Full transcript
0:00Writing a book the old-fashioned way is
0:02very difficult, even if you've done a
0:05lot of it. I personally wrote 14 books
0:08the traditional way before burning out
0:09hard around 2019, and it was only then
0:12that AI came into the picture a few
0:13years later, and I realized that not
0:15only did it solve my burnout, but if I
0:18were to continue writing like I used to,
0:20I would be sabotaging myself on purpose.
0:22So, in this video, I'm going to show off
0:24my entire AI stack that not only makes
0:26it easier to create, but actually allows
0:29me to do more than I could have ever
0:31done before. Before I get into the first
0:33tool, if you're one of those people I
0:35see in the comments occasionally that
0:36says that art should be hard, let me
0:38tell you, I used to think the same thing
0:40as well. But, I then came to realize
0:42that if you think something should be
0:43hard, it will be. And if you think
0:45something will be easy, it will likely
0:47be that, too. The mere act of thinking
0:49something should be hard is actually a
0:51form of self-sabotage, or at least it
0:53was in my case. Every major leap forward
0:55in both my life and my business has come
0:58because I've chosen to just chill and
1:00take it a little bit easier, and that's
1:02when energy starts to flow. If you're
1:04still doubting, let me ask you this. Are
1:06you a creator, or are you the labor? It
1:09used to be that creation required some
1:10of both, but AI has managed to get to
1:13the point where it handles the labor
1:15pretty well, but it's not so good at the
1:17thinking, the part where actual creation
1:20happens in your own mind. And since art
1:22has forever been that intersection
1:24between the human mind and technology,
1:26anyway, I discovered from my own burnout
1:28experience that we can actually take a
1:30lot of the headache out by merging the
1:32two together. So, let's dive in into the
1:34tools that I recommend to make your life
1:37much easier. The first tool that I
1:39recommend for all writers out there is
1:42an internet-aware chatbot. Now, most of
1:45you are probably thinking, well, this is
1:47absolutely nothing new. Why are we even
1:49talking about this? But, I have found
1:51that I get the most value for most areas
1:54of my life from a simple chatbot. This
1:56is one of the reasons why ChatGPT
1:58exploded when it came onto the scene.
2:01It's just a darn useful tool. Now, these
2:03days, I don't recommend ChatGPT. The two
2:06that I would recommend to you are
2:08Claude, specifically Claude Pro, the $20
2:10subscription, and Perplexity. I would
2:12also recommend the $20 subscription for
2:14Perplexity. Let me show you a little bit
2:16about what they have. Both of them, you
2:18can tell it's just a very simple chat
2:20interface. They look very similar to
2:22each other. The reason I recommend these
2:23two is that they are the ones that I
2:25think have best cracked the usefulness
2:27for just human interaction, the way
2:29humans actually need things, and uh
2:32integrating into your life and your
2:34office and all of that. I used to
2:36recommend Perplexity almost exclusively,
2:38because one of the things Perplexity can
2:40do, if you see here, I can select a
2:42model, and there are multiple models to
2:43choose from. Like, if you enjoy the
2:45Claude models, you can actually get
2:46Claude here inside of Perplexity. But,
2:48if you like the GPT models or the Gemini
2:50models, you can get those, too. They
2:52also have their own proprietary models,
2:54and Claude doesn't do that. Claude only
2:56gives you access to their own models.
2:58And, the reason I don't recommend
3:00Perplexity as much as I used to is
3:02because due to their terms of services,
3:04you can't actually use anything from
3:06Perplexity for commercial use. That's a
3:08big hang-up for me, because here on this
3:11channel, we do a lot of writing with AI,
3:13a lot of that co-creation, and
3:15Perplexity doesn't allow you to use that
3:17for commercial use. However, if you're
3:19only going to be using a chatbot for
3:21everything non-writing related, cuz when
3:23I get to tool number two, we'll talk
3:25about something that you'll use instead
3:26for most of your writing, then
3:28Perplexity is absolutely fine. I use it
3:31primarily, it's my number one chatbot
3:33that I use for most of the tasks that I
3:35need it to do, mostly regarding
3:37research, as a kind of Google
3:39replacement, and various other odds and
3:42ends that I need AI for. And, that's one
3:44of the great things about a chatbot in
3:46general is that it's a great catch-all
3:48for everything that you could possibly
3:49need. It might not be as specialized in
3:51any one area or another, but it's good
3:54enough in almost everything that it can
3:56be extremely useful, which is why I
3:58recommend it. So, if you don't think
3:59you're going to be using a chatbot for
4:02any kind of actual content creation,
4:04then Perplexity is definitely the one
4:05for you. If not, I recommend Claude,
4:08which tends to be the best one for
4:10content creation. I say tends to. It
4:12also happens to have a lot of really
4:14good integrations with other things, and
4:16it's connected to the internet just like
4:18Perplexity is. Although, I don't think
4:20it does quite as good of a job that
4:21Perplexity does at citing its sources
4:23and doing that research quickly and
4:26efficiently and all that. Claude is also
4:27known to throttle people, so if you're
4:29using it a lot, you may be told to come
4:31back later. And I've never run into that
4:33issue so far on Perplexity, although I
4:35think they are clamping down a little
4:37bit on some of their usage. So, once
4:39you've picked a tool that acts as your
4:41catch-all for everything that you could
4:43possibly use, we do need to get some
4:45tools that are more specific. So, this
4:47leads me to tool number two, which is a
4:48writing-specific
4:50wrapper tool. And when we say wrapper
4:52tool, we're talking about a tool that
4:53just harnesses AI in a specific way. And
4:56we call that the wrapper. It uses the
4:58AI, but it puts a sort of fresh coat of
5:00paint on it that is specifically
5:02designed for a writing workflow, for a
5:04coding workflow, whatever kind of
5:06workflow you're looking for that's
5:07specialized in that thing. For this
5:09channel, we are most interested in a
5:11writing-specific wrapper tool. And right
5:13now, there are three, soon to be four,
5:15big ones on the market. The first that
5:17I'm going to talk about is Raptor Write,
5:19which is kind of simple. It doesn't do
5:21much, but it has the advantage of being
5:23free. And it's definitely one of the
5:25ones that I recommend to a beginner who
5:26has no idea where to start, and they
5:28just kind of want to play around with
5:29something. It is free, although you do
5:31still have to pay for any tokens that
5:33are generated inside of the tool, which
5:35is true of all but one of the tools on
5:37this list. The second one that I
5:38recommend is Novel Crafter. Novel
5:40Crafter was one of the first out of the
5:42gate and one of the most used by a lot
5:45of people. I used it myself very heavily
5:48before until I switched to something
5:50else which I'll get to in tool three.
