Full transcript
0:00Today, I'm going to tell you the three
0:01biggest ways that I use AI to improve my
0:04book. And I'm not necessarily talking
0:06about a book that was written with AI.
0:07Everything I will show you in this video
0:09can be used to improve your writing as
0:11well as what AI writes. If you're
0:12wondering why I'm talking about this, I
0:14wrote 14 books the traditional way
0:16before AI came around. I also spent 3
0:18years working at Kindlepreneur, one of
0:19the largest resources for self-published
0:21authors, and [music] I've made a point
0:22of becoming an expert in AI since it
0:24came around to help authors from being
0:26obsolete by giving them the skills to
0:28keep up. In this video, I'll walk you
0:29through three techniques or tools that I
0:32actually use to improve my books with
0:34AI, whether they were written with AI or
0:36not. So, the first technique is pretty
0:38simple. It's simply to have a
0:40conversation with AI about your work,
0:43whatever it is, about your book. And the
0:45way I would do that is I would use the
0:48projects feature. Now, I'm going to show
0:50this off for you in Claude, but this
0:52could be done in virtually any of the
0:54chatbots. Most of them will do this
0:56really well. I find Claude to be one of
0:58the best, but you could also use
0:59Notebook LM, you could use ChatGPT, you
1:01could use Perplexity. Anyone will do for
1:03this use case. So, what you want to do
1:05is find the projects feature. Most of
1:07the AI chat models have them. In Claude,
1:10it's over here on the left. We select
1:12that, hit new project, and we'll just
1:15call this book critiquer. I know that's
1:17not a word, but we're going to run with
1:19it anyway. And then from here, we go to
1:21instructions. So, go ahead and select
1:24edit instructions, and this is where you
1:26want to write in a prompt, and it
1:28doesn't have to be a complex prompt, all
1:29right? It could be whatever you want it
1:31to be, but I would probably do something
1:33like this. I want you to act like a
1:35developmental editor for my book
1:38outlines, giving me feedback on what
1:40could use some work and what is really
1:43good. I want you also to make sure that
1:47you are asking me questions to make sure
1:48you are clarifying what I want, maybe
1:50giving me multiple suggestions on what I
1:52could do instead, and ultimately helping
1:55me find clarity on this outline and
1:58making sure everything is perfect before
2:00we get into the writing process. So,
2:03obviously, I tailored this prompt to be
2:05something for outlines, but you could
2:07tailor it to be for the actual text of
2:09your book. You could tailor it for an
2:11academic piece. You can do whatever you
2:13want with it. But, the elements that I
2:15like to include in this prompt is asking
2:17it to act like an editor, whatever
2:19variety of editor you need for this
2:21project. That could be a developmental
2:22editor, a line editor, a proofreader,
2:24you know, etc. And the key thing is that
2:26you are asking for personal feedback on
2:29the work. You are not asking it to fix
2:31your work. You're just asking for
2:33feedback. And one of the things I always
2:34like to put in with these kind of
2:36prompts is some kind of indicator of
2:40asking it to ask you questions and to
2:43give you multiple options to choose from
2:46and things like that. The reason I like
2:48to do that is cuz this makes it far more
2:50of an interactive and creative process
2:52for you, the individual, the human, that
2:55makes it feel like you have a lot more
2:56control over the output. And you do
2:58actually have a lot more control over
3:00the output when you do it this way. That
3:01way, it's becomes much more of a
3:03collaborative process and the AI is not
3:05doing it for you. Now, we'll just come
3:07here and hit save instructions. And
3:09because this is a prompt that I added
3:11for an outline, I'm just going to put in
3:13my pasted outline here that I've
3:16developed and just let it go. So, here
3:19it is giving me its response. It starts
3:21with what's working very well, according
3:23to its opinion. Of course, read through
3:24this to make sure that you agree. And
3:26then it gives you a couple of areas that
3:28need development. For instance, it says
3:29Oren's arc structural scaffolding
3:31pretending to be a character arc. He
3:32appears in nine chapters and his
3:34function shifts. Cold observer, silent
3:36non-intervener, political rescuer, dance
3:38partner, unwilling ally, etc. And so,
3:40you can read through this and see if you
3:42agree with it. And if so, you can go
3:44ahead and make some changes. You can
3:45even prompt the AI to make the changes
3:47that you like. But, then you'll see here
3:49it also asked me a question. The element
3:51I most need clarity on before we dig
3:52into individual chapters is Oren.
