Rebecca Abbott Miller

Welcome! I’m Rebecca Abbott Miller — nurse, author, deep feeler, and professional overthinker with a soft spot for flawed people and broken hearts.

I write contemporary fiction about love that lingers, grief that changes you, and the kind of healing that doesn’t come easy. My stories are messy, honest, and usually feature women who are stronger than they think—and the men who love them.

If you’ve ever cried over a book, yelled at a fictional character like they were real, or stayed up way too late just to read one more chapter... we’re probably soulmates.

Right now, I’m pouring everything I’ve got into A Girl Named Charlie—a novel about a nurse who survives a lightning strike and wakes up with the power to heal others... but maybe not herself. It’s emotional, a little magical, and full of the kind of moments that make you believe in second chances, even when they come at a cost.

Thanks for being here. Make yourself at home—and maybe grab a tissue. Or a donut. Honestly, both work.

Once upon a time, calling yourself a “published author” meant something. You’d survived the slush pile. You had a contract. You’d been chosen.

Then came self-publishing.

Suddenly, the gates were wide open and anyone could declare themselves an author with nothing more than a Word doc and an Amazon account. The traditional publishing crowd called it cheating. Vanity. Not real authorship. And for a while, they weren’t wrong. Self-publishing was a mess—unvetted, unedited, and completely unfiltered. But it didn’t matter. It stuck.

Now, self-published authors are clutching their pearls over AI. Claiming it’s unfair. That it’s inauthentic. That it’s not real writing.

Excuse me? Have we forgotten the last 15 years?

Self-Publishing Was the Original “Cheat Code”

Let’s not rewrite history. The publishing industry didn’t suddenly welcome indie authors with open arms. It mocked them. Ignored them. Branded them as failures who couldn’t cut it in the “real” system. And what did self-published authors do? They shrugged, uploaded their books anyway, and sold them directly to readers. Some were terrible. Some were brilliant. Over time, the best rose above the noise, built audiences, and flipped the industry on its head.

But the stigma took years to shake off.

You know what finally silenced the critics? Quality. Effort. Persistence. The writers who treated it like a profession—not a shortcut—earned respect. They earned “published author” as a badge of honor, even if no gatekeeper ever handed them one.

Which is exactly what’s happening with AI right now.

AI Isn’t Cheating. It’s the New Slush Pile

Let’s be honest: AI is just the next tool breaking the next barrier.

Yes, people are using it to churn out garbage. Yes, it's flooding the market with bland, formulaic content. But you know what? So did self-publishing. Go browse Kindle Unlimited in 2013. The only difference is now the garbage gets written faster.

But like before, the tool isn’t the problem. The user is.

There’s a world of difference between someone prompting ChatGPT to vomit out a "book" and someone using it to brainstorm, revise, refine, and push their writing further. Just like there's a difference between a self-published author who invests in editing and craft, and one who slaps together a first draft and uploads it raw.

The AI wave doesn’t invalidate writers. It reveals who was phoning it in all along.

Self-Published Authors Should Know Better

The outrage from indie authors about AI feels rich. You're mad that your hard-earned legitimacy is now being diluted by tech-bros and prompt jockeys? Welcome to the exact criticism you once endured. You broke the rules. You ignored the gatekeepers. You said, “Screw the system—I’ll make my own.”

Now someone else is doing the same thing, and suddenly it’s a problem?

You don’t get to kick the ladder down just because you climbed it first.

The Real Divide Isn’t Human vs. AI. It’s Effort vs. Laziness.

Let’s drop the fake moral panic. AI isn’t the death of writing any more than self-publishing was the death of books. What we’re really seeing is the same old split: people who care about craft vs. people who don’t.

You can hand a lazy writer a powerful tool—they’ll still produce crap. You can give a great writer a flawed tool—they’ll still find a way to create something meaningful. The platform, the process, the technology—it’s secondary. What matters is intention and execution.

If you’re worried AI will replace you, maybe it’s time to ask what exactly you were offering that a machine can replicate.

Final Word: Own Your Origins

If you self-published, you were part of a revolution. You helped destroy the gatekeeping model. You proved that legitimacy doesn’t come from permission—it comes from perseverance and quality.

So don’t turn around now and act like a traditionalist snob just because a new wave is crashing through. Remember how they talked about you. Then check your ego, sharpen your voice, and evolve.

Because if AI is cheating? So was self-publishing.

And you made it count anyway.