On Amazon KDP you are asked to disclose AI-*generated* content at upload, and AI-*assisted* content does not require disclosure. The distinction is whether the tool created the content or helped you refine your own. Requirements differ by platform and change, so check at the point of publishing rather than relying on any guide, including this one.
Do I have to declare AI use when I publish?
Assisted or generated? The line, in practice
Platform definitions turn on who created the content. These are worked examples of the distinction as the major platforms currently frame it — always check the current wording where you are publishing.
| What you did | How it is normally characterised | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Wrote it yourself, used a tool to check spelling and grammar | Assisted | You created the content. This has never been controversial — it is a spell-checker. |
| Dictated it, had it transcribed, edited the transcript | Assisted | The words are yours. Transcription is a recording of your speech. |
| Wrote it, asked a tool to cut repetition without changing wording | Assisted | Editing your own text, and the wording remains yours. |
| Wrote it, asked a tool to suggest a better structure, then rewrote | Assisted | Advice acted on by you is not generated content. |
| Asked a tool to write a chapter from a prompt, then edited it | Generated | The tool created the content. Editing afterwards does not change the origin. |
| Generated a cover image | Generated | Image generation is explicitly covered by KDP's disclosure question. |
| Used a tool to translate the book | Generated | Translation is named specifically in the disclosure categories. |
A footprint check on your chapter
Send a chapter and we'll email back where your voice is strongest and where the prose reads flat — plus the current disclosure questions the main platforms ask, in plain English.
Where the requirements currently sit
Amazon KDP asks, at upload, whether the book contains AI-generated text, images or translations, and asks you to disclose if so. AI-assisted content — where you created the work and used tools to refine it — is not required to be disclosed. The disclosure is not published on the book's page; it goes to Amazon.
Other retailers and aggregators vary, and several have added their own questions in the last two years.
Competitions, awards and literary agents frequently have stricter rules than platforms, and some prohibit AI involvement altogether. Read the specific rules; do not assume the platform standard applies.
Traditional publishers are writing AI clauses into contracts, and what they require is negotiated rather than standard.
This area is moving. Check the current wording at the point of publication — that is not a disclaimer, it is the only sensible practice.
Why the distinction is real
It is tempting to treat 'assisted versus generated' as a fudge. It is not: it maps onto a genuine difference in where the content came from.
If you dictated forty hours about your mother's life, had it transcribed, and edited it into chapters, every idea and nearly every sentence originated with you. If you typed write a chapter about a woman in 1950s Kerry and edited the result, they did not.
Both are legitimate ways to make a book, and people will differ on the second. But they are different things, and a disclosure regime that could not distinguish them would be useless.
Detectors, and why you should not trust them
AI-detection tools are unreliable in both directions, and this matters practically because people are being accused on the strength of them.
They produce false positives on non-native English, on formal or academic registers, and on heavily edited prose — because clean, consistent, low-variance writing is what they score as machine-like. Careful editing makes your writing look more generated, which is a perverse and well-documented outcome.
They produce false negatives on lightly-edited generated text.
So: do not use a detector score as evidence of anything, do not panic at a high score on your own writing, and be sceptical of anyone who does either.
What to do if you are asked to prove it is yours
This comes up with competitions, agents and occasionally readers, and the answer is provenance rather than a detector score.
Keep your drafts, dated. Keep the recordings if you dictated. Keep your notebooks, your notes, your version history. A folder of eleven dated drafts with visible development is far more persuasive than any tool's opinion.
This is worth doing prospectively rather than after an accusation, and it costs nothing.
What Your Book Pro does here
Your Book Pro is a British book-writing platform. You bring a book — an idea, a folder of notes, half a draft, or a finished manuscript written somewhere else — and it gives you the editorial process a publisher would run: a plan, structured feedback, a simulated beta read, a line edit, a proofread, a cover, a blurb and a print-ready file. You can type it, upload it or speak it. The tools sit in one place and work on the same manuscript, so the feedback compounds instead of arriving as twelve disconnected opinions.
AI Footprint Checker is unusual in that no human service does the equivalent. It reads your manuscript and shows you where the prose would read as generated and where your own voice is strongest — not as a verdict, and not as a detector score, but as a map of your own book.
Authors use it for two things. To find the passages that have been edited into blandness — which is a writing problem before it is a disclosure one, and fixing it makes the book better. And to answer the practical question of what, if anything, they need to declare.
The wider design decision matters here: the tools that touch your text are built to keep your wording. Light Edit removes filler without rewriting. Proofread reports rather than changes. Transcription gives you clean verbatim first. That is why most work done here sits on the assisted side of the line — but the platform's question is about your book, so answer it about your book.
This is general information about published platform policies, not legal advice, and these policies change. Check the current requirements where you publish.
Check your footprint
Upload a manuscript written anywhere
Email me the checkQuestions people ask
- Does Amazon KDP require AI disclosure?
- KDP asks at upload whether the book contains AI-generated text, images or translations. AI-assisted content, where you created the work and used tools to refine it, is not required to be disclosed. Check the current wording when you publish.
- Is dictating my book AI use?
- Transcribing your own speech is assisted, not generated — the words are yours. That is the same category as using a spell-checker, and it is how a great many books have been made for decades.
- Will readers know?
- Detectors are unreliable in both directions, so no, not reliably. Readers do notice blandness, though, which is the real risk and a writing problem rather than a disclosure one.
- Do competitions allow AI use?
- Many restrict it and some prohibit it entirely, with rules stricter than any platform's. Read the specific competition rules — do not assume.
- What if I'm wrongly accused?
- Show provenance: dated drafts, recordings, notes, version history. A visible development trail is far more convincing than arguing with a detector score.