Progress Report 2026 Week 23

I made a command decision that affected both my word count and my ability to hit half of my goals for this week. Did my word count suffer? Or did my other goals? Also, I analyzed the top one hundred Amazon hard science fiction best sellers. At first, I was one of those mixtures of depressed and angry. Then contemplative. I have some thoughts to share about that. Before we dive in, let’s look at the key performance indicators.

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

I can’t complain at all about my word output this week.

I had a handful of Real Life Family Events (RLFEs) this week, but they happened at the right time for me to work in a couple of extra writing sessions — one on Monday evening and one Friday morning. That put my output north of sixteen thousand words!

The story is flowing well. Because of how much I thought about the plot up front, I’m able to make minor corrections in continuity and foreshadowing as I go. I’m more aware of how the arcs flow and intertwine. I hope that comes through with smoother and more exciting pacing. So, there was good news on the writing front!

Generative AI and Hard Science Fiction

Good, Cheap, Fast — Pick Two

From time to time, I like to go through the top one hundred best selling hard science fiction ebooks. I want to make sure my covers still look genre appropriate. Also, I wanted to see if any of my favorite authors have new material out. This time, I came across a cover that was so out of place, so not-science-fiction, that I had to pause.

Now, I’m not going to name the book or its author. My goal here isn’t to accuse anyone of anything. But when I gazed upon this cover, I immediately thought that, given the lack of lighting awareness, given its composition and content, it looked an awfully lot like the product of generative AI.

Am I against generative AI doing creative work? Yes. Do I use it for my creative work? No. Full disclosure: you’ve seen me experiment with it for advertising media, but when it comes to my books, the answer is absolutely no. Generative AI never touches my covers or my words. I hand-craft each book and I hire reputable artists for the covers.

In this case, I dug deeper. The author had dozens of books in the last couple of years. I mean “dozens” literally. There were forty-plus books there. All with the same kind of covers; all with keyword-stuffed blurbs; all with strangely similar ratings and comments. Did this writer have a loyal following who waited with the proverbial bated breath for each release — then rush to rate it and review it immediately? Or was something else going on?

Smoking Guns

Without talking to the writer (or not talking to the writer, if you get my drift), I can’t know for sure if this was the product of generative AI. But it made me wonder: writers are anxious about generative AI saturating the market and making it even harder to find our books. Let’s assume this author and his (its?) books are the product of generative AI. How does that work? How do these books find a market, when I struggle to do so?

I’m getting ready to launch Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners, so these questions are top of mind.

I cheated. I asked Gemini. Yes, I asked a generative AI to rat out its kind. And you know what? It did. Since what you get out of a generative AI prompt depends to a great deal on what you ask, I want you to see my prompt:

I see several books that appear to be written by generative AI making Amazon’s hard science fiction best seller list. The books have covers that are not genre appropriate, but they still sell well. How do these books get marketed? How do they gain so much attention and traction in sales?

The answer? Basically, businesses running these operations find a clearly defined niche, preferably one with few books (the “few books” part is increasingly difficult). They aggressively farm keywords that flow naturally into their blurbs. That cover I mentioned was so out of place? That’s intentional — it makes a reader stop and say, “What the heck?” And in stopping, that suggests interest to Amazon’s algorithm.

Then comes the really dishonest part. They hire click-farms using valid Kindle Unlimited accounts to download and page through the books. Page reads push the book higher on the bestseller list. Since the farms run for days, the activity pushes the book even higher. They work with shady Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) operatives to plant reviews, which is why the reviews I noted sound so similar. They also price the ebooks, at least initially, at $0.99, which is another way to sell fast and trigger also-bought recommendations.

Will This Stifle Indie Writers?

As an independent writer trying to leave an income stream for my family after I kick the bucket, I’m concerned. It seems like more than one business has perfected processes centered around generative AI. There might be dozens of them. If this trend continues to grow, the market will become even more flooded. Isn’t that a bad thing?

Yeah, it’s bad. But it’s not as bad as I thought when I started running this down. I mean, yes, I was angry when I looked at my sales figures and compared them to books that generative AI seemed to have cranked out. It takes me at least ten weeks to write a good first draft, and that’s after two or three weeks of planning. Then there’s more months of editing, alpha readers, and beta readers. I’m doing good to publish three or four books a year. I can’t compete, output wise, with an entity that cranks out twenty-four books a year.

But I think things are changing. First, there’s a growing number of vocal readers who don’t want to read the product of a machine (I’m among them). They want to connect with a human when they read a book. They want to see the world from the perspective of another human — an entity that has experienced the same physical world and refelcts on it. Story telling is a fundamental human drive, after all. So’s consuming those stories.

From an economic perspective, I think the upcoming explosion in price for AI computing power is going to put an end to some of this. If not an end, then it’s going to fundamentally chance the value equation. Right now, the massive AI companies are underwriting the vast proportion of our generative AI use. It’s kinda like a drug dealer giving you your first hits for free, then charging you an arm and a leg (so I’m told). If you’ve followed the news, you’ll know that companies offering chat interfaces are beginning to charge enough to cover their computing costs. And guess what? It’s not cheap. As in, companies who fired development staff are seeing generative AI bills that rival those employees’ salaries. It’s about to cost a lot of money to fund the computer resources to generate a novel.

I honestly don’t think generative AI novels will be cost competitive to produce. We’ll know if I’m right by the end of this year (probably sooner). If I am right, it’s outstanding news for us human writers.

Making a Command Decision to Prioritize Writing

I had hoped to record a couple of sample chapters for Wayland’s Hammer. I had also hoped to use Apple’s Logic Pro to prepare them for newsletter distribution. Instead, I prioritized writing time for The Fissure Kings.

It’s hard to find the time to do anything like learning new tools. I’ve learned over the years that while I used to call myself a great multitasker, in real life, I need to do one thing at a time. That is, if I want the output to be the highest quality I’m capable of producing, I need to focus on one thing at a time.

That said, the release date for Wayland’s Hammer is approaching. I need to drum up interest through my newsletter. I also need to learn Logic Pro so that when Summer Foovay delivers the audio files for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone, I’ll be ready to produce it. That means I’ll keep the goal on my list!

Progress Against Last Week’s Goals

Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:

1. Write four chapters in The Fissure Kings Book 1: Semele’s Lament: Done! I actually wrote six chapters.
2. Monitor proofreading progress for Wayland’s Hammer Book 2: Resistance Movement: Ongoing! The proofreader is getting close to finishing Resistance Movement. Lines of Operation is ready for her.
3. Record one or two sample chapters of Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners to use in my newsletter: Not done!
4. Test using Apple’s Logic Pro to produce the audio files (to compare to Adobe’s Audition): Not done!

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 23

Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:

1. Write four new chapters in The Fissure Kings Book 1: Semele’s Lament
2. Monitor proofreading progress for Wayland’s Hammer Book 2: Resistance Movement
3. Record one or two sample chapters of Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners to use in my newsletter
4. Test using Apple’s Logic Pro to process the audio files (to compare to Adobe’s Audition)

What Do You Think?

Do you think that people using generative AI to produce novels threaten indie success? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!