Hello, dreamers. I’m in the sweet spot now, where I should be hearing back from agents. So far I’ve received one pass, but it was several weeks past the agent’s standard response time. I also fired off one final query from this round. And so, the waiting begins again.

So for this post, I had a clear idea of what I was going to say. I was going to talk more about my ongoing preparations for the next round of queries. Plans I have for improving my opening pages. And I was going to talk about what happens when an author finally gets that “yes”. Sort of a feel-good post for querying writers.

Then, some big news hit the publishing world. So today, I’m not going to talk about authors getting their “yes”.

I’m going to talk about AI in querying.

If you read that last sentence and didn’t close out the tab, thanks for sticking with me. If you’re a writer, or an agent or publisher, or most anyone living anywhere that isn’t under a rock, you’re probably sick of hearing about AI. But it’s increasingly a part of our world. And at least until it’s properly regulated in every country, it will continue to be.

As AI becomes more commonplace, naturally it’s trying to trickle its way into writing. But so far (thankfully), results have been mixed at best. And there’s at least one very good reason for that…

AI in Querying

Look, in case I haven’t made it clear enough, querying a novel is hard. It takes a lot of time and energy, physical and mental. It takes patience in no small measure, and the emotional fortitude to keep going after having door after door slammed in your face. Querying sucks. Period. Even agents will tell you they feel for writers enduring the process.

Given all that, it’s easy to see how the idea of involving AI is tempting.

Writing a novel is difficult to begin with. It takes lots of time and energy, too. So why go to all that trouble when an AI can do it in a fraction of the time? Just tell the AI what you want your book to be about, maybe give it the names of the characters or something, then wind it up and watch it go!

Though I cannot know for certain, I’d bet folding money that’s what Mia Ballard was thinking when she used an AI chatbot to write her book, Shy Girl. Like many people, she probably felt like she had a really cool idea for a story (and, to be fair, she did), but she couldn’t write an entire book. Maybe she didn’t have the time. Maybe she didn’t have the patience to learn the basics of writing, to go through the “invisible work”, toiling in obscurity for years before she was good enough to do her story justice. Maybe. I don’t know. Safe to say no one does, except her.

But the most important part of her situation is that she got caught. Not that her book sold as a self-pub novel before she got caught. Not that her book was picked up by a major publishing house before she got caught. What’s important is that she got caught. And long before she got caught by her publisher, she got caught by readers.

And that brings us to the biggest reason not to try to use AI to publish a novel:

You Will Get Caught

It’s that simple. Yes, I’ve seen all the articles about how many people can’t tell the difference between passages written by AI and those written by humans. Yes, I’ve also seen the ones that suggest people tend to prefer the AI work. But it’s crucial to remember that you’re not marketing a book to everyone, you’re marketing it to readers. It was habitual readers who caught Ballard first. Review after review dissected her book, and pointed out all the clear signs that no human had written something like this.

One of my maxims in writing fiction is “Trust your reader”. That also applies here: trust that if your book is written by a non-human thing with no feelings or lived experiences to draw upon, they will know. I could go on for paragraphs on the clear moral reasons not to use AI to write. If you’re actually considering it, chances are they won’t matter. You’ve thought about that already, and you don’t care. But, if nothing else, you need to remember that you will get caught.

And it’s not just readers. Remember that Ballard managed to slip through by using what I call the “back door” of modern publishing: she self-pubbed first. Literary agents can spot AI readily. I know this because more and more agents, and in fact entire agencies, are talking about the rising tide of AI making it into their inboxes.

There’s only one reason they’re talking about that: because they can tell.

But…what if I just use AI to write my query letter?

…you may be asking yourself. And I have to believe that, while there are few querying writers using AI to write their novels, there are at least a few more who might be thinking of writing a query letter with it.

It seems okay, right? I mean, the actual novel is actually written by a human. And while AI can’t write worthwhile fiction, writing a cover letter for a resume is well within its capabilities. It almost seems like a victimless crime. And you know what? Maybe it is. As I’ve said many times in these posts, writing a query letter is extremely hard. Is it really so bad to have AI write one for you, after you put in all the time and hard work writing a novel?

Well…yes, it is. For one thing, remember what I’ve said before about the purpose of a query letter: it’s a marketing tool. You’re being tested on your ability to sell your work. Do you really want to get an offer of rep, and then have the agent you’ve been waiting for realize you have no idea how to market your book?

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Remember that AI follows patterns. That’s how it operates. Agents see a lot of query letters. And over time, they notice patterns. If you’ve used AI to write your query letter, they’ll know. And in most any area of the modern publishing industry, from short fic mags to agencies, being caught peddling AI is a death sentence.

You’ll never be able to sub to that agent or magazine again. What’s more, remember that agents and lit mag editors talk. More than likely you’ll be blackballed, your publishing journey over before it even begins. Sure, writing a query letter is tough. But is using AI really worth the risk? Are you sure you’re willing to bet that you’re more clever than the entire publishing industry if you can’t even write a damn query letter?

AI Isn’t Worth It

And that’s the simple truth. Even if you reject all the clear moral arguments, if you’re comfortable degrading culture itself just to land a book deal, you should at least know it’s not worth the risk. I haven’t read any of Mia Ballard’s other works. Maybe she hadn’t used AI to write before. Maybe her earlier work wasn’t even that bad, or it was bad but at least interesting. But none of that matters anymore. She’s untouchable now. No agent will represent her, no reputable publisher will touch her work. Even if she self-pubs, everything she does from here on will be tainted. Remember: self-pub readers were the first ones to catch her.

I’ll admit, it wasn’t that long ago that I began wondering if I’d eventually have to use AI. Not because it seemed so easy, but because I feared I wouldn’t have a choice. Because everybody else would be doing it. There’s a lot of unearned positive press out there for AI. Ask its creators, the ones selling it, and they’ll tell you there’s literally nothing AI can’t do.

The recent stories about AI in literature, both this one and many others, have given me hope. No, as it turns out, AI can’t write just as well as, if not better than, a human. Maybe it’ll take me a while longer to find an agent doing things the write way. But look how well taking an AI shortcut worked for Mia Ballard. I’ll take my chances doing things as I’ve always done: by, to paraphrase Hemingway, sitting in front of my computer and bleeding onto the page.

It may not be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. And when I do, eventually, get my “yes”, the world won’t get a mound of worthless AI slop.

They’ll get me. – MK