Full transcript
0:00In the last year or so, Autocrate has
0:02become my favorite program for writers
0:04who are doing long form fiction and need
0:07an editing tool to help them out. They
0:09have an incredible technology. They did
0:11before, but now that they've
0:12incorporated AI and not just in a like
0:15spammy like, oh, hey, we've got AI, uh,
0:19but in a much more consumerfocused way
0:22that really looks at what the writers
0:24who are using Autocrit actually want and
0:26need and providing that for them. And
0:28since they've added a lot of those
0:30features, I can confidently say it's my
0:32favorite editing tool for authors,
0:34especially if you do any kind of long
0:35form uh writing. So, in this video, what
0:38we're going to do is go through and I'm
0:41going to give you an introduction to
0:42Autocrid. I'm going to assume you know
0:44nothing about it, how to get started on
0:46a project, and uh and then just give you
0:48a little bit of a tour of what you can
0:50do inside of Autocrid. So, let's get in.
0:52First, I want to just cover pricing
0:53briefly. Um, there is a free version of
0:56Autocrid that you can get. It gives you
0:59some of the editing tools like adverbs,
1:02word choice, and readability, uh, which
1:03can be useful, but these are honestly,
1:06um, just a sample to kind of give you a
1:10an idea of whether you want to use it.
1:12So, to get the full package out of
1:16Autocrit and everything it can provide
1:18you, you'll need a paid account. There's
1:20really only one type of paid account,
1:22but there are three different ways to
1:23get it, and that's the Autocrit Pro. All
1:26right, so there's Autoquip Pro monthly,
1:28Pro Annual, and despite the fact that
1:30they are not advertising it here on
1:32their website, there is a Pro Lifetime
1:34account, and I will give you details on
1:36that in a second. Um, but if you do it
1:38just monthly, it's going to cost you 30
1:40bucks a month, which is kind of a lot.
1:42Um, so I don't really recommend doing
1:44this monthly um because that will cost
1:47you this is the most expensive way to
1:48go, but it will get you access to
1:50everything inside of Autocrit. There's
1:52there's no higher tier that has more
1:54stuff, at least not as I'm recording
1:55this. There may be in the future. I
1:57don't know. Um, but for now, you get
2:00everything with this uh Pro monthly
2:02account. Now, if you want to save 50% of
2:05that, you can pay annually. So, you're
2:08paying for an entire year upfront. And
2:11if you do it that way, it comes down to
2:13uh $15 per month, which as far as the
2:16annual bill would be about $180 for a
2:18full year. Now, there is a lifetime
2:21option, and the only way that I know how
2:23to get that lifetime option, they
2:25sometimes make it available on Black
2:28Friday, uh but the only way I know of to
2:31get it is besides Black Friday is to get
2:34it through a link from an influencer
2:36like myself. So, I do have an affiliate
2:38link down below. This video is not
2:40sponsored by Autocrret. All my opinions
2:42are are my own, but I do get a little
2:44bit of an affiliate kickback if you sign
2:46up through my lifetime account um option
2:50down below. And that will get you this
2:52program, a lifetime account for $400.
2:56And uh I will get into why I think
3:00that's actually a steal. And I don't
3:02know how they're able to afford that
3:04price uh because uh well, I'll get into
3:07it. Um but that you'll pay that off in
3:10essentially a couple of years. Um
3:13assuming like if you were to get the
3:14annual uh option, you know, that's 180 a
3:18year. So in a little like two and a half
3:21years or roughly um you will have paid
3:24paid for the annual instead of going
3:26with the lifetime.
3:30So I recommend getting the lifetime. Um,
3:33I don't like having subscriptions
3:35wherever I can avoid them. Uh, because
3:37nobody, you know, taking your author
3:39career seriously means you're going to
3:42be spending a lot of money on a variety
3:43of different tools. It's just a part of
3:45the investment, right? It's an
3:46investment in yourself and in your your
3:49progress and in in your book. But
3:51wherever I can get a lifetime option, I
3:54will take it assuming I I know for sure
3:56I'm going to be using that tool. uh
3:58because doing so cuts down on the
4:01monthly bill that I will have to pay.
