How Authors Misuse AI and What To Do Instead

If you’ve ever typed “Should I run a preorder?” into an AI tool and felt ready to act five seconds later, this conversation is for you. We unpack the most common ways authors misuse AI—and how to turn the same tools into real advantages without losing your voice or wasting your launch.

We start with the seduction of certainty. AI delivers answers with confidence, even when the question hinges on taste, budget, or platform size. That tone can nudge you into over-trusting opinions on covers, categories, and ISBNs. We share why opinions from AI are often lateral, not better—and how to use them as sparks rather than verdicts. From there, we dig into context. Preorders are a great case study: they work for big lists and traditional timelines, but can backfire for debut self-publishers who only get one shot at attention. We show how to prompt for pros and cons, add your constraints, and pressure-test advice before you spend time or money.

Visuals get their own spotlight. AI mockups can anchor your taste the moment you see your title on a shiny image, making it hard to evaluate stronger, more market-savvy designs. We explain why human cover designers still win on genre signaling, typography, and thumbnail clarity, and how to use AI safely as a moodboard. The throughline is simple: trust‑ish, then verify. We tell a real story of a “perfect” AI-sourced quote that turned out to be a paraphrase from a Goodreads review, plus the quick checks that would have saved the embarrassment.

By the end, you’ll have a playbook: ask for trade-offs, seek counterexamples, tailor prompts to your platform and goals, and validate anything that affects money, credibility, or brand. Use AI for research, outlines, and options; rely on human expertise for taste, nuance, and strategy. If this helped, subscribe, share the episode with a writer friend, and leave a review with your biggest AI win—or fail—we’ll feature our favorites next time.

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Transcript

Welcome And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hi, everybody. Today we are going to be talking about AI, which is everybody's favorite topic right now. Specifically, what are some of the ways that authors and writers are incorrectly using AI or maybe putting a little too much faith in AI? So we're, it's a, it's a topic we have a lot of experience with, and so we're excited to dive in. My name is Joel Pitney.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

And I am Sadie Walker.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

And we are the hosts of If I'm Being Honest, Straight Talk about Book Publishing and Promotion. We're also uh we're also the the team at Launch My Book Inc., which is a book publishing and promotion company. So anyway, we're gonna dive right into the conversation today.

Why We Wrote About AI Misuse

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Um and, you know, Sadie, I maybe you could tell us, tell, tell, tell everybody a little bit about how we why we decided to write this article and and and talk about this topic on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

You know, I think that with everything that we put out from Launch My Book, um, you know, our blogs, our newsletters, our our social media accounts is often centered around real life issues that we're dealing with in that moment, right? Like we have an author who uh is experiencing a specific kind of book launch or they have an issue that we have to go in and solve for them. And then we're like, oh, this would be great information for any self-published author to have. And so we're we're always approaching our content from a place of like, how can we educate? And and what are we dealing with in this moment that might help other authors? And so we were having a week where we had multiple authors, multiple clients who uh were starting emails with, well, I asked Chat GPT. And it was on a variety of topics, right? Like it had to do with everything from book covers to book categories to ISBN numbers. Like, you know, it wasn't it wasn't really centered around one particular thing. And there was just this influx of, well, I asked Chat GPT, and Chat GPT told me this. And, you know, you and I have been experimenting with Chat GPT both launched my book and also personally, and just you more than me, but I'm I'm a late adopter, but I'm definitely using it. You are, but you're but you're using it now, and we've been kind of uh learning ourselves what that tool is like uh and what it's what are what where are the advantages and where are the disadvantages? And so we just started having a conversation around like how can we help authors utilize tools like AI, but not um, but not at their disadvantage, right? Like, like sometimes, and maybe even more than sometimes, maybe it's like 80% of the time, are you getting a correct answer from Chat GPT? Is it actually helping you in whatever stage of your book process, whether you're thinking about launch or you're still, you know, in development or you're in production, and you ask Chat GPT a question, how can you evaluate whether or not you're getting good advice?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

That's great. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

And here we are because And here we are.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

