by Writing Workshops Staff
A day ago
In this instructor guest post, author, filmmaker, and tech founder Tal Lazar explores the promise and pitfalls of independent publishing ahead of his workshop, How to Become Your Own Publisher.
"Our writing tools take part in the forming of our thoughts" — Friedrich Nietzsche
It was 1878, and Friedrich Nietzsche was going blind. At 34, he wasn't ready to quit writing, even though he had already published several books. When he learned about a device called the Hansen Writing Ball (an early predecessor of the modern typewriter), he contacted its inventor. The device kept him writing, but exacted a price: changing how he wrote also changed his writing style. The long, winding sentences and complex arguments that had defined Nietzsche’s earlier work gave way to compressed ideas in short lines. Nietzsche later complained that the tools he used to write reshaped his thoughts.
Nietzsche's ambivalence toward his writing tools could easily describe how modern authors approach technology. Online tools promise freedom from gatekeepers and direct access to millions of readers, but they also change the way we think and write. AI, in particular, has become deeply integrated into the creative process, blurring the boundary between artist and tool. Already, this technology threatens the livelihoods of writers, all while drawing directly on their work as source material. Nietzsche's question resurfaces, more urgent than ever: are we being saved, or are we under attack?
About 40 years after Nietzsche first put his hands on the Hansen Writing Ball, Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard walked down Farringdon Street in Richmond, Virginia. Woolf spoke openly about a publishing industry that denied women the same opportunities to write and publish that men enjoyed. As the couple passed a printing supply shop, they noticed a small hand-press printing machine in the window. Inspired by the possibility to bypass traditional publishing gatekeepers, the Woolfs founded Hogarth Press, which went on to publish over 400 books (including Woolf's own masterworks, as well as T.S. Eliot and other writers who would define their era). Hogarth Press was unique, though not because of the printing machine. Woolf wasn’t the first writer to publish her own work, but she was among the earliest to use technology to build a genuine alternative to the traditional publishing system.
Today, emerging technology has all but dismantled the gatekeepers. When Sanibel, the author of To Have and Have More, learned that her publisher had shut down, she faced a choice: wait for another deal, or publish the book herself.
She chose to establish Sad Rich Girl Press (full disclosure: I’m Sanibel’s husband and her partner in our independent publishing work). Tools like IngramSpark, Reedsy, and Amazon KDP democratized print and digital publishing, and platforms like Canva and ElevenLabs brought AI into the design and narration of books.
Sanibel's debut novel proved independent publishing could work, and emboldened her to take a hybrid approach to her future work. Her second book, Does This Make Me Look Rich?, is being published independently, while her third is now going through traditional channels with her agent. Knowing there’s a viable alternative to traditional publishing has changed how she negotiates, what she demands, and what she's willing to accept from any publisher. Our upcoming workshop with Writing Workshops is designed to help other authors understand this new terrain and give them something they were once denied: a genuine choice.
That choice, however, comes with complications.
Recently, Amazon's KDP announced a new policy: authors can submit only three titles per day—a cap that might seem absurd to working authors until you realize some people were pushing out dozens of AI-generated titles daily.
While KDP does not report numbers directly, it is estimated that the platform publishes about 2.5 million titles every year, an average of 7,000 books a day. It seems the gatekeepers of traditional publishing didn’t only keep authors out; they also shut out entrepreneurs who are now chasing quick profits with half-formed ideas, scraped text, and machine-generated filler designed to game algorithms and capture ad revenue. A book written by a real author now competes with an ocean of content that shouldn't exist at all.
Automating human labor has a rich history, and the attempt to tackle creative work is older than most people realize. In 1845, a grocer named John Clark built a machine called The Eureka that generated original hexameters (poetic verse) in under a minute. People paid a shilling to watch it work. A century later, love letters were automatically generated by an early version of a computer at the University of Manchester. The spectacle of automating what we consider human has always captivated us—we've always wanted to know if machines can do what we do. Technology replaced human effort in manufacturing, transportation, farming, and countless other fields. Now it’s encroaching on something we thought was unassailably human: creativity.
We tend to split the creative process into two clean categories: intention and execution. Tools that make execution easier and help artists express themselves more fully tend to be adopted quickly—new cameras appear constantly, and the software writers rely on is updated just as often. But the separation between intention and execution doesn’t hold in practice, because even tools designed to simplify execution eventually push into the territory of creative intention. The arrival of word processors in the late 1970s gave writers the ability to rearrange text with ease, but it also alarmed people who believed this new flexibility was reshaping how authors compose. With AI, the debate becomes more complicated. Some see AI as a tool of execution—a way to handle the mechanical side of writing so the author can focus on meaning. Others argue it crosses into intention itself, where authorship lives. The distinction matters, because once a machine determines what you're trying to say, can you still claim the words are yours?
The debate about the role of AI in authorship ripples through every layer of publishing when AI designs the cover (replacing a human designer), translates the book, copy-edits, proofreads, and narrates—all roles that influence how readers encounter a text.
At what point does a book become AI-generated, and does it matter if using AI is the only way the work reaches readers at all? Authors may still be struggling with the question, but readers are forming their opinions far more quickly. Studies show that most readers reject AI-generated text once they recognize it. Most American audiobook listeners refuse machine narration outright. AI-designed covers signal poor quality to buyers, who do judge books by their covers. Publishers and platforms like KDP now require disclosure of AI involvement in the writing process itself. All these signs point toward a future where human work holds greater value and technology supports it, but whether that happens is in our hands.
As readers and consumers, we need to act in ways that reflect the values we claim to hold. If human intention matters, then we preserve it by choosing to support it with our time, attention, and money. As authors, we must decide where our writing tools belong: Do they serve execution or intention? Nietzsche was right, we can't prevent our tools from influencing our thinking, but we can be deliberate about what we let them touch. The technology will do what we permit it to do. If we treat it as a layer of support—a way to reach more readers, brainstorm ideas, find the right word—then it remains our tool. The moment we let it decide what we mean to say, we've handed it authorship. The choice, for now, still belongs to us.
Join Sanibel and Tal Lazar for their upcoming workshop How to Become Your Own Publisher on writingworkshops.com.
Instructor Tal Lazar is a nonfiction author and filmmaker with over two decades of experience producing and selling feature films to international distributors. For the past 15 years, he has taught at leading institutions, including the American Film Institute, Columbia University, the Sundance Institute, and Berklee College of Music, mentoring the next generation of creators. Today, he draws on his expertise in film, education, and publishing to empower authors to take control of their work and forge lasting connections with their readers.
Instructor Sanibel Lazar's best-selling debut novel, To Have and Have More, is published by Sad Rich Girl Press. Her writing appears in NYmag, ELLE, Air Mail, Literary Hub, and more. She earned her MFA from The New School and is currently working on a satire about the New York media scene. You can find Sanibel on TikTok, Instagram, and Sad Rich Girls (via Bindery).
Meet Tal Lazar: Empowering Authors to Become Their Own Publishers