4:03There are a few tools that I recommend
4:05that you kind of can't get around that
4:06are monthly and you're just going to
4:08have to have that. Um but if I can get a
4:12lifetime account, then I just don't have
4:14to worry about it anymore and I can
4:16continue using that platform for
4:18essentially forever. So that's why I
4:21recommend the lifetime account. I did
4:22confirm that the uh Black Friday deal
4:25that you will be seeing and the what you
4:28see at my lifetime deal in the link down
4:30below is essentially the same. So, um
4:33there are other influencers. I know
4:35Kindleer has a link to the lifetime
4:37account. Um and I have uh my own. I I
4:40don't know who else might have one.
4:42There aren't that many. So, this is like
4:44one of the best ways to get that
4:45lifetime account. All right. So, now
4:47that we've talked pricing, let's get
4:48that out of the way and actually get
4:50into the actual dashboard and what it
4:51looks like when you log in. So, there's
4:53a couple of things you can do here. Um,
4:56first of all, if you want to get started
4:58just with your, you know, uploading your
5:00story and everything, you can do that
5:01just right here from the dashboard. But
5:03before we get into this, I want to show
5:04a few things here on the on the left
5:06hand side. Let me just try and zoom in a
5:08bit here. So, we have writer's deck,
5:10which is just uh pretty much the same as
5:12where we were a second ago on the the
5:14main dashboard where you can just upload
5:16your files or start a blank a blank
5:17document uh or do a quick copy and paste
5:20of your story. But there's also here on
5:22the side you've got community. So, they
5:24actually have a pretty thriving forum
5:26essentially so that you can talk about
5:28various things. You can ask for help,
5:30you know, if you if you're stuck with
5:31something. Um all kinds of different
5:34things. There's groups for different
5:35genres. So, there's one for romance
5:37writers, sci-fi writers, non-fiction,
5:39mystery, or etc. Uh, so this is a handy
5:43place to go if you're a more social type
5:45person or if you want to uh find other
5:48people in the same genre as you to maybe
5:51do a little networking there or if you
5:53just want some, you know, some questions
5:56answered, you can go there. Next, we
5:58have the academy and this is for
6:01separate bonus courses that they offer.
6:03I recently bought one here on Romantic.
6:06Uh, but they will do regular courses and
6:08classes uh that are extra. They're not
6:11free. Uh, which is one of the reasons
6:14why I think they're able to afford some
6:16of the stuff that I'm going to show you
6:17later because I don't know how they do
6:19it. Uh, but it's probably some of it is
6:21coming from these courses that they
6:23offer as bonuses. But these are actually
6:25excellent. They get really genuinely
6:29knowledgeable people for for each of
6:31their courses. I can't speak for all of
6:32them, of course, but the ones that I've
6:34experienced so far have been really
6:36excellent and great ways to learn and
6:38expand as an author. Uh I would almost
6:41say that like you could essentially
6:44confine all of the learning that you
6:45want to do as an author to just what
6:47they have here and you would probably be
6:49fine. Uh they do have an option
6:51somewhere
6:53uh to buy like a season pass essentially
6:56or like an annual pass that will get you
6:58all of the courses that are coming up
7:00that year. And that can be handy if you
7:03plan on attending a lot of courses, a
7:05lot of classes or watching those courses
7:07because it's a significant discount if
7:09you do it that way. Uh or if you just
7:11want if there's just like one thing that
7:13you're interested in, you can just buy
7:14that one thing. Um, but I've gone
7:16through se several of these and they're
7:18they're quite excellent. And lastly,
7:20they have author services here. And for
7:22some reason, I'm not seeing any of the
7:23services here that I've seen in the
7:25past. Maybe that's just a bug on my end,
7:28or maybe they're just not offering that
7:30right now. But I have seen things like
7:32um doing edits of your first page and
7:34stuff like that, getting an actual human
7:37to to give you advice on on certain
7:40things. I'm not seeing that right now,
7:41but maybe that'll be uh different in the
7:43future. So, let's go back to our main
7:46dashboard. And um before we actually go
7:50through and upload a document and show
7:52you everything that I could that you can
7:54do there, uh I want to show you this
7:56feature here really quick, which is on
7:58story ideas and planning. So, if you're
7:59interested in this, you can go ahead and
8:01click on it and you can say uh do we
8:04have a new fiction story idea or a new
8:06non-fiction story idea? Because
8:07Autocrate will do both fiction and
8:09non-fiction. It is geared primarily for
8:11any kind of long- form book essentially.