And so we decided that we we started to brainstorm a few topics that we're gonna go through on, you know, in this little time together, um, about you know, some specific uh ways in which authors, writers, and honestly any human often misuses Chat GPT or maybe or or cloud or cloud or or whatever your favorite AI Gemini, your favorite AI platform is. And we thought that we'd just kind of start talking about those. And and Sadie, you said this, but I want to reiterate, we're both super pro AI. So this is not this is not a doom and gloom. AI is gonna take us over. Um and we shouldn't, and we shouldn't use it. Uh I'm a big I actually think AI is is kind of cool, and it allows you to do a lot of things more efficiently and creatively than you might have been able to do uh without that level of technology. Um, but as we were saying when we were thinking about this this little episode, um, it's not AI that we're afraid of, it's it's it's how people are using it that we're afraid of. And um so that's what we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Uh and so we kind of identified a few of these things. Now, these this is by no means a comprehensive list of ways that people misuse uh uh AI. And I would be curious to hear anybody's opinions or experiences on on the topic, because this is this is an evolving

The Trap Of Asking AI For Opinions

SPEAKER_01 4:41

subject. But um, the first one that we run into is asking AI for an opinion. What do you think about that one, Sadie?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Well, you know, it's it reminds me of that friend, right? Like that is opinionated. And even or that boss that you maybe you have or you've worked for who no matter what the thing is, they're gonna have a critique or they're gonna have uh something that you could do better, something that you could improve on. And that's great. Like I'm all for continuous improvement. But if you ask AI an opinion on something, and and maybe it's as simple as as you know, you upload your book cover and you say, Hey, is this is this good? Is this repres representative of you know whatever your book is about? Um AI is going to give you an opinion. It's not it's not gonna be neutral, it's not gonna say like, nope, yep, that's great. Oh, you did a fabulous job, I love it. It has to generate something. And so it's gonna tell you, like, oh, okay, here are ways you could improve, or here's uh fonts that you maybe you should should think about. And it and so when you're asking it for an opinion, and then you are um if you're not being critical of that opinion, I think you can go down a rabbit hole where you're you you'll never actually make a decision on a thing, right? So like we've been dealing with this not a lot, but a little bit, where you know, we do book cover design. We do amazing book cover design, award-winning. Like our our book covers are incredible. And I fully stand behind that. But if you take one of our book covers and you ask ChatGPT for its opinion, it's gonna tell you how you could allegedly make it better. And what we have found is often those suggestions are lateral moves. They're not actually improving on the original artwork.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

So not necessarily wrong or untrue, but they're sort of making neutral suggestions that don't necessarily improve it.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Right. And that's why I say like it's kind of like that friend that you have or that sibling or that coworker that always has to have an opinion that can never just say, yeah, no, that looks great.

unknown 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

That's what AI reminds me of.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

That makes sense. And and that that happens a lot, right? And so you have to, just like when you ask that friend for an app you you've learned that with that friend, every time you ask for their opinion, you need to have some thick skin and you need to take a grain of salt.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Um, you need to remember that that that the AI opinion that you're getting isn't necessarily objectively true.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

It doesn't, and you know, in something like, you know, cover design is one element. And something like cover design is very, it's a, it's a very if you're doing it right, it's very subtle. It takes into account a tremendous amount of factors, you know, the the the personal tastes of the author, the best practices in the industry, uh, the the the essence and themes of the book. A lot of things that are just that something AI, as sophisticated as it is, just can't perceive and can't understand. And so you just have to remember that, right? Just like uh, you know, uh again, I think that friend metaphor you brought up is is so apt. Um you just have to remember they have their own subjective experience. Now, AI doesn't have a subjective experience, but AI is only drawing upon all the information it can amazingly quickly process online, but that doesn't necessarily it doesn't understand necessarily your situation. So again, it doesn't mean you shouldn't ask it, right? None of these things are we saying you shouldn't do, right? You shouldn't sure ask Chat GPG for feedback on your on the last section of the book you wrote. Or uh if you're thinking of hiring a copy editor, ask ChatGPT to look at their website and evaluate whether they would be a good fit for you. Um do all of that, but just remember to take it with a grain of salt because it's not not it's not going to be able to take in the whole picture.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Right. Right. And its job is to uh always give an answer, you know, and so Chat GPT or any of these AI sources, they never say, oh yeah, I don't know. Yep. That's not how they're programmed, right? They are programmed to give an answer. And certainly, I think as more people are using it and getting comfortable with it, um, and as the technology updates, you know, we find that it's hallucinating less. You know, it's it's less likely to give you a completely inaccurate

