About Earl Cross

Hey Everybody… Earl Cross here… I would like to take a few minutes and share my “two cents” regarding the use of AI in writing and self-publishing a work of fiction. Regarding fiction books, I believe that the use of artificial intelligence falls into two distinct categories:

The first being that of fiction-based content creation, and the second pertaining to business tool applications.

Though it may be considered going against the grain, I am opposed to using AI for the purpose of writing/creating my fiction-based stories. Being in the over-60 crowd, I hail from a generation that didn’t grow up with computers and the internet—or at least, not a computer that didn’t fill up almost the entire room.

Using AI to write your manuscript, and then tweaking it here and there to make it “sound” more human, seems inherently dishonest, somehow. I don’t know what schools are teaching today, but when I attended high school, things were different. Back then, getting someone else to produce a book report, creative writing assignment, or term paper for you, and then passing it off as your own creation, was called cheating… or in some cases, plagiarism, depending upon your source material. Even if you took the time to tweak the content a little to add your own personal flare, it didn’t change the basic fact that the material wasn’t your creation to begin with. I just don’t believe that having the technology to create artificial content changes that truth.

Personally, I really love the process of crafting each and every word of my stories as I watch my characters come to life. I write the books that I love to read, and nothing is more satisfying than to have one of my characters say or do something that surprises even me… something that leaps off the page, totally out of the blue, it would seem.

Consequently, I make this promise to all of my readers — I will never use AI to write any of my fiction books. Every one of my stories is and will be my own personal creation.

Which brings me to the business side of writing. All that stuff that happens after I’ve written and completed my manuscript. This is an area where AI can be very helpful. Here, I’m free to pick and choose from a host of AI tools that will ultimately make for a more enjoyable experience for my readers. One of my pet peeves is the alarming trend towards a lack of proofreading in the fiction book industry. It appears that no one wants to take on the responsibility of going line-by-line to check a manuscript for errors such as punctuation, grammar, and typos. And trust me… no matter how many times I would read through my manuscripts, it seemed like I always missed something… some glaring mistake that was painfully obvious after I had published my book.

That’s why I am a big fan of using spell-checking software like Grammarly to proofread all my books and content to catch typos and correct the punctuation. I have a bad habit of using commas where they aren’t needed, and forgetting to include them where they are required. In fact, I’m currently going back through all my books and using Grammarly to fix these types of quality issues. This can be a real time-saver in catching those errors before publication. Of course, the software will also make suggestions regarding the actual content, but I don’t choose to use that feature. More often than not, Grammarly offers suggestions aimed at making my content sound more modern and concise, which, for a Regency-era Romance novelist like me, is totally undesirable.

Two other areas where AI proves very helpful are in formatting and cover design. Although I started out hiring someone else to format my books, I finally decided to learn Adobe InDesign for myself and take on that responsibility. When it comes to creating my book covers, however, that’s a task that I wisely pass on to my very talented cover illustrator, Rona Sharon, who knows far more about Photoshop and Midjourney than I will ever have the patience to master.

So, in conclusion, I simply wanted to assure my readers that my books, for better or worse, are my own personal creations. I sincerely hope that you enjoy them as much as I do, and I thank you for taking this personal journey with me every time you crack the spine on an Earl Cross book.