A person named “Jordan Reyes” may or may not have sent me an email on Friday morning with the following subject line:
This book is still trapped in your head.
I have no idea if “Jordan Reyes” actually exists. However, I definitely know that my book doesn’t exist in reality yet.
Not yet… But reality is a funny thing.
I’ve never told anyone about the book that’s stuck in my head, so it’s a little strange to get an email from a complete stranger offering to help me publish it.
It happens to be a novel, more or less 200 pages long. Probably a paperback, but I wouldn’t mind if it was published in hardback. If you really want to know, it’s a science fiction novel.
Or would you perhaps classify it as “magical realism”? I don’t want to argue about what genre it is at this point, but I assume that the book critics on social media will have to classify it at some point. Or they might say, “This fascinating debut novel from Louis Cannon defies classification…”
Actually, the story will also contain romantic elements, but you would never call it a “romance novel” because of the ending.
Did I mention it’s set in the not-too-distant future? I have hope that humanity actually has a future.
You would probably buy my novel at a book sale at the local library, which sells books that aren’t popular enough to stay on the shelf. They would choose it because the cover made it look interesting and the price, lightly used, was $1. After the first few pages, you would say to yourself, “Wow. I’m glad I bought this novel. It was definitely worth a dollar.”
However, at the moment this book is still trapped in my head.
The email, possibly from someone named “Jordan Reyes,” began like this:
Hey,
I’ve been thinking about why people don’t write the book.
Not you specifically, I don’t know your situation. But every conversation I’ve had about it sounds the same.
You already have the idea.
Usually they have had it for years. They can describe it in thirty seconds and you can hear how excited they are. Then they smile and say, “Yes, one day.”
As you may have guessed, it would take me much longer than 30 seconds to describe the novel trapped in my head. I haven’t even begun to tell you the plot yet. The romantic parts alone would take me 15 or 20 minutes.
But of course I won’t reveal the details online because someone might steal my ideas. Someone…or some Thing.
In fact, today’s column is essentially about the problem of “idea theft.”
This person named Jordan Reyes—if such a person exists—seemed to know quite a bit about why I never got around to publishing my novel. Or even write it.
He or she – or it – pointed out the obstacles we face when considering such a daunting task. Sketching the basic structure. Months of writing. Formatting that doesn’t make sense, cover design. Find a publisher…
It’s not a single obstacle. There are four, stacked on top of each other.
That’s why MakeNovelAI caught my eye.
You state your idea, the genre, who it is for and approximately how long it should last.
It writes your manuscript chapter by chapter, ensuring that characters, timelines, and details remain consistent from start to finish.
It then creates an original cover, exports your book as a PDF, DOCX, and Kindle-ready EPUB, and even generates the description and keywords that Amazon asks for.
Apparently, I could hire a computer algorithm called “MakeNovelAI” to ghostwrite my novel for me and prepare it for the world’s leading bookseller. Amazon.
How much would I pay for this ghostwriting service? This is always a key question.
It costs a one-time fee of $17. No subscription. If you don’t think it’s worth it, you have seven days to get your money back.
“Jordan Reyes” was honest about the fact that a novel is not a “money maker.” Most published books never make a profit.
But did I want to leave my novel trapped in my head? That’s not a pleasant thought.
The email contained a link to a website where I could find more information.
For obvious reasons, I don’t click on links in emails from strangers, even if they seem to know a lot about me and my unwritten novel. So I did a Google search for the company that “Jordan Reyes” supposedly represented.
I couldn’t find the company’s website through Google, which is a red flag for me. Maybe the email link was dangerous, maybe not. I’ll never know. Call me overcautious if you want, but as my mother used to say, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
However, I discovered something else. My Google search turned up literally dozens of other companies offering to let their AI algorithms write my novel for me. In a variety of possible languages.
Some of the AI services charged a fee, but many claimed to be “free.”
Okay, I know, nothing is free these days. We’ll pay, one way or another.
Anyway, I mentioned that this column is actually about stealing ideas. Because that’s exactly what AI does. It reads other people’s novels, steals their ideas, and then offers to write your novel for you for $17, slightly rearranging other people’s ideas.
Of course, the novels that AI steals ideas from are usually bestsellers, so the ideas are worth stealing.
But what if I pay $17 so a strange algorithm I’ve never met can steal? My Ideas?
You can see my dilemma.
I’m just a naturally suspicious person. I suspect things without needing much evidence.
And I suspect that “Jordan Reyes” is actually an algorithm that writes emails and sends them to poor, innocent, law-abiding writers with books trapped in their heads.
On the other hand, I can definitely imagine what the book cover looks like.
Louis Canon
The underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although given the slightest chance, his ex-wife would deny that he ever grew up. You can read more stories on his Substack account.
https://pagosadailypost.com/2026/07/29/ready-fire-aim-not-a-money-machine-but-still-a-published-novel-of-some-kind/
