For years, I’ve counselled writers to avoid religion and politics in their branding unless they are part of their brand. There are always potential readers on the other side of the fence, and with so much competition for book sales, do you really want to alienate a chunk of them?

There’s another category rearing its head in this accidental culling of your own market, too, and its totally different than religion and politics. It’s AI.

When some readers (more than you think) learn that you might have used AI in the creation of your work, they put you on their do-not-read list. You can call it unfair or not. You can call them troglodytes. You can call them out of touch for not keeping up with progress. But you know what? You still will not sell them a book.

But what does that mean? What if you cannot afford a cover designer? What if you just used AI on the cover but not the copy, or vice versa? What if it was used for brainstorming or editing or rewriting a chapter? None of that matters. If the reader who avoids AI hears you used it in any fashion, regardless of how your writing group supported it or your Facebook group nodded in approval, they categorize you.

To some readers, any whiff of AI is a will-not-read signal. How many? We don’t know. But how many no’s can you afford? I can’t afford to lose a single reader. Call me ignorant, but AI is not anywhere near my books.