I'm a Real Human, Not AI: 20 Ways Authors Can Signal Humanity and Build Reader Trust

310 / AI is getting better at producing words, audio, and even video, which raises the question for authors: how do readers know there’s a real person behind the book?

In this episode, we talk about how writers can stand out in a sea of AI content through leaning harder into trust, voice, and real connection. We share concrete ways to signal “I’m a real person” without forcing yourself to overshare or turn your life into content. 

✨ This week’s sponsor is: Reedsy https://reedsy.com/studio and https://reedsy.com/studio/templates

• Why authenticity and connection matter more as AI output scales—and what history tells us about tech panic cycles
• How parasocial relationships work, where they go sideways, and how real-world interaction cuts through the noise
• Practical ways to show your humanity: imperfection, process sharing, physical objects, and curation
• Protecting your author voice and using credibility signals to build lasting reader trust

📌 Get a PDF download of all the ideas: Real, Not AI: 20 Ways Authors Signal Humanity and Build Reader Trust

💙 Become a supporter of the podcast If you've gotten value from the podcast and would like to share back with us, you could support the podcast. You'll get access to the backlist of exclusive supporter episodes and a shoutout on a future episode. 

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We’d love to hear from you. Comments will be open on this episode in Substack: https://wishidknownthenpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

⚡Links:

• Reedsy https://reedsy.com/studio and https://reedsy.com/studio/templates
• Patty McGree on using grammar as your paintbox:
• https://pod.link/1495247798/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xODY2MDEzOA
• Joanna Penn and The Creative Penn Podcast: https://pod.link/309426367
• Thanks to long-time supporter Parker Finch: https://parkerfinch.com/

Transcript

Cold Open And Human Proof

Sara 0:00

This actually makes me feel better. I put down mistakes, typos, bloopers, outtakes.

Writing Updates And Revision Emotions

Jami 0:05

And I don't have to worry at all about people thinking I'm AI. Oh gosh.

Speaker 3 0:15

Welcome to the Wish I Know Men podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show, we have us.

Sara 0:24

We're doing jazz hands and being human today. That's what we're talking about. We should have done the video for this one because just to prove it. Well, we will have video for this one, but I think that this is the one that you you say in the episode. If only I looked better, you could see us. Because you didn't put on your makeup under your head that day. But I could put the intro video up there. So yeah, we're talking about how to be human in a world with AI. So that's coming up. And this week we have Readsy as our sponsor. So we'll talk about them more in a minute. But what have you got going on this week or anything going on?

Jami 1:00

Lord, I got nothing going on but writing. Trying to finish um today. What is today? Wednesday. I am trying to be done by Friday. Not sure that's gonna work. I I thought that I actually probably I might. I might be able to. I do know that I have to write two chapters, but I know what they are, and it's figuring out where they're gonna go. But I am very close to the end of these revisions. And it would be they're my final revisions before the editor. And I just touched base with my editor yesterday. Hey, are we still on? She said yes. Actually, I may very well be available at the beginning of that week. And I was like, I think I can be too. I mean, she she will fall out dead if I mean like literally. Just I hope there's a resuscitation device nearby when she gets it, if she gets it before the due date or even on the due date, because I don't think I've ever hit a deadline with her. So that's it'll go to her and see. I I fully expect that I'll there'll be some things that will need to be taken care of because honestly, at this point I'm just a little too close to see the I can't see the forest for the trees. And some things that I think may need to be uh woven in, but I don't know if I again force for the trees. I can't tell. So I'm not I'm not gonna spend my time doing that right now. If she points it out, then I'll go back and do it. Uh I may still do it and then just get her to look at it one more time. Yeah, it's I can't believe it. It's a huge milestone. It's well, it's huge. I mean, it is a victory. A victory, and I'm taking a victory lap, regardless of how it does. You know, of course I want it to do well. I I want all the things for this book, but just getting to this point is such a huge thing for you, right? I revised five chapters yesterday and I cried through all of it, like literally cried through all of it, to the point where they gave me a free Starbucks, but they made me a free drink yesterday. So on days like that, when I get so much done and it's so hard, I am, I can't believe I've done this. I cannot believe I've done this. And or and how did I do it? Like, how have I sat in this sat with this so long in this way and and continued on? Like I'm shocked that I haven't given it up.

Sara 3:44

Yeah, and your books, just your normal books. This is a special book for you, but just your regular books are deeply emotional, and this one even more so. So it's just it is just a huge accomplishment.

