AI is Watering Down Your Voice

It’s been a minute since I’ve talked about publishing on this blog. Mostly, I was just tired of giving advice. Still am.

Most of the work is doing the thing. Failing at it. Succeeding at it, and failing again until you find your groove.

Buttttt… our latest viral sensations have brought me out of hiding.

Enter AI and Dr. Cheyenne Bryant

These seem like unrelated, separate topics, but stay with me.

Lately, I’ve been noticing tons of creators with social media captions that use the same “It’s not x, it’s y” ChatGPT cadence, including authors.

Why are people who write books using AI to write their social captions? Isn’t being creative like, our literal job?

The “it’s not x, it’s y” cadence sounds like: “It’s not just a meal, it’s an experience.”

The words are also structured a certain way, and it is noticeable for those who know what to look for.

For me, it’s mostly noticeable when someone drastically changes how they write. Since I’m a poet, I compare it to suddenly sounding like a poetic professor. You’ve once been an emperor of typos, and now the words flow neatly on top of one another.

The phrases are very well-written, too well-written for a person who has never written in such a way.

It seems to mimic how professional writers write, except now everyone is doing it.

Suddenly, everyone’s Insta captions and Facebook posts are grammatically correct, inspirational, and profoundly poetic.

It is also profoundly fake.

While it might read pretty, it waters down the writer’s authentic voice.

I’d be remiss not to mention that this is not everyone. There are some fantastic, extraordinary writers out there, and for the record, AI is mimicking the genius of the real brain.

The most tell-tale sign is whether I can sense your personality in your writing, or if instead you just sound like an English teacher when you are not one.

The twist in all of this is that typos will become the new normal. They will signal that the person who wrote the piece is a human who makes mistakes and uses their own mind.

You Sound Just Like Everybody Else

What should be most disturbing is that using chat to write will have you sounding like everyone else in the same way that all those AI flyers look the same.

These flyers are always way too cluttered. There is too much information on them, and they end up drawing attention away from the core message, which is drowned out by so many colors and images.

This leads me to question if people are even trying to make changes to the prompts, templates, or whatever they are using.

As a reminder, Canva still exists and has some great free and paid templates from real graphic artists. For my poetry contest, I hired someone on Fiverr to handle the initial design, then paid for the source file. The source file allows me to go in and edit it into as many versions as I want without paying for them. So far, I have turned two graphics into seven to promote my sponsors and judges. It was the best $20 I’d ever spent.

Ya’ll are watering down your voice and image.

I’ve also been seeing a ton of new self-published books with AI/ChatGPT-generated book covers. I cannot emphasize how strongly I recommend not doing this.

You are likely damaging your author brand and marketing strategy before they even begin.

And this isn’t just my opinion. It’s what readers are saying.

An arts digital marketer and historical fiction/romance author conducted a survey asking readers whether they were interested in reading books with AI-generated art.

84% of the people who took her survey said NO.

Additionally, I have been monitoring the bookish community on Threads, and many readers say they don’t trust books with AI-generated covers.

If your book cover is AI-generated, it’s hard not to wonder if your book was written by ChatGPT, Gemini, or any other artificial intelligence software.

It’s hard not to wonder if you’ve put the hard work in to write or if the computer has done the writing for you.

Consequently, even if you did write the book, it’s challenging for readers to see you as an authentic voice.

The book cover is your first impression. Lose readers there, and they are not reading your book.

Speaking of authenticity, enter Dr. Cheyenne Bryant, the woman currently under fire for the legitimacy of her doctorate and the location of her dissertation.

Dr. Bryant also just published a book that people are saying sounds like it was written by AI.

With twelve 1-2-star Amazon reviews, it is littered with claims of fraud stemming from her latest allegations that she is not a real therapist or psychologist.

More of this in part 2…

The PBS Blog Podcast Ep 17: Humility

Humility is an important part of leadership. That ever-present feeling of needing to do better, to be better, to try harder. To be firm, to speak up for yourself and to establish boundaries but to also believe there is always room for improvement. To look down on others only when we are lifting them up. To accept that we don’t know everything, to be courageous enough to admit our wrongs, and to constantly push ourselves to rise to the next level.

Listen to “Humility” now on Soundcloud or iTunes

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-573689310

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pbs-blog-podcast/id1344901312?mt=2

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbsblogpodcast

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thepbsblog/

To follow my personal IG page @yecheilyah

Remember that you can catch all 17 episodes by visiting the podcast page HERE.