3:55Specifically, is Oren primarily a love
3:57interest who becomes a political ally or
3:59a political ally who has romantic
4:01potential? These are very different
4:02structural roles, and the answer
4:04determines whether his arc needs an
4:06internal wound, a betrayal redemption
4:08beat, political ally, or both. How do
4:09you see him functioning in this book and
4:11across the series? So, this is a very
4:13excellent question based on the outline
4:14because it's not very clear if this
4:16person is more of a love interest, and
4:18given that the genre that I'm going for
4:20here, I definitely want him to be a love
4:22interest. So, now I would just say, I
4:24want him to be more of a love interest,
4:28and go from there. And then we just
4:30continue with this iterative
4:31conversational process until we have
4:34something that we really like, until we
4:36modify the outline to our content. And
4:38again, I'm using this outline as an
4:40example, but you do you could do this
4:41for a chapter, you could do this as a
4:44from a developmental editing
4:45perspective, from a line editing
4:47perspective. All you have to do is just
4:48swap out a few of the terms that I used
4:51in that initial prompt
4:52>> [music]
4:52>> and go from there. And speaking of line
4:55editing, the next technique I'm going to
4:56show you is actually using a tool called
4:58AutoCrit. I'll make sure to link to
5:00AutoCrit down below. I do have a special
5:02deal with them that you can get the
5:05lifetime deal for this process. They
5:07don't usually sell the lifetime deal
5:09except maybe on some sales, but usually
5:11it's just through people like myself
5:13that you can get the lifetime deal. So,
5:14check that out below. But regardless,
5:16this is my current favorite
5:18>> [music]
5:18>> editing tool. Now, it did not as an AI
5:22editing tool. It that was not how like
5:25it existed long before AI, but it has
5:26done some very smart integration of AI
5:30into its platform. And even if you have
5:32the lifetime version of it, you're not
5:34going to be a charged additional credits
5:36for the AI usage, which is pretty
5:38awesome. Now, there are a lot of
5:39different features here inside of
5:41AutoCrit including being able to
5:43identify things like dialogue adverbs,
5:45evidences of strong writing like showing
5:47versus telling, and can identify areas
5:49that could use improvement. But, one of
5:51my favorite aspects of this, especially
5:54in AI-generated aspect, is that you can
5:56actually have virtual alpha and beta
5:58readers inside of this tool that are
6:02using AI on the platform. And I got to
6:03say, they do a phenomenal job. The
6:06whatever prompting they're using behind
6:08the scenes is absolutely stellar. And I
6:10know they have access to a lot of data
6:12and stuff about like what makes a good
6:14book and all of that. So, if we look
6:16here, I've selected alpha readers known
6:19as the harsh critic. You can actually
6:21get more here. And let's say I wanted
6:24the fantasy reader, I could select that
6:26because this is a fantasy book. There
6:27are also other readers for other genres.
6:29And this will tell me if this is a good
6:32fit for a fantasy reader. I've already
6:34done the one here for the harsh critic,
6:36which I like because it's a harsh
6:38critic. It's going to show me a lot of
6:39stuff that needs work, right? And so,
6:41it's telling me that the story is at a
6:4275%, which is great. This story, by the
6:44way, is not AI-generated. And the reader
6:47fit is 65. So, maybe a little bit that
6:49could use some work there. It gives me
6:51an explanation about why that is for
6:53both of them. It gives me some favorite
6:55lines. And then it gives me the emotion
6:59from the beta reader for each chapter
7:02and kind of like the strength of each
7:04chapter here in a little table, which is
7:06kind of fun. It gives you big
7:08picture story elements. So, what to
7:11think about all of these different
7:12things. It gives me a overview of what
7:14it thinks of the characters and the
7:16conflict, the world building, the theme,
7:18the general impressions, and some final
7:19thoughts. And you can actually go even
7:21further with this at times. You can
7:24go here and edit the reader and actually
7:27add things that you want it to check for
7:29for in its response. So, you can
7:31actually change what this looks like for
7:33each of these. It's a really simple
7:35thing. All you have to do, I'll show you
7:36here with the fantasy reader, is select
7:38start reading and it will go through and
7:40run this process through. It's going to
7:42take a little while here, but that's
7:44essentially all you have to do once your
7:45book is inside of their system. And like
7:48I said, this is just one of many
7:51different things that AutoCrit does, but
7:53it's one that I actually find to be
7:55quite useful to get an overview of what
7:57an audience might think about this
7:59particular book in the genre. Now, the
8:01third and final technique that I'm going
8:02to show off for you today is an
8:04automation. This is my attempt to try
8:07and remove as much work from the process
8:10as possible because the first two that
8:11I've shown you clearly involve quite a
8:13bit of of work on your part. But is
8:15there a way to get AI to do a lot of
8:18that drudgery part of it for you in a
8:21way that is good enough that you could
8:24be satisfied that it will do its job.
