A flood of AI-written novels is quietly shrinking what human authors earn
Cheap AI-written novels now fill 1 in 5 self-published genre e-books on Amazon. As the catalog grew 38 times bigger while sales grew only about 9 times, the money each book earns fell — even for books with no AI text at all.
Why it matters
When almost-free books can be made by the hundreds, they crowd the shelves and split readers' attention thinner. This study suggests the harm is not that AI books are good, but that there are simply so many of them, pulling sales and top spots away from human writers. That matters for anyone who hopes to earn a living writing, and it is now a live question in court cases about whether AI companies may train on copyrighted books.
Who's behind it: Tuhin Chakrabarty and colleagues, A team including a Columbia Law School scholar and a University of Michigan researcher. No funding source stated.
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