AI Cannot See Your Whole Context

SPEAKER_00 9:06

answer. But like you said, it's not taking into account your unique situation, your unique um uh story. And and so you just you you have to take it with a grain of salt. And it almost reminds me of conversations that you and I have had about working with a copy editor, even, right? Like, you know, copy editor is gonna go through your book, they're gonna make all kinds of suggestions about how to improve it. But at the end of the day, you have agency over that and you get to decide what you know, what what you want to hold on to and retain in your voice and and what changes you want to actually make.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Right. No, it's interesting. I and you know, we're kind of weaving here in and out, but I think that is one of the big themes in working with AI is that we talk about agentic AI and it has agency, but never, never, never replace your own agency. Right. Right. At the end of the day, you know, your human input, your analysis, your thoughts, your opinions, and maybe the opinions of experts that you trust are going to be more powerful and more important than what you're gonna get from any kind of AI. Um you would I think we sort of naturally transition to one of the other points that we had talked about, which is assuming that it that AI understands your unique situation, right? And um I've got an example, we've got a bunch of examples in this one. I have one uh I have one from uh something that we run into a lot, which is the whole idea of pre-orders, right? And so uh we had we talked to someone recently who had been doing all, you know, they were doing their due diligence, right? They're getting ready for their big book lunch, um, and they were going out there and trying to be prepared and studying and taking courses and all kinds of stuff. And they they had asked AI to uh about pre-orders, you know, pre-order campaigns. And pre-order campaigns means making your book available for sale before it's actually released. Um, it's a technique that's really common in traditional publishing, and it's also very common for, you know, um serial authors, you know, when they're launching their next book to kind of build buzz, maybe stake stack up some sales for a bestseller campaign, or in the case of traditional publishing, maybe convince bookstores that they should order copies because they're seeing the book sell. Um, and so there's a lot of results, there's a lot of stuff out there saying you should do it. And so, you know, ChatGPT was make saying, absolutely, yes, you should do pre-orders and here's what you should do, and gave them the roadmap and everything. Um, but Chat GPT is not going to be able to take into this person's unique situation. So we have a conversation, and you know, and Sadie, you and I have a lot of experience with this over the years, and we start asking questions based on this author's situation. The author, it's the first book. They've never published a book before. So Amazon, you know, there's uh they're self-publishing, they're not traditionally publishing. So they're not trying to woo any sales agents with pre-order numbers. Um, they don't have a very big platform, right? They have, you know, maybe a few hundred Facebook followers, but they haven't built an audience of thousands of people that they can reach out to. Right. And so all of a sudden, all these little, all these, all these little things actually affect how one would make that calculus, um, whether or not it's worth it to do a pre-order. And and, you know, our opinion on this, which you can read about, we talk about this all the time and write about this all the time, on pre-orders is that um, you know, if you only have a chance to talk to a reader once, and you have to pay or spend a lot of time to get a hold of them, right? So that means like doing a publicity interview or paying for an email blast or or asking of an influencer that you made a connection with to send an email about your book launch to their list. If you only have one shot with someone, you shouldn't you shouldn't send it, you shouldn't do a pre-order campaign because uh people are less likely to buy a book that's not live. Um, especially if you're self-publishing. When you're self-publishing, you can only make the ebook live, um, with a few exceptions. Um, and so that that further diminishes the effectiveness of the marketing. And so even though there's a lot of information out there that Chat GPT was drawing on, saying, hey, we should we should run this pre-order this pre-order campaign, absolutely. There's all kinds of best practices, these these little details weren't in the calculus. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

