The paradox of publishing today

So let’s look at first of all the core, the central paradox of today’s publishing.

If I asked you, for example, how many of us use AI in writing, in editing, and publishing processes? I’m sure a lot of us would raise our hands in agreement that we are already using AI. In fact, most of the images that you see, you will be seeing in this presentation today, I have created using AI.

Let’s start by looking at what’s actually happening across the publishing industry as a whole.

The latest book industry study group data shows us something incredible. Nearly half of us are already using these tools in some capacity, and about the same percentage of our organizations, publishing houses, have integrated AI into them.

But if you read between the lines of that data, there’s a collective uneasiness. The numbers tell us that we are adopting these tools far faster than we are becoming comfortable with them. And we feel a natural hesitation, I’m sure. And honestly, I feel that’s a good thing.

It means we care deeply about what we do. It means we know that a machine or AI can mimic a sentence, but it cannot share what comes from the creativeness that God has blessed us with.

Finding a God-honoring way forward amidst the tension

Our goal is to look at the tension together, and to find a grounded, principled, God-honoring way forward. What does this mean for us?

Let’s think of it in two audiences, maybe one, the megaphone, and the other one is the gatekeeper. This tension that I was talking about splits our community into two different roles. On one side, we have many writers and publishers who are often using AI as a megaphone. What are they trying to do? They’re trying to handle the sheer volume of marketing copy of titles and metadata.

On the other side, our libraries, our editors, copy editors are stepping up as gatekeepers. I can say that as an editor, the editing community is deeply concerned about an overwhelming flood of low quality or even shallow machine content that’s entering into the spaces that’s meant for learning and discovery.

When we look at this as stewards, we realize that our job isn’t just to produce more and to take care of what has been produced. Our responsibility is to take care of the entire system, ensuring that whatever we send out into the world is worthy of a reader’s time, attention, and trust.

More than all of these things, does our using of AI bring glory to God? That’s an important question.

AI is a compass and not the captain. So how do we navigate this new terrain without losing our way?

Let’s use a simple rule of thumb: technology can be an amazing compass, but it is a terrible captain. A compass can show you directions, it can lay out structures and linguistic patterns, but it has no idea why the journey matters. It completely lacks discernment, both the spiritual and emotional wisdom to know what is true, what is good, and perhaps what will heal or comfort a reader’s heart.

The moment we hand over the captain’s wheel over to an algorithm, our work loses the orientation, the true north that we need to have.

To keep our focus steady, let’s look at a practical traffic light boundary system that we can use in our daily work. Think of this as a gentle way to protect your creative integrity.

The green light tasks are all about the heavy lifting of organization. For example, if you’re staring at a blank page, it’s perfectly fine to let a model help you sort a rough outline, organize complex data, or even to polish up or clean up basic grammar.

The yellow light is where we pause and we tread a little more carefully. These models are designed to predict the next likely word, but not to know the truth, which means they fabricate facts easily. Even more subtle, they tend to smooth out language until it sounds very average and sterile. It strips away your unique perspective, your personal testimony, and our distinct cultural favor.

That brings us to the red light. Remember, we should never, we must never outsource the actual soul of the message that is being communicated or pretend that a machine’s output is our original unfiltered thought. To do so is cutting corners. It’s a moral compromise. It’s a quiet stepping away from truthfulness. As editors, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between human writing and AI writing.

So how do we overcome this? Experience in reading books and articles written by human beings is perhaps the best way to detect AI writing. In fact, plagiarism is now eclipsed by entire books, dissertations, blogs, and yes, even sermons being written from a scratch by AI.

Tools to consider

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to seek God’s discernment when we edit, when we write, or publish. Keeping that in mind, there are three AI tools to consider for writing and editing assistance.

ChatGPT serves as an all-round writing and publishing assistant.

It’s good for brainstorming, for outlining, for editing and refining ideas. It can help you develop and improve your work while you are firmly in control or should be firmly in control of the thinking, of the theology, and you should hold the final responsibility as the author.

Gemini is good for everyday productivity. It’s good for research. It’s good for drafting, for summarizing. It’s good because it works well with the Google workspace. It integrates well with Google Docs and Gmail and Drive, sometimes very scaringly, and it makes a good practical assistant. (This does not mean that it should replace human discernment and fact checking. Gemini can easily overstep boundaries and drift into your personal space and make personal observations and even find out details about you.)

Something that many editors use is Grammarly. We use it to correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and improve overall readability. It helps polish the writing without changing the ownership of the ideas. It will not change the cadence and the voice that the reader can expect from the writer.

When and when not to use AI

How do these AI tools help us with the whole gamut of publishing from the time you start writing a book to publishing? AI tools can be used in different stages of book writing, editing, and publishing. AI can help with the research. It can help with the editing. It can help with organization. It can help with design.

But the thinking, the theology, the discernment, and the absolute final responsibility should always remain with the writer. And the editor and the publisher are duty bound to make sure that this happens. This is where faithful stewardship and integrity meet.

There are AI tools for writing and editing and publishing assistance right from the time you have an idea, to research, to writing, to editing, to fact-checking, and of course, design, and even marketing.

Reader-centered prompts

When do we choose to use tools? Our approach needs to be incredibly intentional.

We should practice reader-centered prompts that focus on preserving the unique voice, the cadence, and tone of the author, and how this can be further enhanced but never replaced. We don’t ask AI to create out of nothing. That’s very important. We are, in a way, teaching AI to operate only within and respect clear constraints, protect the author’s authentic voice, and focus entirely on serving the person on the other side of the page by improving the quality of the text, that is the grammar, the syntax, the clarity of thought, and definitely the preciseness. If we type lazy detached prompts, we are going to get lazy detached responses.

Recommended workflow

How do we connect with readers in the age of AI? Here’s a workflow that I would recommend when building out a project or helping an author refine their thoughts.

First, we use a ministry-focused reader profile. We ask AI to look at our core ideas and help us map out who our reader truly is. Ask these questions: What keeps them up at night? What are they hoping for? How can we serve them?

Second, we move to the message clarity blueprint. This keeps us humble. It keeps us focused, distilling the entire project down to into a single, clear, beautiful sentence and a hype-free promise to the reader.

Finally, we need to run the content stewardship audit. We look back over the draft as writers, editors, and publishers to ensure three things. Ask three questions:

• Is our core message completely true to the word of God?
• Is the text speaking directly to the spiritual realities of the readers?
• Are we leaving them with a clear, life-giving next step that honors their sanctification and points them to Christ’s glory?

Here’s perhaps the ultimate standard that we need to remember: Let’s anchor everything that we’ve spoken about today in a timeless standard of craft.

Psalm 19:14 offers a prayer that every writer, editor, and publisher can carry in our hearts: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

The steadiness of our calling

Our systems will change. Algorithms will keep updating week after week, and industry lines will keep climbing charts. But our true calling remains absolutely steady. We are called to be faithful stewards of the words we are giving. We need to ensure that our words are crafted with a clean conscience, with empathy, and an unwavering commitment to truth—the truth that is Christ our Lord.

“Is my use of AI glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ?” I think that’s the central question we need to ask every time we edit, write or publish using AI. If our answer to that question is a hesitation, we don’t go there. But if we’re clear in our conscience about answering that particular question, I think we’ll be safe in how we use AI.