AI Use in the Creative Space
This is a continuation of a post about changes in publishing that began in Part 1 describing a quickly changing world and how it impacts writers and publishers. With technology ramping up faster than anyone can keep track, It creates a lot of hope, fear, and unreasonable expectations on both sides. It ends with many people being confused about what is true, what is ethical, and what the individual writer or publisher is going to do about it.
I look at four primary impacts of generative AI for writers and publishers today.
Translation
Narration
Cover Design
Writing
Translation (Human). The cost to pay a good translator for a 300-page book is somewhere around the $8K to $10K+ and it will take the translator somewhere around 3 to 6 months to complete. Is this the best translation? Yes, assuming you get a good translator. They can translate nuance, metaphors, meaning that relates culturally to the language that would not come through direct AI translation. Also, often a proofreader will be hired as well to check the translation for anything that was missed or doesn’t read/sound right. This is why translations have been reserved only for best-selling books in traditional publishing. For most indie authors, and even authors with traditional publishers, it is not an option because the likelihood of seeing $10K have any return-on-investment is very slim.
Single photo licensed through DepositPhotos
Translation (AI). AI translation has been around for
On the other hand, using a good AI translator you can pay under $100 and have it completed in minutes. Is it good enough to sell? Perhaps. It depends on the topic and the nuances of the story to know if it was translated well. It also depends on the reader and how much mis-translation stops them from enjoying the story. If a reader is looking for a high-adventure, fast moving plot and you provide that, they MAY dismiss the fact that a couple of instances the dialog was a little stilted or a cultural meaning didn’t quite hit right. On the other hand, if you are writing a character-driven story with a lot of emotion, and rely on a narrative based in metaphor and large world building, those translations misses are going to be more frequent and likely to turn off the reader.
If you are not a native speaker of the language how will you know if the translation is good or not? How will you know if it needs more work? One way is to get beta readers in the language and genre and see what their feedback is. Another is to engage a human translator and/or proofreader.
About three years ago, I tried DeepL (an AI translation tool) with one of my fantasy novels. I input the DOCX file for the entire book and got a German translation within six minutes. I did it again for a French translation. My husband speaks both of those languages well (though not a native speaker) having been a language major in college and lived in Germany for many years and in French speaking countries in Africa. I asked him to look at the first three chapters.
He indicated the AI translation appeared to be very accurate, but there were a few places where he laughed out loud because the translation was nowhere near reality. This was particularly with the use of onomatopoeia words for sounds. He also said that the use of metaphors (I do a lot of metaphorical writing) may be better translated by not using exact word to word translation but something that matches with the culture of the language. Finally, he indicated that any colloquialisms in English also would not translate directly—again looking for more of a language-specific similar colloquial choice. Based on what he told me, I put the translations in the “who knows” file ☺ and forgot about them until recently.
Use of a translation proof-reader. Recently, an author friend of mine who also uses DeepL, told me that he found a great translation proofreader for German at a reasonable price and was very pleased with what she did. I contacted her and the price is about 6% of the cost to hire a human translator to start. I don’t know if this is normal for proofreaders or if she is exceptionally inexpensive. Bottom line is that between DeepL and this proofreader, the cost to me is less than $500. That is a very affordable cost for a translation and seems, to me, to be the best combination of machine (AI) and a human to check it and correct it.
ACCESS TO NARRATION FOR AUDIOBOOKS
The vast majority of authors do NOT have audiobooks available for any of their work, even though sales tell us that audiobooks are 20% of the market. However, audiobooks have been another one of those hurdles for people who do not have either the income or the personal ability to create them.
There are many ways to create an audiobook: narrate it yourself, pay a professional narrator, use AI narration and some combination of that depending on the book.
Self-Narration - The least expensive is to narrate your book yourself. There is something to be said for a book that is read by the author. The author would know where the emphasis should be put, what the pacing should be, what the emotional content is. Some author-narrated books are beloved by their listeners.
However, narrating takes an investment of some money and a lot of time. Depending on the quality of the narration, you will want to invest in a good microphone, software that allows you to edit, and preferably have a room that delivers that “dead” sound. That means padding a room, investing in a small audio booth (3’ x 3’ x 6’ tall is the smallest I’ve seen), or sitting in a closet among your clothes, so that no other ambient sound comes through the microphone.
Of course, the time is another huge factor. Professional narrators say it takes an average of three hours for every one finished hour. That includes the prep of the manuscript (highlighting all the dialog and noting which character it is), narrating, editing anything that turned out wrong (voice sounded week, mis-said a word or line, and anything that comes back from the author as wrong), and mastering the final product. The typical novel is 8-10 hours of narration. Ten hours of finished narration would actually take 30 hours of work for them. I would count on that for anyone doing self-narration if they have never done it before. The first time may even be longer because of learning the software.
