How Editors Use AI and Respond to AI Use

I asked a number of freelance editors how they’re addressing AI in their businesses—how they use it (if they do) and how they respond to authors using AI in their work.

My Approach to AI

For myself, I don’t use AI for any part of the editorial or teaching process, and I don’t work with writers who do use AI. It’s very time-consuming to edit AI work (it’s bland, lacks narrative cohesion, and is often factually incorrect) and I typically find that the authors who use it are not motivated to improve their writing skills. A lot of what I do as an editor is about helping authors grow their skills. I’m not interested in working with authors who are more focused on the product than the process.

My Concerns About AI-Generated Work

AI-generated work isn’t eligible for copyright protection (under US copyright law); a lot of authors don’t realize this, but I feel it’s problematic for me to take pay for working on a project that does not belong to the “author” and can’t (according to the law) belong to the (so-called) author. While copyright law regarding the use of AI for some aspects of the work (such as generating an outline) is not entirely clear and is still being litigated, it remains true that AI-generated work is not eligible for copyright protection.

I also have considerable concern regarding the resources AI consumes and the economic harm it has done to countless people. That said, I do think AI has a place in the world, and clearly it’s not going away. So I think it’s important for editors to decide what their stand is—always recognizing that this can change over time.

What Other Editors Say About AI Use

My question to editors was, “How are you dealing with AI? Some editors use it, some don’t; some don’t take on clients who use AI in their work, some do, etc.”

Some editors, like Khelsea Purvis, report that they haven’t had clients who use(d) AI (at least as far as she can tell), and this seems to be true of a fair number of editors. I suspect that its use is more common in nonfiction than in fiction.

Diana Courtney-Smith confirms that this is the case for her clientele. “Because I work with both fiction and nonfiction clients, I’ve had to resign myself to dealing with this. I strongly discourage my fiction clients from using it, as I feel that it takes away from emotional authenticity. I had one longtime nonfiction client decide he wanted to write a business fiction book, and he relied heavily on AI to write the first draft. Unfortunately, the writing, especially style and tone, didn’t come close to presenting the kind of story he wanted to share. He took another run at the manuscript and came back with something much more honest and appropriate for what he was trying to accomplish.”

Diana points out, “AI isn’t going away, so I feel it’s important to try to alleviate the issues that will invariably crop up, especially when novice writers try to utilize it. The same thing goes for nonfiction writers, but I feel there are fewer issues to deal with there. However, each editor has to decide where to draw the line or if they’re going to deal with it at all!”

Romance editor Maria Georgiou says, “I believe that writers should not use generative AI to write their stories, and instead they should use their own creativity and imagination to come up with their own story. I don’t edit AI-generated manuscripts. I don’t use generative AI when editing manuscripts.”

And this is basically the position I take: why would you bother writing a novel with AI? What’s the point?

Andrew Hodges agrees: “I don’t use it in my client work at all. I don’t take on clients that use AI in their process, outside of their using the AI tools in spellcheckers like Grammarly. If an author’s writing process involves ‘prompting,’ I’m not interested.”

As someone who values process over product, he says, “I don’t take on clients who use these tools because my sense so far is that clients who use them tend to send poor quality samples. Creative writing takes years to master well, and if you’re a new author, it’s easy to be flattered by the output of an AI tool. It’s an emperor’s-new-clothes scenario. Also, I’m a writer committed to process over product, and if writers use AI tools, I have no knowledge of what craft techniques they know and what the machine has come up with.”

Andrew’s final point is interesting because a lot of our work in development is about helping the author understand the causes of story problems; this almost always relates to craft techniques (show versus tell, GMC, etc.). So, if AI is at fault for the failure of craft, who are we educating with our labor?

Using AI Tools for Administrative Tasks

Shauna McIntyre takes a similar approach: “I don’t use AI in my business at all at the moment. I can’t imagine ever using AI in my editing workflow, written content, or communication because I value the human connection and my own judgment. I think the clients I connect with feel the same. Though, I am considering how some of the more tedious admin tasks that come with running a business might get a boost from AI in the future. For now, I feel the amount of time spent prompting an AI agent to get what I want takes longer than just doing the thing.”

Her point about the time-consuming aspect of prompting is something I’ve experienced – I have explored AI and don’t find it the right fit for my behind-the-scenes work at the moment, that I believe that will likely change soon.

Shauna says, “So far, I have not worked on a manuscript that has any substantial AI involvement. I do state that as my preference on my website and may change that to a strict policy in the future. For now, I think keeping tabs on the state of AI in publishing is important for all editors because it will impact us all in some way or another.”

Shauna mentions that she may use AI for admin tasks in the future; editor Shannon Scott already does.

Shannon makes a good distinction between using AI for writing and editing and using it for background tasks that I think is worth considering: “I have never and will never use AI as part of my direct-labor editing. At the same time, being as neurodivergent as I am (Bipolar 2, Autism, and Generalized Anxiety), using as an agentic tool to help me balance the behind-the-scene admin and social media work has been a real godsend to ensuring I have the capacity to fully engage with the clients I work with.”

Using AI for admin/background tasks strikes me as a reasonable approach; it allows the editor to focus more on the work that really does require human judgment.

The Importance of Transparency

In contrast to many other editors, Shellah Inman does work with authors who use AI:  “I don’t have a problem with AI as long as the writer has actually worked with it and shaped the results into something of their own, rather than handing over raw output. If a manuscript reads like unedited AI rather than a writer’s revised work, I’ll decline the project. As for using AI in my own process, that depends on each client’s preference, and I always respect their decision.”

To me, the important issue here is “I always respect their decision.” Transparency about what you do and how you do it seems crucial in the changing editorial landscape.

Miranda Darrow has a similar approach: “For developmental editing, I don’t use AI. I hire subcontractors (experienced copyeditors that I know and who are on my website) for copyediting and know that sometimes ProWritingAid and some other tools are helpful for line-level edits, but only as a starting place to flag issues. I will work with clients who use AI as long as they are clear and upfront about how they used it and what help they are wanting from us.”

The transparency I mentioned above works both ways: we need authors to be honest with us about their AI use so that we can make informed choices, too.

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Jennifer Lawler has been a freelance editor for more than twenty-five years and has been teaching editing skills for more than fifteen years. She is the founder of Club Ed LLC.