Do I have to tell Amazon KDP I used Grammarly or spellcheck?

By Brenn and Lindsay, the two writers who built Inkling

KDP asks one question when you publish, and the answer turns on a definition most writers have never read. Here it is in plain words, with the page it comes from, and an honest note about generated covers.

Somewhere between uploading your manuscript and pressing publish, KDP asks whether your book contains AI-generated content. If you ran the draft through Grammarly, or spellcheck, or asked a chatbot whether your villain’s plan made sense, that question can stop you cold. Check the box and you feel like you are confessing to something. Leave it unchecked and you worry you have broken a rule you never read.

We read the rule. We are writers, not lawyers; the KDP page is short and you should read it yourself. But here is what it says, what it does not say, and where the honest edges are.

What does KDP count as AI-generated?

KDP’s help page defines AI-generated content as text, images, or translations created by an AI tool, and it adds the clause that matters: this holds even if you applied substantial edits afterwards. In other words, origin is the test, not effort. If a tool produced the first draft of a paragraph and you rewrote half of it, KDP still treats that paragraph as AI-generated and asks you to say so.

Notice the three categories: text, images, and translations. Most writers only think about the first one. The second is where people get caught, and we come back to it below.

What counts as AI-assisted?

The same page draws the other line. AI-assisted content is content you created yourself, where you used an AI tool to edit, refine, error-check, or brainstorm. KDP says that does not need to be disclosed.

Grammarly, when it is correcting your commas and flagging a doubled word, is error-checking. Spellcheck is error-checking. A read-through that tells you a sentence is passive is refining. Under KDP’s own definition, none of that requires the box. You wrote the words; the tool tidied them. A Goodreads thread full of writers asking exactly this question suggests how many people have been losing sleep over commas.

The line gets thinner when a tool offers to rewrite a whole passage and you accept its version as written. That text was created by the tool. Treat the rewrite as a suggestion, write your own sentence, and you are back on the assisted side of the line.

The Authors Guild reached the same place from the writer’s side. Its best-practices guidance says to disclose substantial AI-generated text and treats spellcheck and grammar tools as fine. Its Human Authored mark, which launched for members in January 2025 and later opened to all US authors, explicitly allows spellcheck, grammar, brainstorming, and outlining. It is free for members and ten dollars a title otherwise. Two organizations with very different interests, one line in the sand.

Does brainstorming with a chatbot count?

KDP lists brainstorming as an assisted use, so on its own, no. If you asked a chatbot for a dozen possible names for a moon and picked one, or talked through whether your midpoint reversal lands, and then wrote the scene yourself, KDP’s definition says you created the content.

The test is what ended up on the page. Pasting a chatbot’s paragraph into your manuscript and then editing it is AI-generated under the substantial-edits clause. Reading its answer, closing the window, and writing your own is assisted. When it gets murky, KDP’s rule of origin is the tie-breaker: who produced the sentence the reader will actually read? If the answer is you, you are fine. If the answer is the tool, disclose.

We will add one opinion of our own. The brainstorming that makes a novel yours usually happens in your own notes, not in a chat window. If you want somewhere to keep it, a character profile or a story reference holds the thinking without generating any of it.

Does a generated cover need disclosing?

Yes. This is the one people miss. KDP’s definition names images alongside text, so a cover created by an image generator is AI-generated content under the rule, and if you publish that cover on KDP, you should disclose it. Cropping the image, adjusting the colors, and setting your title over it in a font you chose does not change its origin any more than editing generated text would.

That applies to any generator, including the one in Inkling, and we say so plainly below rather than leaving you to work it out.

Do readers see my disclosure?

No. KDP’s page says the disclosure is not shown to readers. It goes to Amazon, not onto your product page or into your book. So the honest answer to whether checking the box will hurt your sales is: not directly, because nobody browsing the store sees it.

Why does Amazon ask at all? Some context helps. In September 2023 KDP capped new titles at three a day, citing AI concerns. The disclosure question belongs to the same effort: Amazon wants to know what is in its catalogue. Self Publishing Titans has a plain explainer on why KDP asks if you want the longer story. None of it is designed to shame a novelist who ran a spellcheck.

Where Inkling stands

We built Inkling, and it has a generator, so you deserve a direct answer about how it meets this rule.

Inkling is not an AI tool. It is a desk for writers, and the generator on that desk never writes prose. Not a sentence, not a suggested continuation. The text of your book stays yours by origin, which is exactly the test KDP uses, so drafting in Inkling moves nothing toward the AI-generated column. The Previously recap, which summarizes your own words so you can pick a story back up after a break, is a note for you. It is not part of the book and never goes into it. And nothing you write in Inkling is ever used to train any model.

Cover art is different, and we will not soften it. Inkling’s generator can draw covers and maps, five generated images a month on Plus. A cover it draws is a generated image. If you put it on a KDP listing, it falls under KDP’s disclosure rule and you should check the box. If you would rather not, commission an artist or make your own; the rest of the desk works the same either way. The generator also switches off with one toggle in Setup, and off means nothing is read and nothing is generated. The long version of what it reads and when is in Your words stay yours.

The short version

Grammarly and spellcheck: no disclosure. Brainstorming, then writing it yourself: no disclosure. A paragraph a tool wrote, however much you edited it: disclose. A cover a generator drew: disclose. Readers never see the box either way.

Read the KDP page. It is a few paragraphs. Then, if you are getting close, our guide on how to publish a book covers the rest of the road. And finish the book.