5 Ways to Use AI as an Indie Author

As an indie author, you have to do most things yourself, but might not have the time or money to do it all. So, you’ll need to utilize AI tools to help you out. Here are five ways to use AI effectively as an indie author.

1. Use AI to Help Edit

It’s a good thing to have a human editor, but if you’re in the same spot I was and can’t afford a human editor, you’ll be turning to AI to help you clean up your manuscript.

There are tons of AI editors out there, but the most common one, and the one I use, is called Grammarly. You can download the Grammarly app or use it as a browser extension.

If you write in Google Docs, it’s there. If you write in the Word app, it’s also there. It points out punctuation mistakes and, if you have the pro, offers suggestions and rewording of your sentences.

There’s a paid version, but there’s also a free version if you want to try Grammarly without cracking open your wallet.

The free version doesn’t have all the features, but it gives you a feel for the software and lets you decide if it’s for you.

Even if you have an editor, using AI can help you clean up your manuscript before you send it over to your editor. It also makes self-editing more valuable by pointing out your mistakes in punctuation and misspellings.

I haven’t used any other AI editors besides Grammarly, but you might want to give the others a try. LanguageTool is free and supports around 20 languages.

2. Spare Your Hands

We love to write, but writing doesn’t always love us back. Carpal tunnel and other pains can occur while typing on a keyboard.

AI can save you some of this pain with dictation software. You speak, and your words appear on the screen.

It’s a magical experience, and one that saves your fingers from pounding away at a keyboard. Not to mention, we talk faster than we can type for the most part, so your word count is going to go up.

I personally use Handy. It’s free, and the developer made it after he recovered from a hand injury that prevented him from typing.

Handy offers various AI models with different speeds and accuracies. You can get a model that transcribes your text or speech very fast, or one that’s a bit slower but more accurate.

There are other software programs, such as Dragon Dictate, but I haven’t used them.

I like Handy because it is free, and the developer believes that software that makes typing accessible when you can’t physically type should be free.

That said, you should donate to Handy if you use it, to keep it running. It’s good practice to do this with any free and often open-source software you use daily if you want it to be around for a long time.

No matter which software you choose, AI dictation will increase your word count and have your hands thanking you.

3. Rewriting a Blurb

Writing a novel is easy. Writing a blurb that will sell that novel is hard.

Just think about it. You have to figure out what to say about your novel that will interest readers and make them willing to buy it.

Often, indie authors don’t have experience with marketing, and that’s what writing your blurb is. It’s marketing.

And if you’re new to writing blurbs, then the first couple of blurbs aren’t going to be good. That’s where AI can help you.

But first, notice this section is called rewriting a blurb, not writing a blurb. That’s because you, the author, should be writing your book description.

You wrote the book, so readers want a sample of your voice in the description. Readers don’t like it when they read a description and can tell the book was either written by AI or by someone who isn't the author.

But you can use ChatGPT or other large language models to help rewrite your blurb. You can copy the blurb you have into the prompt box, then prompt the AI to rewrite it.

However, when you tell the AI to rewrite it, it is up to you. You can tell it to rewrite the book description to be more engaging and attention-grabbing, or you could rewrite it using AI to make it fit better within your genre.

I haven’t done this, but I've heard that authors use AI to help with their book descriptions. If I were going to use AI, this is how I would use it for the book description.

4. Help Marketing

You can use AI to help you market your book.

There are various AI tools that you can use. You could use ChatGPT to summarize your book, and it could list possible genres, keywords, and niches that your book fits.

I haven’t used ChatGPT to do this, but some authors have. What I use to help me market my book is Manuscript Report.

Manuscript report, it’s a paid AI analysis of your book. As the name suggests, the AI analyzes your book and gives you a report on its findings.

These reports aren’t just summaries; they are full reports that run dozens and dozens of pages. Mine for my book came out to be fifty-four pages.

If you’re struggling with marketing, as most indie authors do, Manuscript Report I’ve found to be helpful and affordable.

But as I said, other people use ChatGPT and other large language models to help with their marketing.

You can also use AI-generated images as concept art to help market your book. Maybe it’s a map of your world if you’re a fantasy writer, or maybe it’s a rendition of your main character.

No matter what it is, you can use AI to generate the image, then use it to promote your book on social media.

There you have it, four ways AI can help you as an indie author. Now go out, find an AI that you can edit with, that will help you market, that will aid you in your book description, and that will spare your poor hands the repetitive pain of typing.