Finally, the question is how you feel about your voice quality and emphasis. It is fairly easy to read a short passage (like at an author event when you read for five minutes). It is quite different to read for eight (8) hours and keep the same level of energy, emphasis, and voice quality. Most professionals do a maximum of three (3) hours per day of narration. Many only two hours. That makes it even more taxing to make sure your voice quality from one day to the next is the same.
You will want to decide if you are going to change your voice for specific characters. For example, will a female voice be done in a higher tone than a male voice? What if the character is a ten-year-old child? Would your voice change for that? What if there was an accent of some type, would you change the reading to include that. If the answer is no to any or all of these, will you be satisfied with the same reading voice throughout. There is a huge difference among both authors and narrators as to whether you want your story read more like you might do with a family member (reading a couple chapters each evening) or if the audiobook should be delivered with a more dynamic read. A reading with at least some character voices being distinct and all the emotional nuance added.
Paid Professional Narrator – Professional narrators have a wide range of costs. They charge by the “finished-hour”. Most professional narrators are actors or at least have done a lot of commercial voice-over work. IMO the best narrators for fiction are working actors or former actors. They understand the concept of story, pacing, and emotional performances. Narrators charge between $200 and $400 per finished hour. An easy way to figure out that cost is to divide the number of words in your book by 9,300 (9,300 is the average number of words a narrator can read in an hour). So, for my 65K book the finished hour result is 7 hours. That means, at a cost of $250/finished hour, my total cost is $1,750. For my own books the least expensive cost has been $225/pfh and the most expensive was $375/pfh (total for same 65K words would be $2,625). These were costs between 2015 and 2018.
For me this is a significant investment. If you start thinking about doing this for every book, it can get pricey. I paid for the narration of my 9 titles when I was working full-time in academia and had a good income. For me to do this today would mean planning to save money up front or put it on a credit card and pay it off during the year. I certainly would not be able to do multiple books in a year.
A nonfiction book might do better with an AI narrator than a fiction book. That’s because most nonfiction books don’t rely on an emotional delivery, where as most novels do require more nuanced performances. That said, they are pretty good and it may be that many readers wouldn’t be bothered by the repetitive patterns.
The cost for AI narration varies widely from one platform to the next. The cost differences also reflect the quality of the finished product and the number of voices you can use. For example, for $30 per hour you can get a very basic (more old AI) quality and probably only have an option for a female voice, a male voice, or a child’s voice. For $100 you have the ability to select from 40-80+ voices and change the tone for specific scenes or even sentences if you want to invest the time. You may also have the option of doing a multiple voice casting (e.g., a female voice for your romantic heroine and a male voice for your romantic hero, plus a narrator voice). I don’t know enough about these systems to say whether you can cast voices with accents such as a southern drawl, a Spanish accent, a Scottish brogue, or a UK accent.
ACCESS TO GOOD COVER DESIGN
I’ve heard more about using AI for cover design from indie authors than narration or translation. Though, I haven’t seen cover design as a huge barrier, I can see how some people might.
Author Designed Cover - I have done some covers for myself or for a friend for free. I use licensed stock photos. Over the years I’ve learned the basics of graphic design and titling and I use an open source (free) program called Gimp. It does pretty much everything Adobe Photoshop does except it’s free. ☺ That said, I am not a professional and never will be because I’m really not a visual learner. I continue to create my own cover designs for shorter works like novelettes or novellas because I have to price them pretty low and paying the price of a professional designer is not worth it. There has also been one novel I designed for myself because my favorite graphic designer was on a two-year hiatus and my second favorite had quit design work. Fortunately, the person on hiatus returned this spring and I’ll be using her again.
The easiest way to do your own cover design is to use a stock photo company. There are many of them from the fairly inexpensive DepositPhotos to the very expensive Getty Images. And many other companies in between. If you can find a single photo that represents your book’s themes and genre, that is the easiest. You can then simply add the titling in a good font and you’re done. Below is an example of two images, one I did and one a professional designer did. I believe both are good covers and both serve the genre and themes of the books.
The Power of S.A.D. image background of stars and the moon and the girl with butterfly wings is one image found on DepositPhotos. The smaller butterfly image with the Mariposa Lane logo in the upper left part of the cover is a second image easily placed on the background. The title and author name are using fonts in my list on my computer and in GIMP. This is what I call a simple design that most authors could probably undertake with a little training and using a program like Canva for sizing.