8:27Most I've been able to do here is this
8:29line editing and de-sloppifier
8:31automation that I've created in a tool
8:33called N8N. N8N does have a bit of a
8:36learning curve to get started with it,
8:38and I have a whole playlist for N8N that
8:41you can check out on my channel about
8:43how to get it started and everything
8:44like that.
8:46But essentially, what this does is it
8:48takes a Google Doc. If we zoom in here,
8:50it takes a Google Doc, converts it to
8:52markdown so it can better handle it, and
8:54then it converts it into 1,500 word
8:56chunks. Uh that's about as far as I
8:57could get it before it started like not
9:00giving as good results. And then it runs
9:02through a series of analyses and
9:05rewrites. So, it actually does three
9:07analyses on three different topics, and
9:10then after each one it does a mild
9:12rewrite that kind of incorporates all of
9:14the the information that it uh got in
9:17the analysis. So, in this one, this is
9:18all about sentences and paragraph pacing
9:21and stuff like that. In this one, we're
9:23talking about various line edits, the
9:24sort of thing that AutoCrit might pick
9:26up for you. And in this one, if you're
9:28using AI written text, there is a
9:31de-sloppifier uh section here that you
9:34can use as well. I actually find this is
9:35useful for human written work as well,
9:37because sometimes humans use things that
9:39are overused and cliche, and the
9:41dislapifier will help identify some of
9:42those things. And additionally, like
9:44when it comes to AI detectors out there,
9:47human work will often be identified as
9:50AI just as much as AI stuff is. And so,
9:53I I think having some of this to sort of
9:55safeguard against that can be a good
9:57thing. But regardless, let me just show
9:59you a little bit of what the prompts
10:00look like for one of these analyses. We
10:02have This is the instructions. It's
10:04quite a extensive prompt here. After it
10:07goes through this, all it's doing is it
10:09is making a list of things that need
10:11improvements, not actually rewriting the
10:14text at all yet. It's just making a list
10:16to improve. And then in this next
10:18section, the rewrite, it takes that
10:21original text here and the improvement
10:23plan here and just asks it to
10:25incorporate the feedback from that
10:27improvement plan. Now, this is, as far
10:29as I've been able to tell, the single
10:31most hands-off approach to improving
10:34your writing with AI. The real question
10:36is, is this worth it? And the answer is
10:39kind of, but you do have to be very
10:41careful and read through everything that
10:43it produces. Cuz I do find that
10:45sometimes it can change things that you
10:46might not have wanted it to have
10:47changed. I think in most cases it
10:49improved the writing. It might remove a
10:51little bit of your voice in the process,
10:53and that obviously is not a good thing.
10:55I am currently looking into a more
10:57agentic workflow that would allow a
11:01be kind of a a sweet spot between this
11:03automation and what we do in inside of
11:06Claude with a conversation, like I
11:07showed you for step one. That's going to
11:09be incorporated into my AI tool that I'm
11:12developing that, you know, I I'm not
11:14talking about too much just yet, but
11:16it's something that's coming later on
11:18down the road. It's not going to be
11:19available at launch, but we are going to
11:21have a sort of like editing feature
11:22inside of that that has an agentic
11:24workflow that identifies a lot of the
11:26things that this automation does, but
11:27also makes it easier for you, the human,
11:30to go through and approve or or reject a
11:33lot of those changes. But in the
11:35meantime, this is by far, I think, the
11:37best bang for your buck if you want
11:38something that's totally hands-off. It
11:40does a really good job at that. It's not
11:42perfect, and obviously, if you put more
11:45effort in, more of your own editing,
11:47it's going to be better than if you use
11:49something that was completely hands-off.
11:52But if you're strapped for time or
11:54something like that, something like this
11:55could be a good solution for you. Those
11:57are my three ways to improve writing
11:59with AI with whether it was AI written
12:01or not in the first place. If you want
12:03more [music] instruction like this,
12:04including my complete walk-through on
12:07how to go from nothing to having a book
12:09in hand, not just written, but also
12:12published, go check out my Story Hacker
12:14AI group down below. We just wrapped up
12:16our Book in a Month Challenge, and we
12:18had literally dozens of people actually
12:21finish a book in a month without,
12:22honestly, that much work, and one that's
12:24completely in line with their vision and
12:27everything. So, make sure to check it
12:28out down below, and I'll see you in the
12:30next video.