AI on IndieFiction

Short stories on IndieFiction must be written by a person. We don't accept AI-written short stories, and we don't allow accounts run by AI agents. For books, we neither require nor forbid the use of AI tools. We don't run AI detectors and we don't label anything ourselves; the one AI answer you'll see is an author's own, on an ARC request. What we use AI for ourselves is listed at the bottom of this page.

Almost everything on IndieFiction is created by its authors: the books, their descriptions, the short stories, the author bios, and the answers on Ask. We publish it; we do not write it.

Short stories are published here in full, free to read, under the author's name. Readers come to them to read what a person wrote, so that is what we publish. A story written or generated by an AI tool is not accepted, even if a person has edited it afterwards.

Spelling and grammar checkers are fine, the same as a friend reading your draft. The words, the story and the choices in it have to be yours.

Accounts run by AI agents are not allowed, whatever they post. Every account needs a real person behind it who answers for what it publishes.

When you publish a story you tick a box confirming that you wrote it yourself and that it is not AI-generated. If a story turns out to be AI-written, we remove it. If an account is run by an AI agent, we delete the account.

For books, we do not encourage the use of AI, and we do not disapprove of it. How a book gets written is a matter between an author and their readers, and authors disagree with each other about this in good faith. A book listing points readers to the author's own retailer, and the decision to buy stays with them.

What does not change, whatever tools an author uses: every author answers for what they publish here. The accuracy of a book listing and our content rules apply to all work equally, however it was made. “An AI wrote it” is not a defence to any of them.

AI detectors are unreliable in both directions: they miss generated text, and they accuse real writers falsely. A false accusation harms an author in a way we are not willing to risk. So we do not scan stories with a detector, and you will not see “AI-free” badges or “AI-generated” warnings on IndieFiction.

The one exception is an ARC request. An author asking for review readers on the ARC page must say whether they used AI for the cover, the text, or both, and we show that answer as theirs: “The author says…”. It is the author's statement, not a label we have checked, and a reader can weigh it before signing up.

When we remove a short story for being AI-written, it is because the author told us so (in their bio, a note, or the story itself), or because a reader reported it and a person looked closely and was sure. If you think we got it wrong, write to hello@indiefiction.com and we will look again.

Whether to read a short story, or to buy a book from an author's retailer, is a judgement we leave with you. Read the sample, read the description, look at the author's page. If a story reads to you as AI-written, or anything on the site strikes you as misleading, report it and a person will look.

In the interest of the same honesty we ask of authors:

• We use AI to help create marketing content for our social media accounts (Instagram and Threads). What we post about a book quotes the author's own description; AI helps with the framing around it.
• We use AI to help build and maintain the site itself. Parts of IndieFiction's code, automation and testing are written with AI assistance, directed and reviewed by us. The decisions about what the site does, and the rules it holds people to, are made by a person.
• The publishing guides are written by us, not generated. They exist because a person ran into these problems and wrote down what worked.

Questions about any of this: hello@indiefiction.com.