And that's exactly that's such a great point. Like, what are you asking Chat GPT? If I'm asking Chat GPT,

Preorders: When AI Advice Misleads

SPEAKER_00 13:22

should I run a pre-order campaign on my book, it's gonna say yes. And here's here's a bulleted list of all the reasons why you should run a pre-order campaign. And it is pulling that information from thousands and thousands of articles and videos and information out there telling authors why you the value of a pre-order campaign. But if what you put into your prompt is your very unique situation, which most people are not using it that way, we're not using it that way necessarily, um, then it who knows what it would say. But the point is, is that when we talk with an author who says, okay, I've been doing a lot of reading and I think I should do a pre-order, and we go, okay, we we want to hear more about your entire marketing strategy and um and what are you trying to accomplish and who would be interested in a pre-order, and then we can help them make a decision on whether or not that's right for them. And I do think that, you know, a couple years ago, we would have just said straight across the board, like, no, pre-orders are a waste of time. It's probably still one of our most read articles on our website why pre-orders are a waste of time.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Uh usually a waste of time.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Usually a waste of time, right? Because there are some instances if you are trying to uh get a head start on your Audible audiobook. Having that pre-order up so that you can claim the title through ACX can save you some time. Uh, if you're planning some sort of free promotion on that ebook and you want to book media and have it all set to go so that by the time that book goes live, you you know, you have this nice campaign setup. A pre-order page can help you accomplish that. Like there are some technical reasons why maybe a pre-order is the right choice for you, but you're not gonna get that answer from Chat GPT. You're gonna get that answer from talking with real people who have seen all these scenarios and understand them and can help funnel you to the right decision.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Right. Yep. No, that's great. That's great. Um, and that and then and that's the thing is, and uh, and it's not to say that you can't, again, you can't ask uh AI for suggestions on this kind of stuff because what um what you'll often get is really good background research that you can use to make your own analysis. So maybe a better way to ask this would be what are the pros and cons of running.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Because then you're then you're telling AI, oh, there are some cons, please look up the cons, right? So you have to remember that you're in charge, right? And the more agentic and the more independent you are in how you use it, the more effective it's gonna be, and the less likely you're gonna be misled. Um so uh another one, and this is this is uh one of the one of the biggest reasons why people get misled, is there is this the answers you get from AI are never uh half bit, they're never lacking confidence, so to speak. They're always delivered with a tremendous amount of certainty, right? Whether you're getting that cool voice that you've chosen that's like, yeah, you should do this, you should do this, or whether you're getting the the written, right? You're gonna get certainty. Um and oftentimes I don't even I just speaking from my own experience, I think it's a psych I think it's like an unconscious psychological thing. If you hear a voice or read something written that is telling you very directly that you should do something, there's a part of you that's just gonna assume it's right.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Because it's so confident. It's not what it's not saying, well, I'm not really sure, but here's what I might think. You're you're not gonna you're gonna be like, oh, okay, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna turn on my skepticism radar. But if you're told this and you've got, you know, that a friend of mine, I don't use the the voice one, but a friend of mine has this kind of engaging female voice, who'll be like, Yeah, yeah, no, you know, I uh and and and she'll speak with this confidence, yeah you know, as if it's this an expert human who knows. And so it's very easy to mistake that for it actually being right.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Absolutely. It reminds me of uh my brother who is two years younger than me, but he anything he says, and as we've been this way since we were kids, anything he says, I will just he's so he has such a confident voice and confident air about him. There are still things from our childhood that we're unraveling will all be like, no, you told me, you know, XYZ. And he's like, oh, I was lying. I thought that was obvious, right? Like he's like, hang on. Um, but he's just so confident. I would, he, you know, I would follow him blindly. Uh, and and it, and it definitely, and even if you, even if you catch it in a mistake, AI, even if you catch AI in a mistake and you go, hang on, I thought, you know, actually it was this, or you know, you you add another question, another layer of complexity to your your prompt. Um even if you catch it in a mistake, it's gonna say, oh yep, you're you were right, and and then continue with that complete air of certain competence. And so you do have to, and I think, you know, Joel, for you and I, because we both come from a background in journalism, we're used to sort of digging deeper, finding the sources, uh fact-checking things, you know, cross-referencing, but that is not a skill that everyone has. And especially when I think about a self-published author who, you know, it's different if you've if you've published lots of books and if you're you're really in tune with this world. But if this is your first book and maybe it's a legacy project, maybe it's a memoir, maybe it's a, you know, and you're stepping out into this world and you're looking for guidance, um, it can be overwhelming because there is a lot of information on the internet and it doesn't all, it's not all pointing you in the same direction. It's not all telling you the same thing. And so if you were to just sort of try to funnel your queries into Chat GPT or into AI, um, that level of certainty is going to feel the level of certainty coming off of AI is going to feel very assuring. You're gonna be like, okay, this is what I need to do, because I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do with all this information. I don't know if I should set my book up on Amazon KDP or should I do Ingram Spark? Should I do bulk sales? Should I do there's so many decisions to make? And each one is so completely unique to your situation, to your book, your audience, uh, your connections. And so there isn't a one size fits all answer. There is just not. There are some, you know, there are some answers that that probably fit most authors, but it's just not one size fits all. And so um, you know, if you're not kind of questioning Chat GPT or um or adding a layer of complexity to your queries, or like you said, give me the pros and the cons, you know, when you're when you're looking things up, then I I my fear is that it would be so easy to be led astray. And as we know in self-publishing, um, there are a lot of sharks out there. And there's a lot of of companies that will take advantage of you. And that, you know, that would be a shame to be kind of like doing all of your research through AI and having it guide you to to uh a company that's that doesn't have your best interests in mind.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Apparently we get guided by a lot of people uh through AI. I've I've started to have many people say, Oh, I I asked ChatGPT and and you were recommended. So uh that's awesome. And and I at least we think we're trustworthy. We try to be trustworthy, so we are trustworthy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Well, that's good. That means that ChatGPT is reading our articles and you know, it's kind of uh pulling some information from us too, which is that's great for me.