8:15It's it's not really a good editor for
8:18other types of writing that are not long
8:20form books, but it will do fiction and
8:22non-fiction books, right? So, let's just
8:25go with fiction for now. And this is one
8:28of their AI features, but it it's also
8:30something that you can just do yourself.
8:32So, uh let's start by just saying um uh
8:35story premise. I can add this in myself.
8:38Uh if if I wanted to, I could just go
8:40ahead and click this little button right
8:41here and it would generate a random
8:43topic on anything that we could think
8:46of. It would be completely random, but I
8:49don't want it to be so random. So, I'm
8:50going to say I want to write Well, hang
8:54on. Um uh this isn't a prompt, so
8:58instead I'd probably phrase it like epic
9:00fantasy story set on a barren world.
9:06Whoa, I can't spell world that is tidily
9:11locked with another planet almost like a
9:15moon except the two planets are almost
9:19equal in size. The story is about a
9:24young man who is exiled from his home,
9:30one of the few safe places on the
9:33planet, and goes through a Count of
9:38Monte Cristo type story line. I would
9:43probably spend a lot more time on this
9:44if I were taking it seriously, but we'll
9:46just start with that. Target genre. So,
9:48I've already mentioned that this is an
9:49epic fantasy story. So, it should, if I
9:51go ahead and select this, it'll give me
9:54the target genre. So, yeah, epic
9:56fantasy. Sub genres: revenge or
9:57redemption drama, science fantasy due to
10:00the unique planetary setting, adventure,
10:02or coming of age. Uh, I'm going to
10:04remove the science fantasy because it is
10:06much more of a fantasy, but other than
10:08that, it did a decent job. Uh, target
10:10tropes. This is definitely something
10:12that we want to look at. Exiled hero,
10:15revenge quest, coming of age journey,
10:16double planet setting, lost safe haven.
10:18So, it's pulling all of this just from
10:20that little story premise. And I could
10:22keep going and just start with like the
10:24general geography, right? So, this one's
10:27probably going to it's going to get a
10:28good sense of what it needs from that
10:32initial premise. And yes, it did. But
10:34then it went on to elaborate more
10:35things. And then I could just go in here
10:37and continue and expand on it further,
10:39get more detailed, etc. and then
10:41continue on with all of these other
10:43things. And if you just go through this
10:45systematically, you will end up with a
10:47pretty solid idea. And I actually think
10:50even though autocrate is more of an
10:51editing tool, I think if you're in that
10:54initial brainstorming phase, uh this
10:57could be a really really good place to
10:59start. I would almost recommend going
11:00through this process more than any other
11:03AI tool I know out there just for that
11:05initial brainstorming because it walks
11:07you through every moment of that that
11:10you want to check out including like key
11:13moments in your outline. Um uh you can
11:16uh create story beats. You can have like
11:19different characters here like your main
11:21protagonist, your antagonist. All of
11:23that can all be generated here. And so
11:25if you're just in that brainstorming
11:26phase, I I would strongly recommend
11:28starting with something like this. And
11:30just for those interested in
11:31non-fiction, the same is the same
11:34process is here as well, but it's a
11:36little bit different because now we're
11:37talking about a topic rather than a
11:39general premise. We have things like the
11:41audience avatar uh and the author's
11:44background and your outline and
11:46different things like that. Uh so it's
11:48the same idea, but obviously different
11:51for non-fiction. Okay, so that is the
11:55story builder option. So, back to our
11:57dashboard. Let's actually bring a file
12:01into here and actually get started on
12:04it. So, I have this book that I'm
12:06working on right now um called The
12:09Spoils of Anwin. It's a kind of epic
12:11fantasy arthurian thing in a series I
12:14have called The Rise of King Arthur. And
12:16so, I've got it here in a Google doc. I
12:18generally work in Google Docs a lot for
