Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books
4 hours ago
- Generative AI can produce full-length fiction books at near-zero cost, often dismissed as low-quality 'slop'.
- Analysis of 14,419 self-published genre-fiction books on Amazon from 2023 to 2026 found that books with substantial AI text (>25%) make up a large share of the catalog but a smaller share of sales.
- AI-generated books are gaining a growing share of sales over time and taking top-rank positions previously held by books with no detected AI text.
- The number of selling books grew 19.2-fold while quarterly revenue only grew 8.9-fold, leading to falling revenue per book across most genres.
- Books with no AI text lose the most ground in genres with high AI diffusion, especially where Kindle Unlimited availability is high.
- Among top-selling books, those with substantial AI text draw on more distinctive language from existing books compared to books with no AI text.