The Future of indie authors in an AI world: Art vs Robot

Hi , welcome back to my author newsletter with alien peens, monsters, magic, and the readers who love them! Don't forget to check out my NEW website! It's all pretty and redesigned! www.steviemarie.com

If all a person has to do is input a prompt to "create" a story, then all a reader has to do is input a prompt for the kind of book they want to read and have AI generate a book for them.

What would be the point to an author at all?

"Authors" who are using generative AI to "help" with their stories are essentially shooting themselves in the heart and every other author along with them.

In a future where stories are created by AI, there would be no point in having authors at all. Anyone could simply ask AI to write them a story based on their preferences and then insert the made book into another AI editor to refine it, and then boom, whatever book they want is crafted for them based on millions of stolen books it uses for reference.

Writing and books are, in my opinion, sharing the human condition, an expression of thoughts and feelings, and self. A way of releasing energy into the world, and healing. Feeling rage at the current world condition? A good dark romance can help purge that rage with fictional death and tormented love.

Every story, even utilizing tried and true tropes, is unique and different. No other author can make the same book even if they use the same idea or prompt.

It is art.

And because of that, I know there will always be a place for authors who refuse to use generative AI in their books.

As a reader, I know that I have no desire to fill up my finite amount of books in my lifetime with books made by a computer over a human.

The average human may live until 72 years old, much of youth is dictated on what books are available to them, so take away 15 years is around 57 years of choices. With the average human reading around 12 books a year. Is around 687 books for the average human.

But if you're addicted to books like me, and your average books in a year is more like 50 that's still around 2850 books in my lifetime... My TBR is larger than that! And I'm no longer 15 years old either.

I've got around 1600+ books that I'll get to read in my lifetime, and I don't want to waste them on a computer-generated experience. I want to read a book by a real human, not a human that generated a prompt. Someone who shared their time, their passion, their feelings with me, and perhaps a good ol' spicy scene or three.

I've got you covered on all things out of this world and spicy with my newest book Her Alien Delegate, including a tentacle peen!

Well, THREE alien tentacle peens if you count that Evie has three mates! You only get the inside scoop on one mate, BROMA in Her Alien Delegate, but I do have plans to expand Evie's story to her time on AsunGor and the POVs of all of her mates later. This is a complete story with Her Alien Delegate, but there is more to Evie and her mates to be told that I just couldn't fit into one book without it being over 100k words.

What Readers are Saying about Her Alien Delegate!

"I loved this book! This is the first book I was introduced to for this author and I couldn't put it down! Who doesn't love an amazing story of star-crossed-lovers-alien mates!" 5-star reviewer Cyd

"This universe is quickly becoming one of my favorites." 4-star reviewer Trouble

"OMG. I finished this book within a couple hours!! It was glorious, had the spice and a HEA!! And 3 hot alien men to boot!! You will not be disappointed!" 5-star Reviewer Desiree

"The guys have TENTACLES!!!And how they use them to worship Evie!" 5-star reviewer Sandra

"Sky Robert is never—NEVER—boring! Her aliens are TRULY alien, and these stories are as much about immersing us in the weirdness as they are about the sex." 4-star reviewer Jeanne

If you like tentacles, an absurd amount of alien seed, and caring aliens that worship their human mate then this is the book for you!

https://books.steviemarie.com/aliendelegate

You can read immediately from my author store, or grab your preorder from Amazon to support future stories written by yours truly!

Her mating contract is sold. Her future and freedom uncertain. Until an alien leader scours the universe to keep her!

Protective partners
Bonding rituals
Fated mates
Reverse harem/polyamorous (3 mates) FMMM
Tentacles
Breeding

Read the book today when you grab my book directly from my author store to help support more books written by yours truly here: https://payhip.com/b/Rp28b

Indie Book Math: If an indie makes around 2.70 with each 3.99 book, and an average indie book costs around 800 to bring to life (this is a conservative number, sometimes it costs more depending on book cover, editing, or marketing costs. Her Alien Delegate would need to sell 580 e-books to breakeven for bringing it to life.

Have you checked out CURIOS?

HER ALIEN DELEGATE is available on Curius for a limited time!

Grab Her Alien Delegate from Curios

Pre-order Her Alien Delegate from Amazon here:

PreOrder Her Alien Delegate from Amazon! Launching Aug 26th 2025

Add Her Alien Delegate to your Goodreads TBR!

