Can AI write a book for me? An update
Keeping commentary on ghostwriting and AI fresh
One of the most read blogs on this website is ‘Can ChatGPT write a book for me?’ It was written over a year ago and, as with everything in the digital world, much has changed in a short space of time. Here, at The Ghostwriters Agency, we thought it was time for an update.
By now, there can be very few professionals who have not posed the question to themselves: is AI going to take my job? I’ve been thinking about the potential impact of AI on ghostwriting since not long after Chat GPT launched in November 2022. An author I have collaborated with many times sent me an outline for his next book that he’d produced using the AI model. It was a heart-stopping moment. He’s a very engaged author, always full of ideas and suggestions for the series of short business books we collaborate on. Before this though, he’d always left the structure completely up to me. Was this the beginning of the end? I thought. It was just a structure, a series of bullet points really, but how long before AI filled in the bits in between, writing all the text?
Three years on, while a lot has changed, AI is still a long way from being capable from writing a book. However, and I will be completely open, I do make use of it. Actually, more than that, I believe it has made a positive contribution to my work. To understand how much further this will go, it’s crucial to understand the extent of its capabilities right now.
There is less demand for ghostwriters for blogs and other short form assignments
Short-form ghosting is already on the way out
Currently, the ghostwriting economy is broad. While I, and the fellow members of GWA are bestselling ghosts specialising in books, there are also ghosts for speechwriting, thought leadership content, personal essays, social media strategy, investor reports and blogs. These other sectors all focus on short form writing, which is, sadly, the most vulnerable. Indeed, it is quite likely that ghosts in this sector of are already finding their livelihoods severely impacted.
AI can provide a decent draft for any short-form piece. Many people are already finding the output decent enough to plug in the prompts themselves and use the results for opinion pieces on LinkedIn and their websites, cutting-out the professional human writer altogether. I say this with some confidence, because I can very much tell when a blog, or piece of short content, is written by AI. This is over and above the obvious tells such as em-dashes and the tendency to do Every Word of Titles and Sub-Titles in Capital Letters. The structure is very formulaic and AI does seem to struggle with the nuances that make a short form piece really hit home. AI-generated blogs never seem to have the insight or originality that make pieces credible.
AI still falls very short in long-form, non-fiction writing
AI simply can’t build on a big idea. The discrepancies I can see in short-form AI writing are multiplied so many times in non-fiction, long form writing, ie books, they are impossible to ignore. The repetition makes it gratingly obvious. My pet hate is the persistent use of variations of ‘it is not just this, it is that too’. Even with excellent prompting, AI also tends to default to a generic voice with safe, middle of the road phrasing. This produces a soulless read. For an author wanting to produce a bold, cutting-edge book in, say, business, leadership or personal development, this produces the very opposite impact that they want.
The interview is an integral part of ghostwriting
AI doesn’t interview authors
Something that ChatGPT and others like it have suffered with since the beginning is repetition of themes, or even hallucinations. In long-form writing, it is like it runs out of things to say, so it simply lobs in a few other, similar paragraphs a little further down the page or makes stuff up. The skill of a ghostwriter goes well beyond that of writing. We’re not just assembling information. We spend time interviewing authors, asking provocative questions and follow-up questions. This ensures there is enough original content and that it is written with the reader in mind. Add to this, some of the most valuable parts of any collaboration are off-script moments, when an author mentions something in passing that ends up anchoring the book’s central message.
Contrast this with an author who types in a prompt: ‘write me a chapter for a book on entrepreneurialism, exploring how to develop a business idea as a first-time founder’. AI doesn’t know whether this author has any unique insights and the author may not think to share them. (It often takes a lot of prompting by ghosts to convey why these personal insights are so important). The result will be bland and generic.
The problem with AI fiction? Algorithms Can’t Feel
It is more unusual for ghosts to be asked to write fiction, but for clarity let’s see what is happening here. There is ample evidence that AI is being used a lot to produce fiction, although this is mostly by amateur writers. In some genres such as romance, thriller and sci-fi, AI tools like Sudowrite and Claude can generate remarkably coherent chapters, plot outlines and dialogue exchanges. The formulaic nature of such books makes it more accessible to machines trained on vast amounts of existing work.
Is it any good? Well, that is for the reader to decide. My own view is that AI-generated fiction can lack depth. Fiction, especially when literary or character-driven, requires a subtle handling of emotional depth, personal nuance and psychological realism. AI can mimic tropes but it can’t make up feelings. Its main driver is to produce the next sentence that statistically appears to make the most sense in the particular genre.
A high five for AI assistance in ghostwriting
Ghostwriters use AI. It’s great (at some things)
AI is not the enemy of ghostwriting. Far from it. I’ll admit, I was a bit reluctant to use it at first. My first foray was prompted by my youngest, who saw me manually alphabetising a list for the appendix of a book, and said ‘put it into ChatGPT’. I did and it was a revelation. Since then, I have relaxed about it and now use it in a number of ways. These would include:
Interview prompts
My writing process always begins with a chapter-by-chapter plan and I then interview to the plan. I will often run a chapter summary through AI to see if I am missing an angle. It is surprising how often it comes back with something that takes me in a different and potentially rewarding direction.
Chapter heading ideas
I’ve always struggled with coming up with compelling chapter headings, but AI can generate any number of them. Even if they are not quite right, they are food for thought and I can mix and match elements from the selection.
Book title and sub-titles
See above
Summarising long transcripts
With some books, especially with multiple contributors, it is possible to find yourself juggling with transcripts of many thousands of words, or numerous documents helpfully provided by an author. AI can summarise them all into useful themes. Note, the human writer still needs to go through the material in detail to make sure no nuances are missed. It’s just helpful to break down the task.
Research
This is a big part of any non-fiction ghostwriter’s job and AI is great for this purpose, much more efficient and faster than repeated Google searches. I will add the caveat that it is always important to check and verify the sources. I’ve caught Chat GPT out making things up more than a few times. (I may be a bit odd, but I quite like the response when I tell it this. If AI could do embarrassment…)
Caution is advised when using AI to ghostwrite
There has been much discussion about the legalities and implications for the publishing industry of AI and a number of ongoing legal actions from disgruntled authors about AI allegedly lifting books wholesale to train its models. I had a very revealing conversation with a publisher not long ago, who told me that one of their authors had uploaded their entire book onto Claude to check it and ask for any suggestions for improvements. That publisher subsequently declined to publish this book because it was now part of the model and could effectively be used in other works long before it appeared on bookshelves.
The message here is to take care of the content you put into AI. I wouldn’t advise putting in complete chapters and certainly not entire books. It works the other way around too. Take care what you take out. You could, inadvertently, be infringing someone’s copyright by lifting AI-generated content wholesale.
Friend or foe?
Ghostwriter versus AI
AI tools like ChatGPT can pull research, summarise arguments, and help structure chapters. What they can’t do is identify the one metaphor that unlocks a complex idea, or know when a founder is hedging a story to protect their ego. They don’t know how to say, ‘Actually, this anecdote contradicts the message in Chapter Three—should we rework the arc?’
More importantly, AI doesn't care. It doesn’t challenge. It doesn’t question. It outputs.
In non-fiction, clients aren't just buying content—they're buying intellectual companionship. They're paying for someone who can see the invisible connections in their thinking, organise chaos into clarity, and ask the questions that create a book worth writing.
Did you notice that last those two paragraphs were written by AI? Can you see the difference between them and the writing above? If you can, or it doesn’t feel quite right, you will have some idea about the true worth of a professional writer. If you’d like us to help you find you a real ghostwriter to help you with your book, get in touch.