12:21what I do. Um, especially given the
12:24automations and things that I run. Um,
12:26so I'll just go here and I'll click
12:28download. We'll download it as a
12:29Microsoft
12:31uh word file. So that has been
12:34downloaded and all I have to do now is
12:36upload the file. Go ahead and drag and
12:38drop it into here. Now, one thing I
12:40recommend when you are uploading a file
12:43like this is if you go to like this
12:45original file I have, I've set these
12:47chapters here as H2 headings. Up here,
12:50it says heading two, right? Let me zoom
12:52in a little bit so you can see that
12:53better. So, heading two for each of the
12:55chapter headings. Um, what this does, it
12:58makes it a little bit easier for a tool
13:00like Autocrit, and not just Autocrit,
13:01but other tools where you need to import
13:03a manuscript. Um, it's it makes it
13:06relatively easy for them to be able to
13:09detect where the chapters are. So, you
13:10can see here it's figured out that
13:13chapter 1 is right here and it gave it
13:14the right heading. If we scroll down
13:17here, we have chapter 2 and it should
13:19I'm not going to check everything right
13:20now, but I'm pretty confident that it
13:22will have all of the chapters properly
13:23labeled because I did that. Now, it will
13:26do its best if it's not labeled. Like,
13:28it'll search through things, but it
13:30might miss some stuff. So, that's why
13:31personally I think it's always a good
13:33idea to have your uh your headings
13:36labeled as H2 headings. Uh that's that's
13:38just the the part of me that was an SEO
13:40expert before getting into all of this.
13:43Uh that's that's just how I how I
13:46learned and it it keeps everything tidy.
13:49Okay. Um so, we're not going to go into
13:51all of the different things that
13:52Autocrit can do for you here, but I am
13:54going to go and just give you an idea.
13:57So you'll see up here at the top there
13:59is a variety of different uh reports
14:02that you can look at. So if I click on
14:05dialogue, we have like dialogue tags for
14:07example. If I click on this, this little
14:10uh thinker will pop up and it'll proceed
14:13to give you a report on dialogue tags.
14:16Generally speaking, you want your
14:17dialogue tags to mostly be said or
14:20asked. Uh because anything else tends to
14:23distract the reader a little bit.
14:24reader's eyes are accustomed to just
14:26seeing said and asked. Um, contrary to
14:29what some people will tell you that you
14:30want something some people will say you
14:32want something more uh interesting than
14:34said or asked, but that's actually not
14:37what a like professional writer or
14:39editor would tell you because most
14:42things uh you have uh significantly more
14:45said than asked. All right, so here we
14:47go. We can see in my thing I have 523
14:51said and asked in fantasy books of the
14:54same rough length you'd be looking at
14:57570.
14:59So we're close there. And then we do
15:01have others a we have a few more others
15:04than we'd like. We'd probably want to
15:06get this down a bit. What you can do now
15:09is we can go here and say oh there's a
15:11lot of muttered.
15:13So, we probably want to bring down the
15:15number of mutters that we see cuz
15:16there's 76 of them, which is actually
15:18quite a lot. And um and you know,
15:21whispered and some of these could be
15:23okay, but I would probably say, "Okay,
15:28we should go through and and check some
15:30of these out." So, Maddock reached out
15:32and touched the ship's railing. Watch
15:33over us, Artha. And he muttered. So,
15:35instead of that, I would say he said
15:38almost to himself. you know, we don't
15:41really need to know that he muttered,
15:43right? And so that's just an example of
15:45one different type of report that it
15:47does. There are like dozens basically.
15:50Um there's sentence variation, pacing,
15:52paragraph variation, chapter variation.
15:54Um there's adverbs, passive indicators,
15:56tense consistency, showing versus
15:58telling, cliches, redundancies,
15:59unnecessary filler words. These can all
16:01be great ways to do kind of a
16:03essentially a line edit of your book.