Jami 3:59

And our friend Claire Taylor told me yesterday said, I'm proud of you. And I was like, you know, today I'm proud of me too. And I think it's okay for me to say that. And um, and so yeah, I just feel really good about it. I can't, I mean, I just I feel good about the fact that I've finished this book. I there are parts of this book that I think are really, really great. There are parts of this book I'm like, hmm, I don't know how great that is, but we'll see. We'll see. I mean, I have worked really hard. I have tried to honor my family and my sister most of all, and I've tried to be as honest as I can be. And sometimes you have to bleed to feel alive. So there you go. I have a book bub next week. I really there's some things I need to be doing for that, but really just working on this. This is my priority. So yeah. Well, that's fantastic.

Sara 4:59

I'm so happy. So happy for you. Thank you. So, what about you? I also was crying, but not in the same way. I was just crying because the book was going so slowly this week. Oh, yeah. I'm getting there though. I figured out how to progress. Yes. And I'm at that midpoint, you know, between one act and another. And I've I've got to sort it out in my brain before I go on. Some people would just press ahead and keep going, and I can't do that. I have to mull it over and figure it out in my brain first. Yeah. So I think I'm about to get there. And I have done some writing this week, but I've also done a couple of podcasts for the trope book. And that's a nice change of pace. Yeah. You know, yeah. You can totally leave the manuscript behind and go talk about other creative things, things.

Jami 5:47

You've accomplished. Yeah.

Sara 5:49

Yeah. And talk about, you know, tropes and mysteries and thrillers and how how to use tropes in that. So I'll mention those. They're not out yet, but I'll mention those episodes when they come out.

Speaker 3 5:58

Yeah.

Sara 5:58

But so that's a lot of fun.

Jami 6:00

I will say that today was another. I mean, they gave me another free drink today, but I think that was just because they're trying new drinks. But yesterday it was definitely because I was crying. But um, I was crying this morning too, before, but also I was giggling, like I was making myself laugh. That's the best feeling when you read something you've read and you just giggle. I love that feeling. It's that there's nothing like it. There is nothing like it cracking yourself up. I was thinking yesterday that you know that that graphic that's like your author career, and it's like a little bit of a straight lineup, and then it's this big like a stumble scribble jumble. Yeah, exactly. Scribbles, and that's not just like your career, that's like with each book. Yes. There are parts of writing that I hate, and then there are other parts that I love, and I am in the I love part because it's mostly done, and but but also it's just that kind of minutiae, and I I really love that part of it. Like taking a sentence or a phrase and going, that doesn't really fit here. But if I move it down here, my gosh, that has a huge impact, like it changes everything, and it's something I've already written, and that's the cool part of writing to me.

Listener Support And Community Thanks

Sara 7:20

Yeah, I feel like a lot of revision is fine-tuning where certain inner diet inner monologue goes, and that can really impact things. And yeah, exactly. Thanks to all our regular supporters that support us every week. We really appreciate y'all. If you've gotten value from the podcast and would like to share back with us, you could support the podcast. The link will be in the show notes, which I'd know forwriters.com slash support. And thanks to, I want to call out, give a shout out to our longtime supporter, Parker Finch. She was recently on and she's been supporting the podcast for three years. So thank you for that. And thank you to everybody who's posted a review or shared the podcast or a rating and given us support that way too. We really appreciate that too.

Reedsy Studio Sponsor And Tools

Jami 8:05

We do, we do. And now we want to talk about Readsy Studio because y'all, it is so cool. And I mean, like you can set writing goals, you can track your writing goals, and they you can work on multiple projects at once with Readsy Studio. I can work on chapter outlines like separate from the manuscript. You can have a different tab for that, and they have the free program, but they also have a premium program. And in the premium program, you can do even more of that, and that's what's cool. Like, I like a visual, I like a visual. I want to see, like I have a regular old calendar with squares, yeah, squares. And I've written this is when this needs to happen, this when this needs to happen. But if you have something like that on the computer that you can set up, and it's so pretty, too. Like it's it's modern looking, and yeah, so anyway, very good.

Sara 9:09

Uh what is that called user interface design or something like that?

Jami 9:14

It's nicely done. Yeah, it's really nice. So Readsy Studio, you guys check it out. It's really a fantastic tool. And I was telling Sarah we were watching well, I wasn't Chris. My husband was watching World Championship World Series or something. It's all the different countries playing baseball. Okay, there you go. And there was an advertisement for Readsy, and Ricardo's face came up, and I was like, I know him. Yeah, we know them, they're just good people, and this is a great product. So check it out.

Why Being Human Matters Now

Sara 9:50

Yes, so that link will be in the show notes, readsy.com slash studio, and then they also have templates to go along with that. And you can find all of those at Readsy, and they have lots of other stuff too. We won't talk about everything, but yeah, they have lots of things to help authors. Yeah, they do, they're a good company. All right. Well, should we get on with the podcast? This is just Jamie and I talking about how to show your human in an AI world because really that's what we're facing now. There's a lot of AI content, and there's only going to be more. And so we just talk about it. We talked about fear around it, the power of in-person connections, and hopefully, it gives you some ideas for ways that you can show your human. And we would love to hear from you. There will be comments open on this episode in Substack. So let us know if you have some extra ideas. And also, I should say I did the giveaway last time for the trope book. I have physical copies of the trope books. Notifications for that have gone out, so check your notifications and email on Substack and let me know where to mail the book.