Add Her Alien Delegate on Goodreads

Add to Bookbub TBR

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Her Alien Delegate is launching on Amazon on August 26th 2025!

Next books I have planned: Her Alien Captor with Commander Ten-sel and Jayden, and Her Alien Nectar with Prince Gho-ran, Commander Li-aq, and Faith.)

I've been struggling mentally with my author career due to the drastic drop in readership in 2025. I went from steadily increasing my readership from 2023 to 2024, to a large dip in 2025. I was on track towards having my books break even and finally paying for my time, and then WHooosh, 2025 slapped me in the tit and said nope.

Due to the slump, I do not have funds to keep paying for most of my author platform expenses. This means I cannot afford to get new book covers, cover the cost of a future editor, or continue to pay for things like Bookfunnel, Booksprout, or Booksiren. This means, I have to be super frugal, and pray the books I already have can be boosted to help compensate and afford a next launch. There will be a delay in future books because of this.

This does not mean that I will stop writing, just that my launches will be dependent on the income of the books already launched. It is possible, I will have to try out other methods of funding like Kickstarter or something. I'll look into options and figure it out after the next book is ready.

Sky Robert Stats!

2023-2024 DIF: Jan +78, Feb -17, Mar +258, Apr +414, May +119 Jun +133, July +17, Aug -314, Sep +74, Oct -9 , Nov +43 , Dec +61 = Overall 2023 to 2024 +857 better than the year before THREE BOOKS BROKE EVEN!

2024-2025 DIF: Jan +43, Feb -58, Mar -258, Apr -505, May -442, Jun -153, July -135, Aug -90 Still have Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec not accounted for yet = Overall currently negative 1598 from the year before. August of 2025 has only brought in 13 dollars so far across all my books! (Not including Her Alien Delegate's launch as it hasn't officially launched until Aug 26th)

It's good to note that in 2025 there were new releases that boosted sales in APRIL 2024 with Her Alien Warrior, and MAY 2024 for Her Alien Insurgent.

This year in 2025, I had Her Alien Starbreaker's release in APRIL 2025, and Her Alien Delegate this month AUGUST 2025 (I have not included preorder sales in the stats for August's release yet, and obviously Her Alien Starbreaker's release was impacted from being included in an anthology in December, of which only brought in 63 to each author in the anthology and cost us each 45 to be included, netting each author only 18 in profits.

I share stats because A) I think they're fun B) it's important to remind readers that indie authors really do need their support C) I think it will be important to look back on this one day to see how far I've come in the future.

If you've read Her Alien Starbreaker from the Beyond Earth Anthology, please do take a moment to share your reviews and thoughts on the individual book to help it reach new readers both on Goodreads and Amazon if you're able:

Goodreads: Her Alien Starbreaker by Sky Robert | Goodreads

Storyorigin Universal link to Amazon, Kobo and more! https://books.steviemarie.com/heralienstar

Standalone plot with spice adventures of fated mates, space vampires, knotting, and bonds that will last beyond the stars! All available in Kindle Unlimited!

One of my goals this year is to get Her Alien Insurgent up to 50 ratings/reviews on Amazon! It's got 39 ratings on Amazon now, and 73 ratings on Goodreads! With a 4.8 average rating! I need 11 new Amazon reviewers to reach my 2025 goal!

Check out all books by Sky Robert here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BNXSFHZ4/allbooks

Discover all books by Sky Robert:

1) Jewel of the Alien Bandit 2) Her Alien Exchange 3) Her Alien Prince 4) Her Alien Savior 5) Her Alien Warrior 6) Her Alien Insurgent 7) Her Alien Starbreaker 8) TKManAteHer -Short Erotic Terminator Sex Bot Romance 9) Her Alien Delegate Upcoming books: Her Alien Captor and Her Alien Nectar

Books by S.M. McCoy

1) Taking Medusa 2) Breaking Fate Upcoming: Reaping Olympus, Goblin's Treasure

All of my books are standalone alien romances, each a separate complete romance, read in any order, and with their interconnected plots, each book layers and you find out more about the world the more you read. Have questions from one book? Read another one, and you're sure to find more answers, and perhaps more questions as the universe unravels. That's what I love about sci-fi adventures set in the same universe, there's so much room to play!

Happy Reading and Thank you for being part of my author journey,

xoxo

Sky