16:05And now you do have to go in and
16:07manually change things yourself. there's
16:09no AI yet that will like make those
16:12changes for you, but uh they're very
16:14good at identifying things. Um and so
16:18that those are that's essentially what
16:20Autocrit was before AI came around is
16:22they had all of these reports and it was
16:24very good at kind of giving you a sense
16:26of what you needed to improve. There is
16:28here under analysis this combination
16:30report where it'll essentially run all
16:32of the reports and it will give you a
16:34sense of which ones do you need to work
16:36on the most. So you don't have to worry
16:38about doing everything here because
16:40that's a lot of work and a lot of
16:42headache. You can just go here to the
16:43combination report, hit it and see where
16:47you are weakest and then maybe go work
16:49on that one. Um and you know that's just
16:51a a good way of prioritizing where your
16:53work goes. But last but not least, I
16:55want to talk about some of the AI
16:56analysis reports that you can do here,
16:59which I've done a video on this before,
17:01but I want to just kind of talk about it
17:02a little bit more. And to do that, you
17:04go over here to this icon that says
17:06story analyzer. So, if I click on that,
17:09there's a alpha b uh we have alpha and
17:12beta readers, and we have the story
17:14analyzer plus, which is essentially a
17:16big developmental editor for your book.
17:18So, if you click on that, for instance,
17:20I'm not going to go through all of
17:21these. Um, but this one, you can do like
17:25a full analysis. I'm going to go ahead
17:27and hit start. This will take some time,
17:28but it will actually go through and
17:29analyze the whole entire book and give
17:32me a decent sense of what needs to be
17:34fixed on a developmental level. Uh, but
17:37there are other things here under story
17:39analyzer that you can check out as well.
17:40The alpha and beta readers are
17:41interesting to get a sense of what your
17:44ideal reader might think of the book.
17:46So, not just any random reader, like if
17:48if you want to make sure your genre is
17:50on point, that you've got the right
17:51tropes and that you've got the right um
17:56uh the right genre conventions and stuff
17:58like that. You want to make sure that
18:00you get an alpha reader or a beta reader
18:03uh AI virtual one of course that
18:05understands that thing and can give you
18:07a quick read and see like where are you
18:08messing up, right? And these are all
18:10programmed by people that have a very
18:12solid understanding of different genres
18:15and who are developmental editors
18:16themselves. I know Autocrate has
18:18developmental editors working for them
18:20doing a lot of this stuff uh and helping
18:22out in the back end. But one of the
18:24other things I'm super excited about is
18:26this tool here called Market Fuel. If we
18:28click on that, this will actually help
18:30you in the process of creating a blurb
18:34or marketing copy for your book. It'll
18:37actually analyze your book and create
18:38different things. Um, everything from a
18:42blurb, so your your front and back stuff
18:45to uh keyword possibilities, which you
18:48can then plug into a tool like Publisher
18:50Rocket to see how good those are. Um,
18:53it'll give you likely Amazon categories
18:55where it'll uh belong, as well as bicep
18:58categories, which is all useful when
19:00you're publishing your book. um
19:02potential lead magnets, stuff that you
19:04could create to get people interested in
19:07joining your email list based on like if
19:09they've read this book and they want to
19:11know more and you could do that.
19:12Potential hooks. Like there's all kinds
19:14of stuff that you can generate here
19:15inside of the market fuel. This is all
19:17generated with AI. And like I said, AI
19:20usually costs a lot of money, but if you
19:22get the lifetime account that I've got
19:24uh linked down below, uh you won't have
19:26to pay a recurring subscription. This is
19:28why I don't understand how autocrit
19:30actually affords this. And uh my guess
19:32is they're probably going to bump up the
19:34price eventually. Uh they already have
19:36in the past, but I wouldn't even be
19:38surprised if they stop doing the
19:40lifetime option because that's really
19:42not sustainable very well for people
19:44using AI. Uh because AI costs money
19:46every time you use it. And if you're not
19:48paying for it, then they are. Um so I
19:51think that's pretty pretty wild that
19:54they're able to do this. I've I've
19:55talked to them before. I'm just like, I
19:56do not know how you afford that. and
19:58they won't they won't tell me their
20:00secrets. Uh [laughter]
20:02but that I know that's sounding a little
20:03bit salesy for their stuff. Uh like I
20:06said, this is not sponsored by them. Uh
20:08but I am hoping to do a number of videos
20:10in the future kind of giving you an idea
20:13of how this all works. So hopefully
20:15we'll be able to do some of that uh very
20:17soon. And until then, hopefully this
20:21video has been useful for you and I will
20:23see you in the next