Better Prompts: Pros And Cons Thinking

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Which is cool.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

That is way cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Before we move into the next point, I you know, I I'm learning about the podcast business, and I want to let you know uh uh it's important for us that if you like this, if you like our our show, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on your favorite podcasting platform, to subscribe. Follow us, subscribe, like this episode. Um, our mission here is to basically educate and empower people. We want to take all the information that we're learning uh in our work professionally in publishing and writing and and marketing books um and and make it available for people. So if you find this useful, uh please do all those things to support us, um, and we'd be much appreciated. Uh uh another topic I want to talk about, and this is a really interesting one, is um uh anchoring bias and the interesting anchoring bias effect that happens with um with with AI. And anchoring bias is if you don't know about it, it's basically, and I I'll probably won't be able to say this, you know, uh to a sat to the satisfaction of a psychologist, but My understanding is anchoring bias is that when you see when you hear see something or you hear something or an idea is planted in your head, it will then affect how you view all altern all topics and points related to that in the future. Right. So it kind of anchors your kind of locks you in. And so this we started to happen, we started to notice was happening to us with covers. And um, I'm someone who loves to use uh Chat GPT to generate graphic ideas because I'm not a graphic designer, I'm a writer. Um and I always

Confidence Bias In AI Answers

SPEAKER_01 22:33

and it and I started I actually started this with a children's book with my son, but I've also done it, you know, trying to come up with podcast uh, you know, logos and and messing around to try and figure out book cover cover concepts. And so um I love to just generate image ideas for what uh for for any project I'm working on. And so this has happened to me too. I've experienced it myself, but we started to feel this when we were working with people on on book covers, and they would uh use Chat GPT to generate a bunch of concepts that they would then send to us and say, okay, this is what I want for my book cover. And our our philosophy of book cover design, we have an like Sadie said, we have a really talented cover designer, but our our philosophy is that we always want to try and do your thing. And we want to try other things because uh no offense, but your thing may not be as good. It might be. Um but also there's something powerful that comes through unleashing the creativity of a designer, like a human designer, and just seeing what they might come up with. So we we love we, you know, our designer is so good. She she always comes up with really cool, genius, novelty, I novel ideas. So we always like to give her this kind of free reign. So, but what we started to notice is that when people were sending us these concepts that they had generated with Chat GPT, it was very, very, very difficult to then do anything other than that idea.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Pretty much impossible.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Because they were getting because ChatGPT would do such a good job of getting them close on a concept. You know, and there's a magical, if no, if you've never done it, it's very magical to say, hey Chat GPT, design me a book cover for a book titled, you know, you see what you get, or you sorry, you get what you see, you know, life lessons from the trenches. And I would I want to have a picture of a man on the cover looking powerful and and and but maybe in a natural scene or something. And you can throw at these and it'll start generating what at first, you know, your initial impulse is like, oh my goodness, look at that. That's so cool that that happened. And so it almost feels like you've designed something, but then when you but the when you start to discern what that is through a critical eye, right? Like a real book cover designer who really knows the industry, a lot of times the concept will fall apart, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

