AI-generated writing has upended the natural mechanism that rewarded the best books with sales and popularity.
Artificial intelligence has made the dream of publishing a book easier to achieve than ever. It has also led to a surge in what some call “digital slop,” creating new hurdles for publishers, editors, and authors.
Insiders warn that the influx of AI-authored content is leading to market saturation and declining visibility for human authors.
Last year, more than half of novelists surveyed by the University of Cambridge in the UK expressed fear that their work would be replaced entirely by AI. And one Seoul-based publisher released about 9,000 books in one year, raising suspicions that most were AI-created to some degree, according to a February report in the Korea Times.
In the United States, the world’s largest book market, more than 4 million titles were published last year. From that pool, the exact number that were either generated or assisted by AI tools is unknown. A 2025 BookBub survey of 1,200 authors revealed that about 45 percent said they were using AI for writing, marketing, or other aspects of their artistic process.
“The economics of publishing are definitely shifting,” Nick Blewitt, an author and marketing consultant at The Book Marketer, told The Epoch Times. “AI has lowered the barrier to producing books quickly and cheaply, leading to a huge increase in content on platforms like Amazon. For authors, this means more competition and greater difficulty standing out.”
Blewitt said the challenge is no longer simply publishing a book, but proving originality, expertise, and authenticity.
This is particularly problematic on self-publishing platforms such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, where authors complain about low barriers to entry and algorithms that reward speed and volume over quality.
An Amazon spokesperson told The Epoch Times: “We have content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale, and have proactive and reactive measures for preventing, detecting, and removing content that violates those guidelines, whether AI-generated or not. We continue to enhance our protections against noncompliant content, and our process and guidelines will keep evolving as the technology and industry evolve.”
Copyright Issues
Authors’ use of AI tools isn’t the only problem. Publisher and editor use of the technology is also controversial due to potential copyright issues. Last August, tech giant Anthropic agreed to pay out the largest copyright lawsuit settlement in U.S. history—$1.5 billion—over the illegal download of more than 7 million books to train its popular AI model Claude.
“There are important legal and copyright issues that remain unresolved, including training data, ownership of AI-generated content, disclosure requirements, and liability for inaccurate or plagiarized material,” Blewitt said.
A 2026 BookNet Canada survey of the North American book industry observed 46 percent of respondents admitted to using AI at an individual level, while 48 percent said their organization uses AI tools. Eighty-six percent identified inadequate controls surrounding copyrighted material as their main concern about AI in the book industry.
The real issue for publishers and authors is not if but how AI was used, said Christina Johnson of Testimony Publishers.
“One major misconception about AI-written content is that the person who ‘feeds’ AI the data automatically owns the output,” she said. “That assumption is most often wrong because there’s a difference between AI-assisted and AI-generated.”
It’s a legal distinction now at the forefront of copyright discussions. U.S. copyright law only protects works that are “created by a human being,” according to the U.S. Copyright Office. However, the degree of human authorship required is still a grey area. The issue is nuanced and is being considered on a case-by-case basis.
Currently, someone who uses an AI platform to generate a book without being involved in the creative process has no copyright protection. However, if the human author makes some changes and adds some of their own creativity, they may qualify for U.S. copyright protection.
