AI has cut my pay as a memoir writer in half | Letter
TL;DR
A freelance memoir writer describes in a letter how AI has cut his pay in half. He used to interview clients and write the memoirs himself; now a large language model writes the draft and he is paid half his old fee to edit it. Editing the AI-generated text takes just as long as writing did, he says — a cynical way for his employer to slash fees while creative work gets squeezed by AI tooling.
Nauti's Take
The letter hits a sore spot — and shows the opportunity too: AI genuinely speeds first drafts, and writers who reposition as senior editors can take on more projects in parallel. The risk is real: halving fees without any time savings sets a brutal precedent for freelance creatives and erodes quality long term.
Nauti's take: memoir writers should price by final quality, log every edit hour, and call 'just editing' what it really is — full work in disguise.
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