The Chameleon: The Awakening image was done by a professional cover designer. There are three separate stock images combined on this: the tree with the forest background, the woman standing next to the tree, and the owl. The designer placed the woman next to the tree and then painstakingly created tree bark on the lower-half of her dress to show how she becomes one with the tree. She also changed the color of the woman’s hair from blonde to red, and she added the owl at the woman’s feet. The designer used a font for titling that I did not have in my list of fonts and probably would not have thought to use. All of these manipulations are beyond my capabilities and getting the proportions right is difficult for me. The time it would take me to even try and learn how to do this is too time consuming.
Stock photo companies provide royalty free images (meaning you don’t have to pay a royalty every time you sell an ebook or print book). There are usually limitations on it based on number of sales. For example, my DepositPhotos images cost more if I sell more than 250,000 books with that photo. My thought on that is if I ever sell that many books I’ll be able to easily afford to pay the higher price (usually $100-$200 instead of one or two dollars). You cannot use the images for merchandise (tshirts, bags, hats, etc.).
Professional Cover Designer -
For the past decade I’ve paid somewhere between $150 and $250 for a full-wrap cover. This means I get both the print book cover and the ebook cover sized exactly right to be accepted at all the places I load the book. The cover is created from licensed stock photos. One can pay over $500 for this type of design with a few well-known designers. If a 100% original design is sought (e.g., the designer actually creates the cover images from scratch like a painting) the cost ranges from $1,000 to $5,000. I personally don’t see paying for that ever. First because, though a cover is very important to discoverability, I doubt the vast majority of people scanning the web for my book would be able to tell it was original. I personally think that $200 to $250 for a cover is a very reasonable price for a professional and it fits in my budget.
AI Cover Design - AI covers are created through text prompts that describe what you want to be created, the colors and textures, and the style you want to use. The more information you can give it (up to 200 words in some programs) the more likely it will generate something usable. For example: create a futuristic human-like robot on a desert planet with large sand dunes and a few canyons in the style of artist Leo Dillon. I’ve made some preliminary prompts to try to get something I wanted and failed miserably. But others find this easy.
AI generated image in Jasper
The first time I noticed a lot of talk around AI Cover Design was two-years ago when an author said she was using Midjourney and found it easy to use. She said after watching an hour training video, she was able to create an amazing cover within minutes. Midjourney, like most AI image software, is a subscription plan with various tiers from $10 per month to $120 per month. There are now at least 10 and probably more AI image generators available with payment tiers, and even some for “free” or as a part of an existing image design software license. Currently, one can find AI image generation in Google, Canva, Microsoft products, Adobe Photoshop, and many lesser-known or new companies.
For me, when I look at the vast majority of AI generated images they begin to all look alike. They are hyper-realistic with high color saturation. Those parameters make them very noticeable to me as AI generated images. Perhaps this is because authors or publishers want to use covers with the most recent trends that relate to popular movies or TV series. Highly saturated, hyper-realistic images seem to be all the rage at the moment. There are also certain styles (e.g., manga) that seem to be very prevalent in certain genres. I’m sure this is because that is what the author or publisher wants.
Also, AI is best used by someone who can articulate exactly what they want and has a good sense of graphic design terminology and color. That’s NOT me. I am not a visual person by nature. I am a word person. I’m also not very conversant in the most recent movie, series, or social media image trends, nor do I follow specific designers and styles to mention them in my prompts.
I enjoy going through files of stock photos to get ideas and then sharing that with a person who is a graphic designer to come up with the image(s) that work best. Though I’m not a designer and can’t do good prompts, But I do know when I see something I like.
In terms of cost, if one wanted to use AI regularly it would be less expensive than paying a cover designer. However, you have to also consider the time it takes you to write the prompts and get the image you want. Unless you know your designer really well, you may not know that they also use AI to create covers. Some designers state up front that you can contract for an AI cover. Others use it but don’t tell you. Yet others, like the person I use, only uses licensed stock photos either that I send her or that she finds for me.
Note the captions on each photo in this article to know which were made with stock photos and which with AI. The AI images were generated for me by someone else, as I can’t get a good images with my prompts.
ACCESS TO WRITING ASSISTANCE
Though I don’t hear a lot of push back on AI translators or AI narrators, I do hear considerable push back on AI image generation and even more on AI writing—particularly tools that claim to actually write the book, article, short story for you like Chat GPT, Open AI, or Microsoft AI.
AI generated image with Adobe Photoshop
The first, and I believe the most egregious complaint is that thousands of books were used to fill the AI database and train the AI to write text, stories, and articles better. All of this was done without getting rights/permission and without any compensation for those rights. The Author’s Guild has filed at least two lawsuits on this. I suggest reading their recent article on AI Licensing for Authors: Who Owns the Rights and What’s a Fair Split? This also includes traditional publishers who have assumed that licensing AI rights is in their purview and the author has no say. The Author’s Guild adamantly disagrees. See how Harper Collins and Penguin Random House have addressed this issue at the bottom of the linked article above.