Jami 10:56

Well, I forgot what the I'm doing the branding workshop one more time. Well, I don't know if it's one more time, but I'm gonna do it again on April the 11th at 2 p.m. That's a Saturday, I believe. It went so well last time, and I didn't like I didn't turn around immediately and do another one because of the book, because almost done, and sending it off April 11th feels like a good time to do it. So if you're interested, you can go to Jamie Albright backslash author workshops, and then there is a place there to register. Perfect.

Sara 11:34

All right, well, let's get on with the episode. Absolutely. We are talking about how to show your human in this age of artificial intelligence and all these things that are synthetic. Yep. We want to talk about humanity and leaning into your humanity. Joanna Penn has been talking about this for years. Yeah, and I feel like we're finally at a point where I'm beginning to understand ways that you can actually do this because I would hear that and I would think, that's great, but how do you do this? I want some specific examples. So we're gonna talk about that today. Yeah, but I think we're gonna start off just talking about why it's important, just as a jumping off point.

Jami 12:10

Yeah.

Sara 12:10

So, what are your thoughts on why we want to show that we're human?

Jami 12:13

First of all, I think we needed to be doing this all along. If you haven't been true, if you haven't been like being, I'm not saying you have to be like transparent with your entire life with your audience, but there needs to be an element of you sharing with your audience things that are true that are true about you. Even if it's not personal, they're true about you. Or for some authors, and if you don't do this and you have trouble like feeling like you don't want to share personal details, one of the things you can do is create like this persona of yourself, like a better self, a more outgoing self, a different facing person, it's your public facing, but it's you. And then under that umbrella are the things you can share. But yeah, so we should have been doing this all along. I just think it's now in particular, it's so important to do that. And I don't think that you can go wrong, honestly, with just sharing more of whatever it is, you know, within the parameters of what you decided is comfortable for you, sharing more of yourself that way.

Sara 13:26

So I think about this the way I think about the feelings and relationships I have towards the industry professionals that we deal with. If I have met them at a conference, if they have a podcast I can listen to, I feel differently about that company. If somebody is talking about a company and they're like, oh, this is a great thing, it's brand new. Now I think, are they going to conferences? Have I met them? Do they have a podcast do they share on social media where I can see the actual person? I listen to that Buzz Sprout podcast called BuzzCast. It's a podcast about podcasting. And it's got three people from their company, and I feel like I know them. I know a little bit about them and about their philosophy because I listen to it. And that's what we want to create. We want the people that read our books to know us and feel close to us. I don't know how to describe it. How do you want them to feel there's a connection there, right?

Jami 14:24

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, like, I mean, I'll just be honest, there have been times, you know, you've heard something about a certain author or company or person, just some scuttlebutt, let's say, in the industry, and then you go to a conference and you meet that person in person, face to face, and you're like, wait, that's not true. I'm not getting that vibe at all. And you just form deeper connections when you are when you have a person, some sort you feel like you have some sort of personal connection with somebody. It's true. I mean, that's parasocial relationships too. That's they're a little weird sometimes, but I just remember the first time we met Joanna Penn, I hadn't even published yet. We had just been listening to her, and I just felt like I knew her and we I just adopted her. She didn't have a choice, she didn't have a choice but to hang out with me because I was right there. It's true.

Sara 15:26

All of this can have a dark side, like the parasocial relationship, it can't go too far and everything. But that is the way you make readers who will follow you across genres and who will trust you. And if you say, Hey, I'm writing this new thing, or this book is sort of like my old books, but there's one thing that's different. A lot of them will say, Okay, let me give it a try because they like you as a person and they like what you do and they want to support you. And that's why people will support Patreons for authors and support the podcasts, the podcast and things like that. Yeah. So I think authenticity is rare, and that's one thing that will help you stand out in this world when there's going to be so much content. That's what everyone is afraid of.

Jami 16:11

And here's the deal like authenticity can be formulaic. It can be like that's what I'm saying. Like for me, authenticity is not hard. I mean, it's far it, and in fact, it's too much. Frankly, people are like, stop sharing. But you can't, it can be prescriptive as long as you it's again within that those parameters of what you've decided is okay to share with people. Because I think a lot of and maybe introverts, but maybe not even introverts, because I know a lot of introverts that are incredibly, I mean, that's they hate small talk. They love that, they love the deeper connection. Deeper connection. They may be better at it than extroverts, frankly. But I think a lot of people will look at someone who is more extroverted or appears to be more extroverted and say, oh, I couldn't do, I can't do that. So they don't do anything. But we have to begin to make efforts to to share parts of ourselves with our audience because if you are afraid of the AI thing, I think that this is one way to counteract that.