No Whining Wednesday – Stop over-explaining yourself to People

Welcome back to No Whining Wednesday, the only day of the week where you do not get to whine, complain, and criticize for an entire 24hour period. If you are new to this blog or new to this segment, visit the first post HERE.

Today’s quote:

We live in a world where people post memes and quotes every day as if putting those words into action is as easy as a click of a finger on a screen. But I’ll be the first to admit that I have been an over-explainer and that it is only now in my life that I am consciously aware of this and have decided to cut it out. No one wants to be misunderstood but I found that constantly explaining my position to people revealed some of my own baggage. There are reasons why I feel misunderstood and history behind why I’ve felt the need to lay it all out in hopes that people “got me.” Once I understood that I was subtly exposing myself with the unnecessary baggage of explanations, this is when I decided not to do it anymore.

What I love about this quote is that it doesn’t say “not” to explain yourself. Sometimes going in depth about things is necessary but you don’t have to explain yourself to everyone simply because there are some people who have already made up their minds about who you are. Explaining yourself to these people is a waste of time. Because some people have made up their minds, this also means that it depends on how deeply you know yourself. If you don’t know who you are you will always be tailoring your actions and words toward the thoughts and opinions of other people. You will always get emotional and stressed about the things they say about you and you will always feel the need to explain yourself because you don’t really know who you are. That’s the deeper aspect of this that I have had to learn.

As you understand who you are and act and think in accordance to the things that align with who you are, the less obligated you’ll feel to explain yourself to people who don’t know you at all.

Establishing Boundaries

Photo by Christian Gertenbach on Unsplash

I’ve learned to establish boundaries. To understand that if I don’t feel good about something, it’s OK to say no, turn it down or cancel a commitment and not feel guilty about it. Establishing boundaries is a form of self-respect. You are honoring your integrity and taking responsibility for who you are. And when you allow people to treat you in ways that disrespect your boundaries, you are not being true to yourself.

Although having boundaries is not a bad thing, it may feel like rejection to other people. You will still lose those who feel you are no longer for them and that’s OK. We cannot continue on with relationships that no longer serve a purpose. But because we may lose people, it is our responsibility to be clear on what our boundaries are, to tell people when they have crossed it or when we can’t cross it ourselves, and to have patience with those who forget and need to be reminded. Although you will lose people, if you are clear and consistent the people who are meant to stick around will and they will understand that there are lines that you simply cannot cross and places you simply cannot go and that it really has nothing to do with them. They will understand that you are capable of loving them and staying true to yourself at the same time.

Weight

They say it’s the ones with the dirtiest hands pointing the finger. That the world is fake on social media, where we hold our masks together long enough to log off. People pointing fingers and laughing at their neighbors while they pretend to be someone else…until no one’s looking. We forget that integrity is less about what you post and more about your heart. Is it in sync? What of our actions behind each others backs? Studying is not for taking pictures of scripture but for showing yourself approved. Bibles are not meant to be in pictures and blamelessness is not a selfie. To be upright for the sake of a post is not integrity. So unless your presence here is a reflection of your true self, that armor you’re carrying is not armor. It is weight. The unnecessary burden of trying to fit in when you were meant to stand out.

Integrity

I really dislike this day and age where everyone wants to be seen and praised and prized. Purposely present to spew pillars of knowledge pulled and preserved for a time. No one wants to be silent but everyone wants to be wise. So we selfie our way into stardom on the ground. No one wants to stand behind the curtain or risk being forgotten, or admit that integrity is doing what’s right …even when no one’s looking.

True to Yourself

This is a repost. I thought this would be a good time to remind us of something very important when navigating the online world.

Stay true to yourself.

The major similarities I see that unites all social networking forums is that you’re bound to have people who are not being honest about their intentions, and what they plan to achieve by taking part in the online community. Of course, we have to expect that any time there’s an opportunity for people to wear a mask you’re going to have these kinds of situations. This is, after all the internet, and is filled with people who wear a façade. People whose fingers do not transcribe the truths concerning the inward man. In a world as endless as the internet, it is easy to get lost in the hype moving throughout the cyber world. It’s easy to pretend, and to become someone other than who you are. If you’re just naturally wicked, it is also just as easy to pretend to be a good person, though your heart is a web of lies and deception.