But you get you get so but we've and I I can speak this happens to me too. You get so locked in to this thing that you can't see anything else.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah, I would say this happens quite a few times last year, um, where where we had authors who uh came to us with some ideas pre-generated through Chat GPT or whatever. Um, and and then also sometimes, you know, we would be sort of going through our creative process. And we have a pretty specific creative process for book covers because we've been doing this so long. And we want, like Joel said, we want to take into consideration what what do you want? What it what do you visualize when you look at this book? And then we're also going to pair that with what are industry standards, what is happening right now in your book genre and what's working and how are those books selling? Um, we want to take into account, you know, whether or not we're copying something a little too closely and we need to move away from that. There's a lot of complexity to a book cover design. And we have a process for it and it's a lot of back and forth, and there's a lot of um, it's my favorite part of the publishing process, and it can also be grueling because um, you know, sometimes it's hard for an author to articulate what it is that they actually want out of that book cover, whether it's the artwork, whether it's, you know, the placement of the title, what have you. And so we have our process, we believe in it, we uh we take value in it, and it always works. And one of the things that has started happening this last year is, you know, folks coming to us with some pre-generated ideas, or we're going through our process and maybe it's taking a little bit longer, we're having a little bit more back and forth. And so then they start going to Chat GPT saying, okay, I have a book and it's about this. What would you do for the cover? And then they start seeing these ideas completely different than what we have generated. And they're going, hang on a second, what about this? And in both those instances, like you said, you it's that anchoring bias of uh um your your sort of first reaction to a thing, and and you have a hard time letting that go. Um, even if the cover that Chat GPT did is great, it's probably not any greater than what we've designed or that what we've come up with, right? Like it's different, and different is good, but there's there's a lot to there's a lot to parse out in a situation like that. And um and so that's that's definitely been challenging. However, I think that in both of those instances, authors are pre-generating cover ideas because they think it's helpful. Right. They're right, they it makes sense and they're excited when you and I I include myself in this category. Yes. And when

Newbie Authors And Decision Overload

SPEAKER_00 27:44

you see like an idea for a book cover that is your book that up until this moment has only existed in your head, um, and ChatGPT is like, oh, here's what I would do, that's a super exciting moment. Now, I like to save that moment for when we have delivered a handful of cover concepts. It's the same when you order your printed proof and you are holding your book in your hands for the first time. Uh, those are really exciting, special moments. And um, and I want every author to have that and appreciate that and be in that. And sometimes that happens a little bit too early. Sometimes that's happening through these chat GPT concepts, and then they're going, well, this is what I want, just do exactly this. And we can't necessarily recreate something perfectly. Our tools are different, our designer works differently. You know, we can we can try to replicate a thing, but it's never going to be the exact same as what Chat GPT gave you. And that can also, you know, cause problems because, like you said, you're you get it kind of locked in your head that this is what I want. Um, that then even just small variances can can throw someone off and and they feel like you know, we're not listening to them or we're not we're not honoring their idea. And so so that one is tricky. And I will I don't know that we've necessarily figured out how to navigate that because you know No, it's it'cause it it's a brave new world, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