Sara 17:23

And so speaking of fear, I'm quite the expert in fear, very good at fear. So I figured I would share this thing that I ran across the other day. I was talking with my kids and my husband. We were talking about AI and the fear around AI. And I said, you know what? There have been so many tech disruptions. Let's go see if this has happened before, if this is reaction that happened before. And you know it has been because things go in cycles. I asked Perplexity what fears were around previous technologies. I'm just gonna read through some of these, some of them because I think they're interesting and funny. The printing press, scribes petitioned to ban it in 1474, fearing job loss. So that sounds a little familiar. While church officials worried about uncontrolled information spread. Oh, yeah. That could be dangerous, right? Trains in 1852, people believed high speeds up to 30 kilometers per hour would cause insanity. Electricity, 19th century public panicked over electrocutions from wires, viewing it as deadly and linked to evil forces. The telephone, the elderly fear feared electric shocks. Critics said it promoted gossip. Some of these are very true. When you look at them, now you go, Oh, yeah, that that was a legitimate fear. Automobiles in the early 1900s, people threw stones at cars, laws called for red flag walkers who had to go in front of the cars. I read about this when I was researching and wave a flag to warn people that the car was coming, which kind of defeats the purpose of a car because it would have to go really slow. Let's see. Uh the mechanical loom. In the early 1800s, people destroyed looms, fearing massive job displacement. They did. It was a big uprising, yeah. And then radio, people were afraid of an invasion of privacy. And also that I read another article that said they were afraid that people needed repose and rest in this constant barrage of noise and information was too much, and it would it would hurt children and their growth. And the light bulb fears were around sleep disruption, fires, and unnatural light cycles, which some of that is true. Some of that we struggle with.

Jami 19:36

All the radio thing, yeah. I mean, it's not radio now, it's social media, yeah, or the internet, yeah. Yeah.

Sara 19:42

But I did run across the IT industry-specific cycle, and it was Wild West, early adoption, experimentation, Armageddon, fears, job loss, obsolescence, negative society impact, and then w widespread adoption and integration. So I would say there is a lot to be afraid of with all these changes we're going through. This is a cycle that we our societies go through over and over again.

Jami 20:08

Yeah.

Sara 20:08

And it's like you were saying earlier, the thing with this is it's fast.

Jami 20:12

It's fast. It's happening faster than some of these other things happen. There was time, like we knew some of these things were coming, and we had time to prepare. We've known this was coming, but we it's so beyond our comprehension as to what these machines can do that we have not caught up. Society has not caught up intellectually with what the AIs can do. I think that's a good thing and a bad thing, honestly, because I think it's a bad, it's a bad thing because that creates the fear because we don't understand what they everything they can and can't do. But the good thing is because we have not caught up, it's going to naturally slow down some of the progression of what can be used. Because we as a society, as humans, the majority of us will not have the capability to program these things. And a lot of them, while they are coding and doing their own thing, I think they still need for a while human in intervention and instruction and at least uh oversight. That's what I think. Yeah, well, actually, that's what my son-in-law thinks, and so I go I defer to him because he's in an AI club nerd.

Sara 21:34

But yeah, we need the nerds, we need the nerds to interpret all this for us. Now, with every disruption, jobs are lost, but jobs are also created. We have a friend that his job was Xerox copy repairmen. And because offices stopped using those as much, he lost his job. But he retrained in doing something else. So it's it causes uh things will change. We're not saying we won't change. But things will change. They're changing.

Jami 22:01

They're already changing. Yeah.

Sara 22:03

Yeah. But anyway, so that's I just thought that would be a good time to talk about that with the changes and the fears that we have.

Jami 22:10

Claire Taylor wrote an interesting article about this, but I especially since I read it, I've kind of stopped saying this, but the whole well, it's inevitable, it's coming. I try not to say that, but I do think the people that will fare the best are the ones who get on the kind of learning instruction side of it rather than just the being drug along by it. And that's for what it's worth, that's my two cents.

Practical Ways To Signal Humanity

Sara 22:44

Knowledge is power and knowledge is peace of mind a lot of times because there have been certain things that I've gone through, like with my health, that when you don't know, you spiral. Or I do. And but then once I got the diagnosis, the answer, I was like, okay, this is what is going on. And so sometimes just knowing and understanding it takes away a lot of the fear. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we're gonna run through a list of things that we jotted down on ways to show you're human.

Jami 23:15

And so I asked AI how to be human. I really did. I really did. It was early. I wasn't feeling very human.

