tweak and push and prod the prompts until you get something, maybe even a whole first chapter, that really seems to work. It’s hitting the tone you asked it for, the language is accessible and friendly, and the facts or plot you wanted to cover are all there.
But one small section does not a book make, and so you carry on: prompt by prompt, section by section, the book grows. The AI starts to hallucinate. Some of it you catch and ask it to try again. Over time, you get used to the way AI writes – too used to it. Things you would have flagged before start to slip by. The level of perfectionism you held at the start slips as you begin to trust the AI more and more.
And then you read it all back when you’ve finished…
The realisation of horror
… And you realise that what you have isn’t a good book at all.
It’s riddled with hallucinations and inconsistencies, things that stand out to you as odd now that you’re reading them all together in one. You realise that some of the sentences sound clever but when you actually try to parse their meaning, you can’t work it out. Analogies don’t make any sense when you consider what they’re actually supposed to be saying. It all starts to tumble down.
This can be a moment of great despair. All that time and effort, the hopes and dreams, the expensive subscription – was it all a waste of time? Are you destined to never become a published author after all? Have you been deluding yourself?
The search for the solution
Your quest for answers has led you here, and the good news is that you’re in the right place to find them. Human ghostwriters have long been fulfilling the very need that AI purports to solve: that those who can’t write, don’t have the time or confidence to write, or just need some help getting over the finish line can turn to a third party to get their book written and polished. While you’ve already discovered for yourself that AI is only capable of churning out slop, human ghostwriters and editors are, thankfully, still alive and thriving.
Your best option is to contact a ghostwriter and start talking about how your project can evolve from here. Share with them your vision for the book, the one you started out with at the very beginning. How you pictured it reading, how you thought it would feel to get to the end of it as a reader. What you planned to achieve when the book went on sale. All of this and any other questions your ghostwriter may have will put them in a position to work with you on the book you really dreamed of writing, so that the AI slop nightmare is a thing of memory only.
The most likely scenario, it’s sad to say, is a full and total rewrite. Not only does AI have a lot of flaws as a writer, as you already know, but it’s also impossible to copyright the work produced by an AI. On top of that, the publishing world is now regularly being rocked with scandal, as authors are caught out for using AI and having their deals yanked out from under their feet. Some have even lost their publishing contracts after the book has been shipped to early reviewers! Don’t take the risk of that happening to you – it’s best to start from scratch.
If you’re reading this because you need help rescuing your AI slop manuscript, get in touch today. With over fifteen years of experience under my belt, I’m not just good at dealing with AI saves – I have the knowhow that comes from working within this industry since before AI was a concept outside of sci-fi movies. Let’s talk about how we can turn your slop fail into a manuscript worthy of a book deal.
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