And it's it's very interesting to see. We've we've had a few instances like this where we were able to reproduce the cover that that Chat GPT did. So and that it was great. Um now, would it have been better if we would have just kind of gone through our process without the anchoring bias? Probably. But one never knows. And so, you know, I so I I kind of feel like the takeaway from this is really, you know, it's again, it's not that you don't use it, but beware of the anchoring bias. It's gonna happen. So in some cases you might choose not to do it in order to avoid the anchoring bias. And in some cases, you might go for it, knowing that you need to work to keep an open mind. Right. Um, because especially if you are, if at the end of the day, something is gonna be generated from you, whether it's a cover or a copy edit or something by a real human. And right now, there are very few things in book publishing that AI can do better than a good human, still, not all the way. If you're gonna be working with a human, just remember that they have a way that they work, and AI is not necessarily gonna help. Not necessarily. And it's probably gonna get in the way. Now, we might get to a point where AI can actually outperform humans in some of these functions, but we have not encountered that yet. Um, again, and we're talking good, like there's people who there's levels of everything, and I'm sure that AI can do better cover design than some of the low-end cover design that that's out there, but they're probably using AI for it anyway. Um so I think that's that's an important thing to keep in mind.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

And I think also, you know, kind of a sidebar to that is your book cover is a really important piece of the puzzle. Like really, really important. Uh, it's the first thing that people are gonna see. And so your book cover is also their anchoring bias, right? Like they're gonna see that cover and decide in a split second if they're interested in reading that book or not. And if you can grab them in that second because your cover is intriguing or it speaks to their interests, the genre that they like to read, whatever the thing is, and then they go, okay, what is this book about? And they read the book description, and maybe they read a little bit about you, maybe they look at your Amazon A plus content. You know, everybody's gonna go look at customer reviews. What are people actually saying about this book? But none of those pieces happen until they've seen your book cover and they're intrigued by that cover. And that is not a piece of the puzzle that I would uh that I would be cheap about. You know, I think that that's the other thing that is always gonna be a part of this conversation is why would I pay someone $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 to design my book cover when ChatGPT can do it for free? Um, that's valid. But but having a properly designed book cover can make or break your book. It just can. And you'll hear it, you know, you'll listen to other podcasts, you'll read other articles