Sara 23:25

What happened with this for me was a long time ago, Joanna mentioned Joanna Penn, the creative pen mentioned lean into your humanity and ride this wave of technology. And I would think, but how do you do that? And so I started noticing anytime people would talk about things, I think, oh, that they're showing they're human. And so I've been keeping a mental list of things. And so I jotted some of these things down, and I'm sure we'll come up with more of these. The caveat with all this is that even though we're saying do these things to show you're human, someone could use AI to do these same things. One way is to show your face, put your image on your Amazon profile and your website. Right. And anybody can generate an AI image now and do that. So it's just one way. And so probably all these things together are better than a single thing. But that caveat on all this. So the first thing I put down was interact in the real world. This is the 100% guaranteed way to show that you're human, is you do an event, you do a book signing, you go somewhere in person, you go to conferences, things like that. And that is everything else can be replicated with the video technology now and audio technology, anything can be created. But if you go to a book signing and sign a book and give somebody a bookmark, pretty sure you're human, at least right now.

Jami 24:49

That's right. You win. That's the one.

Sara 24:53

That's true. Yeah. And then the other thing, this actually makes me feel better. I put down mistakes, typos, bloopers, outtakes.

Jami 25:01

And I don't have to worry at all about people thinking I'm AI.

Sara 25:06

Oh gosh.

Jami 25:08

Or that I use AI. Yeah.

Sara 25:10

Yeah. This one I had a reader email me one time about a typo, and I replied back and thanked her and said, sorry about that. A few always slip through. And no matter how hard I try to find them. And she replied back and she said, Oh, that's fine. Typos show that you're human and I like them.

Speaker 3 25:25

No, yeah.

Sara 25:27

That was a very nice thing to say, I thought, too.

Jami 25:29

Yes. Yeah. On her part. Exactly. Yeah, and physical things was what you were talking about, bookmarks made with manuscript draft corrections. I don't know about that. Cause I was thinking what I was trying to think, how could you for me personally?

Sara 25:44

I yeah, because I don't I used to print out my manuscript and scribble all over it. And I don't do that as much now. But if you do that, you could take those pages and cut them up and laminate them and give them away. Or you could take your manuscript pages and sign them and give them out, things like that. I was trying to think of ways that you could take your physical something, make something physical from your work. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Yeah. Another thing that I thought of with this was when we interviewed Ember May, and she talked about the teacups she received from, I think it was a relative who had these teacups. I think she got six of them, and she packaged them up and gave them away as early bonus for Kickstarter backers. And I thought that was a great idea because she didn't do it for everyone. It's a limited thing, but it's a physical thing that they're receiving that has meaning to her and that they were beautiful and they would probably display them. Yeah.

Jami 26:39

I agree. So you said special editions here. What were you talking about?

Sara 26:43

I don't think many people, I don't think many people who are creating lots of AI content are going to be creating special editions. I think that's a way you can set yourself apart and say, maybe your special edition has things that are unique, like it's signed, but just the fact that you're taking the time to create a special edition puts you in a different category in readers' minds, I think.

Jami 27:10

Yeah, so I think you're right. I think you're right. I if you can't do a physical sign, like an online sort of thing, I mean, except for the fact that I look like Cred this morning, we could put this podcast on YouTube and people would see our faces and see us. And at this point, I don't think I think AI is still not good enough to replicate that. It's pretty obvious when something or I think it's pretty obvious we can tell because we're so far, yeah. So we can, yeah. My mother, she cannot, a baby rapping a song. She's can you believe that child mom? Well, let's have a chat. Oh my gosh. And I do think that is one of the dangers because they're we are uniquely uh situated. We're seeing a lot of this, we're seeing so much of it. Yes. And I forget the general public just either isn't or don't they don't understand, they don't care, or that what all they can see is the prop, they've heard the propaganda of, oh, this could be so great for you. And they're like, Oh, this is so great. In fact, I was at Starbucks and I was talking to this guy next to me that comes, he comes a lot. I'm a regular and he comes a lot, and we were talking, and when he found out what I do, he was like, Oh, I guess you're really happy about AI because that can really help, you know, you with all your stuff. I was like, No. She said, How much time have you got? Yeah, we're not really, we're not really happy about that as much as you would think. And he, when I was telling him some things, he was shocked because he just thought that would be so great for authors. And I was like, actually, not as much as you would think.

Sara 28:55

We are at the forefront of this, even though we don't feel like it. We've I think we know a lot that's going on.

Jami 29:01

Yeah. Sure to being programmers or yeah, in that world, coders. We I think we we know more than the average Joe.

Protect Your Voice And Share Process

Sara 29:12

Yeah. All right. So the next one, show your work, share your writing and revision process. And I think you are much better at this than I am. You do because you do share like how the book's going. Yeah. And I have a tendency just to go off in my cave and say, I'm working on a book, but that's well, usually all I share.

