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Ask ten printable sellers what the AI rules are and you will get ten answers. Most of them are wrong in the same direction: people assume the rules are stricter than they are, and then miss the one part that actually applies to them.
Amazon and Etsy have written their rules down. They are short. Here is what each one says, in its own words.
Amazon draws one line, and it is not where you think
Amazon splits everything into two buckets. Only one of them needs declaring.
AI-generated means the tool made the thing. Amazon defines it as text, images or translations created by an AI-based tool. The important part is the sentence that follows: that label sticks “even if you applied substantial edits afterwards”.
So heavy editing does not move something out of this bucket. If the first draft came out of a tool, it stays AI-generated no matter how much you rewrote it.
AI-assisted is the other bucket, and Amazon is unusually clear about it: “If you created the content yourself, and used AI-based tools to edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve that content, then it is considered ‘AI-assisted’ and not ‘AI-generated.'”
And then the line that most sellers have never read: you are not required to disclose AI-assisted content.
Check it yourself: Amazon’s KDP content guidelines. Both definitions sit together near the top of the AI section, one after the other.
Which bucket are you in
Ask one question. Who produced the first version?
You asked for forty sudoku grids and got forty grids. The tool produced them. AI-generated.
You wrote the puzzle instructions yourself, then asked AI to tighten the wording and check the spelling. You produced them. AI-assisted.
You described a cover and a tool drew it. AI-generated, even if you spent an hour adjusting it afterwards.
You designed the cover in Canva and used an AI tool to remove a background. You produced it. AI-assisted.
Most real books are a mix. Declare the parts that were generated, and stop worrying about the parts that were assisted.
The part almost everybody misses
Amazon asks you to tell them about AI-generated content when you publish a new book and when you make edits to and republish an existing one.
Republishing is not a one-time event in this business. You fix a typo. You swap a cover. You add ten pages. Each of those is a republish, and the declaration question comes round again.
People answer it carefully the first time and then click through it on autopilot forever after. That is the gap.
Etsy asks for something different
Etsy does not use Amazon’s two buckets. It has one sentence, and it is broader:
Sellers must disclose within their listing description if an item is created with the use of AI.
Note the three words that matter: within their listing description.
Not in your shop policies. Not in an About section. Not in a FAQ page somewhere. In the description of the item itself, where a buyer looking at that one product will see it.
A shop-wide notice does not satisfy a listing-level requirement. That is the most common way sellers think they have complied when they have not.
Check it yourself: Etsy’s handmade policy. The disclosure sentence appears in the section covering what sellers are allowed to list.
The thing Etsy will not let you sell at all
Disclosure is one issue. Eligibility is a separate and bigger one.
Prompt bundles do not qualify as items designed by a seller under Etsy’s policy. They are listed among the things that do not count, which means a shop built on selling packs of prompts is built on something that can be removed.
This matters because “sell prompt packs on Etsy” was advice handed out confidently for about two years. Plenty of courses still teach it.
The output of a prompt can be sold. The prompt itself is a different matter.
Writing a disclosure that does not scare buyers
Sellers dread this part because they imagine it will cost them sales. That usually comes from writing it like an apology.
Compare these two.
The nervous one: “Please note, AI was used in this product.”
The confident one: “The illustrations in this pack were created using AI image tools, then hand-arranged, colour-corrected and laid out by me for printing at A4 and US Letter.”
Both disclose. The second also tells the buyer what work you actually did, which is the thing they are paying for. Say what the tool made and what you made.
A habit worth building
Keep a plain text note for every product you make. Three lines is enough.
- What was generated by a tool
- What you made or arranged yourself
- Which tools you used
Write it while you are making the thing, when you still remember. Six months later, when you republish a book or a marketplace changes its wording again, you will not be sitting there trying to recall whether you drew that border or asked for it.
The last word on this
Both of these policies can change, and neither of them is the only rulebook you might be under. Read the actual pages rather than a summary of them, including this one, and read them again when you hear that something has changed.
The links above go to the sources. They take four minutes to read, which is roughly one four-hundredth of the time you will spend making your next product.