Anchoring Bias From AI-Generated Covers

SPEAKER_00 31:55

where people are saying, oh, my book's just not selling. And oftentimes some of the first pieces of advice that someone will give you is like, okay, well, what does your book cover look like? Maybe you need to redesign your book cover. And if you used AI to do your book cover the first time and your book is not doing well, you know, maybe maybe reconsider that. Because I do think that even though it is getting harder and harder every day to recognize it, um, we still can see it and we still can look at a piece of artwork and be like, oh, that's AI. Um, and whether or not that sways you on reading that book, not reading that book, it's just something to be aware of and something to be careful of. I don't think that, I don't think that using AI at this moment in time replaces having a cover designer who understands the complexities about about cover design, particularly about your your type of book. You know, if you're thinking of hiring a freelance cover designer, fabulous. Um, make sure that they've done books like yours before. You know, make sure that they've got some experience in that. Look, look at their portfolio. Is it a good fit? Um, all of that is gonna go the distance for you.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yep. And that applies to everything beyond cover design as well, right? It's the same thing, copy editing, interior design. You know, everybody's trying to I go to these book conferences, and every book conference I go to, the percentage of AI tables and vendors versus non-AI and tables and vendors starts to shift. Everybody is trying to figure out ways to use AI to do everything from copy editing to cover design to marketing books to even doing audio books. I mean, it's all, it's, it's, it's all coming. So we being savvy in this in this landscape's really important. Um I kind of feel like I'd like to sum up our conversation with kind of a meta point that I think kind of weaves through a lot of all this, which is the old saying, trust but verify. And I think when it comes to working with AI, I wouldn't even go so quite so far as to say trust. I would say trust-ish, what it's doing, yeah, what it's saying, what it's advising, but verify. You gotta verify. And there's one little story I have about this. Um, I did I I'm a I'm I'm a ghostwriter, so I I work on writing books uh for other people as well. And I I'm I'm working on a business book right now, and there's a section of the business book, a chapter, where we're all talking about scaling a business, you know, in the process of scaling a business. And I I really wanted to get a cool quote that I could use to open up the chapter. And so I I was working with ChatGPT, and I do this a lot. And I was like, hey, I need a I need a good quote about scaling. And I and Chat GPT came back with some lists, and there was one in particular that really stood out and was like, here you go, there's a great quote on scaling, and it was from a guy named Vern Harnish, uh, and hit in his book, which is called Scaling Up. And the quote uh was scaling a business is not about doing more things, it's about doing the things, uh, doing the right things consistently. And I was like, wow, that's awesome. And the way it was presented, they had given it a source, it was from this book, the book had the same title, everything just lined up. I'm like, oh, that's that's awesome. And so I put it in a thing, and the book uh got sent to the editor, and part of the copy editing process when you're working with the publisher is that they do all the fact checking and they check all your quotes, and they were like, no, this isn't. And I was really embarrassed because this was this is one of the first things I had started to use ChatGPT for. I wasn't very savvy with it yet. And turns out that what ChatGPT has done, because I went back in, I found the old chat and I was like, what's going on? I found out this quote is not from this book, and it goes, Oh, you're right. It's from a Goodreads, it's a paraphrase from a Goodreads review of the book. Right? And I can't tell you how many times things like that happen. And so I think the lesson I learned there, and I think that's it's a lesson I I think kind of is valuable for all of us, is it's it doesn't mean that quote that quote could have been right. I mean, I've gotten some great quotes that were completely accurate, but you have to check the work. You have to push it, you have to verify, you have to go check the link that it would that that the information came from, you have to you have to process it through experts, you have to do counterpoint analysis, you can't just you can't just set it and forget it. Um and honestly, a lot of people who are talking about AI, even you know, some of the the CEOs and founders of these big AI firms, you know, a lot of them are admitting, yeah, it's true, it's not perfect yet. It's not they all say it's gonna get there, but it's riddled with errors, whether it's generative AI or or you know, research AI, errors are commonplace. I mean, at least 20%, I would say. Um and so we all have to keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah. I think that's a great meta point because I think I, you know, hopefully in this conversation, we've been um we've I don't think we're negative about AI. I think we you know, I I there there are certainly valuable ways to use it. There's responsible ways to use it.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Um I used AI to come up with the title of this podcast episode.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Yeah. And so just kind of, you know, just being aware of the the pitfalls and also uh and with that, you know, continue to use it and play around with it. And I think that if it if it gives you an answer or a suggestion or a critique or, you know, that's that's great. And then ask ask the experts, you know. We're we're fine. People come to us often and they're like, oh, Chat GPT says that this matters or this doesn't. What do you think? You know, like that's your continued curiosity, right? We're not just taking it at face value. We're saying, I did a little bit of research, even if that research was just plugging in a question into AI. This is what it told me. What do you think? And we'll tell you. We'll tell you whether or not that's valuable for your specific situation.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

All right. Well, that's that's awesome. Thank you, Sadie. This is a great conversation. Um, if you enjoyed this, you found it useful, again, subscribe to our channel, our show on whatever platform you engage with it on. Um, you can like. Uh, we'd love to hear comments if you disagree with us, if you agree with us, if you have examples of your own that either support these points or add new points or or contradict what we're saying. I we would love to hear about that. You can you can leave comments on on our website. Um we'll we'll have this up as a blog post um uh launchbybook.com, or you can do it within the platform itself. So thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.