Jami 29:32

I remember, oh gosh, this is back like 2017, 2018. It was like right when I started, maybe a year after I started, because I didn't really know. Like when we started, we knew the people that we had met at conferences. And in my mind, like romance is split, was split into these two categories. Two camps. Yeah, the two camps. There was this marketing like camp, like where you you came into it knowing you had to market your book and advertising and stuff. And fortunately, we both were in that camp. Then there was this other side of romance that was book signings, really intense reader engagement, great stuff, but just different. They didn't use ads, they didn't use they that wasn't really on their radar, but they did a lot of reader stuff. And I remember Colleen Hoover used to do this live stream where she would just sit and write with her camera on, music playing, she'd just be writing, she'd be singing. You could tell some of the time she had forgotten the camera was on because she was just doing and that would go on for an hour or more, and she'd just sit there and write, and she might go stop writing and look at the camera and say something, and then go back to writing. And I always thought, wow, that's incredible. Because her readers would just sit there and watch her, they were really tuned into it, and things like that are I think I don't know if I want anybody watching me ride. I think that'd be pretty boring. But plus I talk to myself, so that would be really bad. Well, that would make it entertaining. Well, I guess it would.

Sara 31:17

And I make faces when you're well, I'm always uh trying, I'll go away. How would they have held have to act things out sometimes? Yeah, but that's five seconds of two hours.

Jami 31:27

But but I do think there's ways to show your work. I think there are a lot. I feel like romance writers are really good at this. They just let their readers know what they're doing, things that are coming in the book, fun things they've written this week, sort of yeah.

Sara 31:42

I do talk about what I researched this week. Yeah, sometimes I'll do that. And another way to do this would be to people who are doing subscriptions and they're sharing their posting every week. This is my draft. And then later on, most people who do that, they will bring out the finished book later on. But you're essentially showing your drafts as you're going.

Jami 32:04

And having one of the things that I'm gonna end my research, I'm using your quotes, is having strong opinions about things and sharing those opinions. Like if you're that person, if you're if you if controversy gives you your jam, yeah, then share it. Like that is a way for people to understand that you're human and to connect with you on a level because AI doesn't really, it's pretty sanitary still. We all know it's getting a lot better in that it can mimic and replicate, but it's never gonna, I don't say I'm not gonna say never. It at this point is not human-like enough.

Sara 32:51

Well, okay, so this is controversial, but I will say this. I woo! Here we go. I take. I'm a Christian and I believe that people are made in the image of God, and we have a soul, and that's something that AI will never have, even though it can replicate it and give you an image a shadow of it, it's not going to have that core that sets us apart. And so that's I think that's one reason I'm not quite as afraid of it as maybe I should be, or maybe other people are. But yeah, I think we have to lean into the things that we enjoy and that are unique. Yeah, that that's what makes us a little bit different. And if you like controversial opinions or you like like I would put down quirky things, there are certain authors that I think, oh, like Gail Carringer, she likes octopus things. Her readers send her clips of octopus and little images of them. And Lindsay Broker does dragons, and I like vintage things. I'm all into old stuff. Yeah. And I love vintage office equipment and stuff because it works and it lasts. And if you can show those little quirky things about yourself, that can draw people to you.

Jami 34:10

And even in your writing, one of the things you could like just using unique metaphors and weird comparisons. I do this a lot. I have I've never, yeah, I've never met a simile that I didn't love and want to overuse. And actually, there have been when I've asked AI, does this make this grammar looks weird? Mostly my stuff is grammar that I'm like, I don't know. But it will come back and say, but you've used a lot of simile. Or this simile doesn't work. I think it was I I can't remember. Oh, it was like a noxious cloud. I had used it, and there were like clouds, it like it was a noxious cloud came over me or settle over me or something like that. And it was like clouds don't settle, they move and drift. And I was like, shut up. S-G-E-T. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The hell was in was insinuated to shut the hell up. But I just feel like the more we can basically use our human brains and experiences that we that are unique to us, like I would say my writing is very unique to me. And sometimes that's very limiting, and I recognize that it limits the things I can write about. I would love to write some sweeping travel or deeply intellectual things, but that's not my experience. So, because of that, I think that it does give me a unique perspective, and then I lean into that unique perspective, and I think that's important as we're trying to be human.

Sara 35:54

So, this other one isn't, I don't know actually how you would use this. Maybe you've got an idea, but longevity in online accounts is another way to show that you're human. And I didn't think about that until I saw somebody say, Yeah, my ex or LinkedIn or Facebook history goes back to 2017 or 2010 or whatever. That would be a way I guess you could reshare older content to show that, or you could just, hey, mention I've been around for 20 years on this site and blah blah. I don't know how that will go over.

