Researchers at Stony Brook, Columbia, and the University of Michigan tracked 14,419 self-published novels sold on Amazon from 2023 through mid-2026. Books flagged as mostly AI made up 20 percent of the catalog but earned only 11 percent of revenue. Quarterly book sales grew 19-fold while revenue grew less than 9-fold, and titles in Kindle Unlimited lost the most ground of all.

Soren Kaplan breaks down what the data actually proves. This isn't AI replacing better human work, it's a flood of cheap substitutes diluting the return on every product in the market, including the best ones. Revenue per human-only book fell 17 percent even as AI titles kept losing on quality, and the same payment dilution effect is already showing up in music, where Deezer reports more than half its daily uploads are fully AI-generated.

Soren lays out three moves for leaders facing the same dynamic. Own your audience so discovery doesn't run entirely through a pool competitors can flood. Make what's human and verified in your work visible to customers. Audit how cheaply a good-enough version of your product could now be made, and how much of your demand flows through a platform you don't control.

View original on Inc. Magazine: New Research Says the Biggest Risk to the Book Market Isn’t AI, but Dilution

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