I used to keep track of the books I read by writing down the time and date I finished reading a book in a journal.

So, I would have been able to tell you how many books I read in a year.

I found that kind of got in the way of the reading experience.  I'd have to finish reading near the journal so I could write it down.  Or, if I was sidetracked for a while then got back to reading, where'd I put that journal?

And then what I would do is not read the last paragraph or last line of a book so, technically, I didn't finish it and didn't have to bother writing it down in the journal yet.

And then, eventually, I just finished reading the book without worrying about keeping track of when I finished reading it.

We've ended up with an interesting discussion that seems to be flowing in several different directions at once.

PJ's point on diversification is certainly worth considering. It doesn't hurt to have multiple revenue streams, at the very least. We do need to be conscious of the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day, though. A writer can only do so many things, particularly if they involve separate workflows. At the risk of stating the obvious, books and YouTube videos are very different things, requiring different kinds of content and different skill sets.

As far as the audience changes are concerned, it's true that there are many more competing activities than there used to be. But even some of the articles PJ linked provide caveats, for example, the reference to the fact that people have been complaining about the decline of reading for generations (the example goes back to 1907, but I think we can find earlier ones). Also, there seems to be a disconnect between sales figures (which, if we estimate some increase from unincluded self published texts, are either stable or rising) and surveys that show people reading less. One of the linked articles suggests that buying a book doesn't mean the book gets read. But if the disconnect is caused by that, and we want to take a ruthlessly businesslike attitude toward the issue, we make the same amount of money on sales whether the books actually get read or not. That's not my preferred outcome, nor probably anyone else's. But from a strictly business standpoint, sales are what matter.

There is one other point I'd like to touch on briefly. Some of the linked articles reference students no longer being required to read full books. But as another source points out,

There is not a lot of information on how many books American students are required to read in school. But in general, students are reading less. Federal data from last year shows 14 percent of young people said they read for fun every day. In 2012, that percentage was 27 percent.

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/do-students-in-american-schools-read-long-books-anymore-/7789204.html
Notice the weird disconnect between the statement about reading in schools, which is then joined with survey data about reading for fun--two very different things. Always be on the lookout for these kinds of odd conflations. They're common.

Also, there is a tendency to blame schools for whatever is happening. I don't doubt that incoming college students said they'd never been asked to read a whole book before, but I question how often that's actually true. I just checked with my old high school, sort of a typical, middle-class institution, and every English class requires at least five books per year. (At the school where I taught, the number is higher.) Checks of several other schools didn't turn up a single one where the reading of books wasn't required.

There has been some tendency to try to introduce more contemporary titles that correspond to students' actual interest. And there seems to have been some slowdown in reading during the pandemic. But I'm having a hard time finding evidence for the kind of sweeping degradation implied by some of the linked articles.

On the issue of whether or not readers will accept AI, a quick search turns up no hard data, just a lot of people speculating. Some writers like AI, and some don't. I see no reason to assume that most readers will accept it unless a writer has worked on the books enough to make them at least sound human. But I wonder why it is that the AI companies come down so hard against labeling if they don't think it will make any difference to people.

Will AI just keep getting better? Maybe. But there are a number of barriers. And remember the recent incident with Grok, when Musk was trying to make it less "woke," and ending up having it call itself MechaHitler and recommend the immediate opening of concentration camps. To be fair, that didn't last too long, but it illustrates that recrafting Ai is not always the easiest thing in the world to do. 

The average reader - not writers - is fine with derivative, good enough AI fiction.

Total BS! 

Before I was a writer, I was a reader.

I was a reader for 50 years before I started writing.

And in all that time, I was very picky about what I read. I used to visit the book shops every week, sorted through what was new, and I went home with a new book maybe once a month. Sometimes longer.

When I discovered Kindle, I found a lot more books to read, but was still very picky about which ones I got far into in the samples. And getting as far as a sample was even pickier.

As a writer, my selection of what to read hasn't really changed.

So take your 'readers are fine with derivative, good enough AI fiction' bull f*****g sh** somewhere else, because you do NOT NOT NOT speak for me, now, before, or ever.

And before you say I'm not average, damn right I was.

And frankly, the average reader would be insulted by that comment. Like I am.

When I asked ChatGPT to write a story using my voice, it came up with a rather boring tale of witches and college. It was about 50% on target with my writing style--which is pretty darn impressive, tbh. BUT it wasn't me and the tale came across dull and uninspiring (I hope my stuff isn't dull and uninspiring to readers  ). In fact, some of it felt more like a comedian aping me than someone given an honest attempt at writing in my style.

If you want to have some fun with your writing, you can do what I did a number of years ago, which I had long forgotten.

The other day, I stumbled upon a chapter from one of my books with the file name indicating it was a translation.  I had had a couple of my short stories translated into other languages, but, so far, none of my novels.  So I was curious what this translation was.

I opened the file and then I remembered.  Many years ago, I had taken a chapter from that novel and copied it into an online translator.  I had it translated from English into German or something.  From there, I had it translated into another language.  Then, from that language, into another.  And, finally, back into English again.

Do that and you may get stuff more amusing than AI.  Also makes you wonder how stories actually read when translated into other languages to readers of that language.

I don't think we're #5. My newest theory is that science and math should be pushed up there. It's science and math that's gonna be overrun by AI and computers, not artwork. Fiction is a form of artwork. Maybe nonfiction is threatened, but even nonfiction can be put together in artful ways.

I think everyone's going batty over writing because of ChatGPT inroads in creating written composition. But, don't know about you, but I find AI writing by ChatGPT formulaic and boring.

I spent an hour last night playing around with ChatGPT. I was curious what AI thought of me as a writer as I've wanted to improve myself--you guys can try this to. Ask ChatGPT to write in your writing style. I actually learned stuff. I already knew I write in short phrases, to the point with less flowery descriptions. It works great for action but not so great for calmer scenes. ChatGPT thinks this style goes well with thrillers and suspense. Well, my witch stuff supernatural suspense.

But I also found loads of errors in ChatGPT's sources. It resourced books not written by me mixed with actual books I've written.

When I asked ChatGPT to write a story using my voice, it came up with a rather boring tale of witches and college. It was about 50% on target with my writing style--which is pretty darn impressive, tbh. BUT it wasn't me and the tale came across dull and uninspiring (I hope my stuff isn't dull and uninspiring to readers  ). In fact, some of it felt more like a comedian aping me than someone given an honest attempt at writing in my style.

Fiction writing is art. We're not #5, imo. I think math and science is gonna be up there. Artists and performers have a future. There's some uplifting ways for you all to think about all this.