Jami 36:28

Yeah, I think bringing back old content is a good idea. That's a that I actually when I saw that I was like, oh yeah, that is really good. And actually, some of the some of my TikTok reels, I've been reusing some of them. A lot of them, I was 50 pounds heavier. Oh, and so we need my face looks different. I had a real round face, didn't realize that. But that is definitely that definitely signals that I'm human. Also, like as far as social media goes, as far showing your face and stuff going on imperfect, like going on that's that authenticity thing you're having. Yeah, just those sorts of things make you make you seem more authentic and relatable and more human, as we're talking about, and also not having such curated social media where everything's so perfect. Like last night, I was we were at the rodeo and made a video about so this is one thing, and girls, if you're listening, listen up. Something the biggest thing I've ever told my girls, and if you ask them, in fact, Alexa said when you started that video, I turned to the she said I turned to the friend that I with and said, She's about to say this. If you meet a man wearing a hat before you decide to really invest or go out with him again or whatever, go out with him, be sure to see him without the hat because you can get hat fished real fast. But why why is that important for people who are going, what? Because they look completely a man looks good in a hat, and sometimes they don't look so good when the hat comes off, and that's bitten me in the behind more than once. And but anyway, all that to say that was my advice on the video. But it was a terrible video, like there you could hear the announcers in the background, people talking and everything, but that also lends to authenticity. That was really me making that video because if I had been AI, I would have cleaned that up and made sure that my voice was the only thing you heard. So things like that, like a video that is not really perfect, is a great way to show that you're a real person.

Sara 38:46

Yeah, yeah. And I even do that when we when I edit the podcast. I don't take out all of the pauses and the ums and the things that we're when we're straining to think of a word or something, because sometimes it you need that pause for the emphasis. And yeah, I think that's interesting. Yeah, sometimes the messier it is, the more realistic it is. Like the podcast I did when we were at Author Nation and I walked around just and recorded people. I actually like the way it turned out because you could hear the background noise. Technically, people would say, Oh, take that out because it's distracting. But it's just it gave you the feeling of being there. It's ambiance. Yes.

Jami 39:28

It was cool.

Sara 39:29

Yeah, yeah.

Jami 39:30

Well, something that AI said, Oh my gosh, was like signature style, and one of the things that is like rhythm of sentences when you write. And I think authors need to be real careful about this when they're asking AI to clean stuff up or to make if you're going to do that to make sure you're telling them, do not change my sentences, do not change the writing, do not add, and like for me, because I have it clean up my grammar, but I will say, don't add m-dashes because again, I've never met an M-dash I didn't love, but I love M-dashes. I have used them forever, but I don't want them adding it. I don't want them adding semicolons or colons because I don't use that in my writing. I tell it not to touch the sentence structure or the syntax of a sentence unless, and if it's going to, I want to know what they did because my writing, it has a very unique rhythm to it. And I don't want if you're going into AI and asking it to clean stuff up or help you with something like that, it will not do that for you. It cannot replicate your voice. Like I had it, I was trying to get it to help me with a blurb, and it was like, let me do it in a Jamie Albright in a Jamie Albright voice. And so it did it, and I was like, that's not my voice. Yeah, that you missed, and so it it can't do that yet, and I don't know that it ever will. So be really aware of that, and just don't give over your uniqueness for convenience.

Sara 41:12

A lot of the grammar checkers, a lot of the grammar warnings that pop up, it takes away, yeah, it scrubs off the uniqueness, it makes it more bland. It made this makes me think of the podcast we did with Grammar with Patty McGee, where we talked about how your words are your toolbox to create beautiful and unique things. And since we write fiction, we can break grammar rules and make things imperfect and uh incomplete sentences are fine. Yeah, you especially in conversation. So, you know, we don't have to be constrained like people who are writing a dissertation or something like that, very formal writing. Yeah, so we should take advantage of it. We should use that.

Jami 42:00

Last night at the rodeo we uh at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, they at the end of the rodeo, they have a concert every night. And we saw Chris Stapleton last night, and he's country, it's all mostly country music, but they have a lot of other artists too. But he is such a profound, so many of his songs are so profound in in the word choice and the way he and it just reminded me how powerful words are and how lucky we are as writers, whether you write songs, whether you write poetry, whether you write prose, how lucky we are that we have that either we have the gift or we have decided we want the gift and we have worked our butts off to get it. And then we get to use those words to impact people, like that our words uh touch people in an emotional way. That is such that is just a gift, and we don't want to give that away to anybody, to anybody or anything.

Sara 43:08

Yeah. Yeah. And it's wild when you think about it that what are words? They're black marks on a page, and they can move people to you know, cry, laugh. It's it's uh quite a gift when you think about it.

Jami 43:23

It is anyway, all that to say. Yeah, that just a word of warning. If you want to try using AI to help you, just be sure you're just not giving over your uniqueness for that help.