In addition to the copyright infringement, another driving force against written AI is the fear that the competition for book discovery will increase. Some believe people will use AI to put out 10 or more books every year, or that big publishers in popular genres like romance, cozy mystery, or suspense/thrillers will use AI to generate books. Once the story is complete, they will have their editors review them and publish them rather than pay authors to write those books.
Are these likely to happen? It is true that some indie authors are using AI to increase productivity and put out books faster. Others are people or new companies taking advantage of the AI tools to make money as fast as possible. It appears that the belief is as long as the tropes are there, mediocre stories will sell well in series with the right marketing push. I think there is some truth to that. There is always a group of readers who love formulaic writing and as long as the price is right, will buy continuously. Is that the majority of readers? I don’t think so, but there also isn’t any reliable data on that.
Kevin Tumlinson (previous CEO of Draft2Digital for the past decade) is a writer himself and I liked what he said in a recent podcast.
“This flood of generic, trope-filled books without much distinguishing them is back-firing…now many readers immediately question anyone who is writing a book a month as using AI. Most readers do want originality.”
He is a strong believer in building fans and interacting with readers regularly. He suggests that all writers, prolific or not, need to play up the originality of their book by sharing things about their creation process. This can be shared in newsletters, blog posts, social media, interviews, podcasts and more. He suggests sharing their inspiration for writing the book, trouble-spots that slowed them down, how they solved a sticky problem with their characters or plot, the research they did to add realistic elements, etc. All of this helps develop the understanding the book was original. A completely AI written book wouldn’t have answers for this process except perhaps: “I had to keep rewriting the prompts to get what I wanted.” ☺
Some authors who have created books from scratch without help (outside of spell check, grammar check, etc.) in the past, are choosing to use generative AI regularly as a productivity tool, but NOT to actually write the book for them. Some use it as a way to brainstorm when they are blocked or can’t get to the next scene. For example, they will ask the AI to write five different ways to resolve the scene. Sometimes they will use one of those ways with lots of edits in their own style. Other times, they will combine different aspects and write in their own style. Yet other times, they will reject all five but the brainstorming process caused them to think of a sixth way. In other words, they use it in the same way they might ask a fellow writer to help brainstorm or a developmental editor might make suggestions.
Many authors use AI for plotting at the beginning of a book. They input a synopsis or concept with the primary beats or turning points and AI creates a plot outline for them to follow. Yet others use it after the book is finished for summarizing, creating a synopsis, and/or creating marketing copy. In the non-fiction world, I know a number of people in academia that will use it to check for active voice throughout the article or book.
Fiction authors also use other productivity tools. One I’ve heard several series writers use is the ability to have AI create a book bible for a single book or for a series of books. The person loads their entire manuscript(s) and the AI builds a spreadsheet or database for the author which tracks character names, descriptions, ages, motivation, emotional or psychological issues, goals, etc.
Again, all of these require well-written text prompts to get it done the way you want.
ARE THINGS GETTING BETTER?
In many ways technology has, in fact, helped writers to be more productive. AI technology over the past two decades has helped indie authors and small presses to compete in the larger publishing market without spending thousands of dollars to get there. But to take advantage of the technology you do need to spend time learning about it, practice using it, and making sure it fits what you need. You need to understand the publishing process and the writing craft. What are the expectations for the quality of your story? The quality of your blurb that will go on the vendor sites? The quality of your cover and how it telegraphs the genre and major themes?
I remember when grammar-checkers first appeared in Microsoft Word. I thought they were a life-saver for all those quirks I could never remember (e.g., lay or lie or laid). After using them for a couple of years, I realized it did okay for formal correspondence or academic papers. But for fiction it was not okay. It didn’t understand dialog doesn’t always have to be a complete sentence, or the use of colloquial or slang terms. It didn’t understand the art of writing where emphasis and nuance may include a shortened sentence without an object. And, heaven forbid you write SF or Fantasy when there are lots of imagined places, languages, unique cultural rules and many other things that don’t have a lot of database counterparts.
Competition is fierce and there is a trend for authors using AI to build marketing copy. If summarizing your book into 200 words or less is difficult, AI will do that based on your manuscript. Will it be a great marketing summary? Maybe, depending on your prompts. But those who use it for that, they use it as the start and then tweak it a lot through additional prompts or in self-editing. There is absolutely NO guarantee that using AI will make things easier for you or that it will get you discovered, or that you will make more money. In the end, it takes a savie, experienced human to make a lot of decisions along the way to make it work well for you.
In Part 3 I tackle the ethics discussion and what I’ve decided to do for myself. This is a changing conversation for me as I get more information and weigh the pros and cons. Your process may be different, and your conclusions may also be different. I hope will you join me and let me know what you think.
About Maggie Lynch
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