When you’re gliding along the social world, it is easy to get distracted from your primary goal and what you set out to accomplish. Further, it is just as easy to start to take on the same thoughts and opinions of those you’re around the most. This is perhaps the most important aspect of online writing that I believe is important for new and experienced bloggers. For the mimicking of purpose to fit in can creep up on you if you let it. By creep I mean that changes do not enter our lives all at once but piece by piece. Slowly and with great patience change chips at you until you have adapted into something or someone else.

Blogging, probably more than any social platform is exciting, educational, and inspiring. However, just like every other social platform the truth is that there are more snakes out here than there are angels and they are not your friends, buddies, pals, or playmates. They’re not here to take you to the movies and hang out with you because you liked their post or followed their blog. In fact, they may just be writing your death letter while sending a smiley face.

For instance, in the blogosphere, there are those who often complain that they are not interested in gaining more followers, or networking and such and such. While this isn’t the thought process of most, I am convinced that some of you are not being true to yourself in regard to what you really want from your blogs. Some of you actually care about gaining more traffic but for whatever reasons, you’re afraid to admit it.

Truth is, I think someone can still care about growing their blogs or company without compromising who they are. I believe a person can genuinely care about increasing subscriber rates, expanding networks, and building relationships while maintaining their integrity. I believe there are people who care about these things not because they want people to praise them, and not because they bask in the attention from others, but simply because they’re reaching people, even if only two out of two-hundred are actually paying attention.

In updating this post, I came across two very interesting articles. One from the blogosphere and the other from an article posted from LinkedIn:

Amazon’s New Reviewing Rules – Could it Affect Authors in the Future?

10 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Don’t Do (Themselves!)

You may be asking yourself, what do these articles have in common?

The first article speaks about Amazon’s changes in reviewing products and the other talks about the importance of investing in third party sources to help to build your business. One of my favorite excerpts is:

“Time is an entrepreneur’s most valuable commodity. Yet one of the biggest problems for small businesses and startups is that the founders are wasting their time trying to do it all. We euphemistically say we “wear lots of hats” but the truth is that entrepreneurs are often trying to save money by doing it all themselves. This can be a huge mistake. There are some things that are better done by professional and are better delegated or outsourced.” – Benard Marr

This made me stop to think about the Indie Author Community and how it relates to the first article concerning receiving free items in exchange for reviews. I started to think critically about this and happened upon the epiphany that Self-Publishing didn’t get its stigmas from poorly written books alone. No, there is something else to it and it is possible that Marr is on to something.

If Independent Publishing is just as important, if not more, than any other entrepreneurial business, and if it is to be taken just as seriously and handled with just as much professionalism, why is it that Self-Publishers invest as little money, time, and effort as possible in this very important field? Why is it that everything must be free for us to trust it? The first article is very interesting in that we may be coming upon a time where authors have to pay for reviews or invest some kind of payment. While I hope not, article two is a great conversation starter into why this may be the case for our future considering Self-Publishing is an act of entrepreneurship.

Amazon is changing things obviously because of the level of fraud out there, and we can be sure that giving away books for free in exchange for reviews is bound to change with every 5 star rating given to an obviously crappy book. While I’m hoping this won’t be the case, the truth is that amazon has a reputation to uphold and like every other wise business person or company, understands that free does not always guarantee quality. It’s the reason we pay more for name brands because we know that what we’re getting is top quality.

How does this relate to being true to yourself?

I like thinking differently and speaking on subjects that make people scratch their heads. It is what makes me who I am. I don’t have to be like you, think like you, or agree with you. This is an attitude we should all have. Otherwise, you can be easily influenced by others opinions and thoughts. In short, you have no vison and no goal, and the reason behind your actions is empty.

So, you wanna start a blog? Then do it with authority. Own your words and stand by your decisions and your goals. So what if you’re a nobody, so was Oprah at one point in her life. So was Stephen King, and so was your beloved JK Rowling. Pay no mind to what others say or think of you and never ever depend on man to validate you. Stay true to yourself and why you set out to embark on the journeys to which you find yourself. People fall in love with other people, not echoes. What is success? You choose. Dare to be different. Change the game.

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	Yecheilyah on Born Worthy
	kegarland on Born Worthy
	Yecheilyah on Born Worthy
	V.M.Sang on Born Worthy