Sara 43:37

Another thing that I put down, we talked about this a minute ago, curation. That's a way that you can show your human because basically there's going to be so much more content going forward than there ever has been. If you can curate something for your readers, maybe you give them a list of recommended books that are coming out, you know, this next season or These are classics in the genre you might want to go back and read. Something like that. It will help them sort through things and then it will show that you are a tastemaker. I don't know if that's the right term, but um, I think it is.

Jami 44:16

And also maybe not an expert, but you're a voice that can be trusted.

Sara 44:21

You can let people know, hey, I enjoyed these books. And if you like the same type of book, here's a whole bunch more like it. That's a good thing to do. I've seen a lot of people doing if you liked only murders in the building, here's five books like murders in the building. Yeah. Which people shows are limited, and you can't once you watch a series and it's over, you might want to continue that experience. And you can have, hey, here's six books that you might enjoy that are similar.

Jami 44:49

Oh, yeah. Some of the biggest accounts on TikTok are all they do is curate streaming shows. Like here are five streaming shows that or thrillers, streaming thrillers that you maybe haven't watched that you should watch or whatever. That that is their entire platform. That is all they do, and they have thousands and thousands of followers. People are looking for that also because we're looking for convenience. That is we have enough going on. We don't want to have to sit down and labor over what we're gonna watch, watch or read.

Sara 45:23

Even if I just go to my Amazon page, there's so much on that page now. Oh, yeah. So many books. Overwhelming. Yeah, and I don't want to click on each one and read the sample. And a lot of times I'll click on one, I'll think, oh, this sounds great, and then I'm disappointed. So having somebody sort through all that will be awesome. Yeah. I would like that. Absolutely. And then this last couple get a degree or certification. Joanna Penn mentioned that's one reason among many that she's getting a master's degree. And I just thought that was interesting because you know, AIs are not going to be going back to college to get a degree. Training or certification does set you apart from people who won't do that.

Jami 46:05

We should also say this episode is dedicated to Joanna Penn. We've mentioned her no less than 35 times. I have been following along though with her master's journey. And I was like, she that's exhausting. Like I'm exhausted listening to that. And I'm I admire her so much for that. And but see, that that evokes emotion. Like that that is the point. It evokes emotion. And that is how she is a person. She is evoking emotion for me at this point. Yeah.

Sara 46:36

And the thing I forgot to put down here that I thought about it the other day, and I forgot to write it down is when you share, like you shared so much about your sister, that is something that's true and human. And it's it does evoke emotions in people. Like when you share the things in your life that are really deeply meaningful to you, then it does get a response from people because it's true. And then the last two are more about audio stuff. I didn't think about this as breaking it out into format, but if you podcast about your book, I've done this. You can share a story behind the book. You could do a podcast where you do an audio commentary, which I've done that with murdered Archley Manor. I divvied it up and I gave a little intro to each chapter, or I sometimes I combined it like the two chapters at once and gave a little information about either research I had done or a character that was coming up of how I created the character. And then I used the audiobook narration because I own my audiobook narration, so I'm able to do this. If you don't, if you've gone through ACX, I don't think you can do this with probably not their stuff. You could, or you could just do like an introduction. You could have an author's version, an author track where you have your special version that people can just get from you that has your thoughts on it. And then the other thing would be if you narrate your audiobook, yeah, they're hearing your voice. I don't know that many authors will do that, but it would be a way that you could say, This is me narrating my book. If you want to hear me narrate it with the emphasis in the places that I want to put it, this is get this book from me. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Final Takeaways And Ways To Respond

Jami 48:17

That's true. Yeah, I think those are all really great suggestions. And some of them I'm going to use.

Sara 48:26

And we would love to hear your suggestions and thoughts on this. If you have ideas of how you can show your human things you've done that could help other people connect with their readers, please let us know. You can send us a text. You can find us on Substack. Love to hear your thoughts.

Jami 48:42

I love that. Thank you guys for listening today. We appreciate it. I hope we hope you're doing great out in the world being human. And while you're being human, be kind. And yeah, we'll see you next week.

Sara 48:55

All right. Well, we will have the podcast that we mentioned. And I think we should probably also link to Joanna's podcast because we've mentioned her like 50 times. So we'll put all that in the show notes. And those will be at wish I known for writers.com. If you want to support the podcast, you can go to that same link slash support. If you've received value from the podcast and want to share back with us, we would appreciate it. And don't forget, our sponsor for this week is Reetzy. We'll see everybody next week. That's right. Bye. Welcome to the Wish I Known Then Pro. I'm just having trouble today.

Jami 49:30

A little many strokes. Okay, here we go again.

Sara 49:35

I'll put this at the end of the episode. Yeah. As a blooper. All right.