5:51But if you are someone that wants hyper
5:53control over every single detail of your
5:56workflow and have it come together in a
5:58way that's pretty seamless, NovelCrafter
6:00might be the one for you. However, the
6:01only downside of NovelCrafter is of all
6:03of the ones on this list, it is probably
6:05the one with the highest learning curve.
6:08It's perhaps the most powerful and most
6:10flexible, but a extremely high learning
6:12curve for getting into NovelCrafter. The
6:14third wrapper tool that I recommend is
6:16Sudowrite. This one's a little bit
6:18easier. They try to be kind of the Apple
6:20of these AI writing tools. The only
6:23issues that I have with them is that
6:24they are much more of a closed ecosystem
6:26and they're kind of clamped down on the
6:28way you should do things and there's not
6:29as much flexibility inside of their
6:31platform. Additionally, they have a
6:33different pricing model where you're not
6:35paying as you go, but you're actually
6:37paying for credits as you have to use
6:39those credits or you lose them. There
6:40are some plans where you can keep them.
6:42That's not going to last forever. So,
6:43there are some things about Sudowrite
6:45that I don't like as much. They did have
6:47this tool called Muse. It's their own
6:49proprietary fine-tuned model that was
6:51very, very good when it came out. But
6:53these days the moat between that
6:55fine-tuned large language model that
6:56they have and the other large language
6:59models that are coming out just
7:00generally and accessible to everyone has
7:02kind of been lost. So, they really don't
7:04have as big of an advantage as they used
7:06to. They are also one of the pricier
7:07ones on this list. So, it's something to
7:09look at. A lot of people are really
7:10passionate about Sudowrite and I love
7:12the the people that work there. I've
7:13worked with them myself several times.
7:15But it is one that I would only look at
7:18if you don't like the other two. Lastly,
7:19I do need to make a small confession
7:22here in the interest of full
7:23transparency. I am actually developing
7:25my own tool. In fact, by the time this
7:26goes out, it's in open beta for members
7:28of my community. Not fully ready to
7:30launch yet, but because of that, I can
7:33no longer good conscience talk about
7:35these tools in a completely unbiased
7:37way. As much as I try to, I know that I
7:39cannot actually be fully unbiased when
7:42it comes to all of these tools because
7:44some skin of my own in the game and adds
7:46a small conflict of interest. I'm not
7:47going to show off that tool just yet.
7:49I'm not quite ready for it, but I just
7:51wanted to make sure that was out there
7:53and people were aware of it. It is the
7:54dream tool that I've been trying to put
7:56together that kind of combines the best
7:58of a lot of different things and
7:59hopefully it'll be pretty awesome when
8:01you guys get to finally see it. But for
8:03now, let's just move on to tool number
8:05three which I think is has been the
8:07biggest game-changer for me in my life.
8:09So, the big one for me, and this is
8:11actually what drew me away from using a
8:14wrapper specific tool like Novacrafter
8:17or Sudowrite or those others is an
8:19automation engine. Now, there are a
8:21couple of these tools out there. They're
8:23all pretty good. They'll all do the job.
8:25There's make.com is a one that you'll
8:27hear a lot about, but the one that I use
8:29and the one that I think is still the
8:31most powerful is n8n. This allows me to
8:34put through workflows that have
8:36multi-step processes and that can run
8:38automatically that can take care of
8:41various complicated tasks. In essence,
8:43it's like having a way of creating my
8:45own software in a node-based system that
8:48does virtually anything I can think of.
8:50It connects with so many different
8:51things. As long as you're willing to put
8:54in the time and the patience cuz there
8:55is a strong learning curve towards
8:57learning n8n or even make which is a
8:59little bit easier to get started. Long
9:01as you're willing to put in the effort
9:02to get past that learning curve and to
9:04develop these things, I believe a
9:06automation engine is absolutely
9:08essential for everybody. Even if you
9:10have a writer-based
9:13wrapper tool like Novacrafter for
9:14instance or this new tool that I'm
9:16building myself, it's useful to have a
9:18understanding of how these automation
9:20engines work because there may be things
9:23you want to tweak about the workflows
9:25that you get in that other tool or there
9:27might be other workflows that you want
9:29to create that have nothing to do with
9:30those tools. They are just for you
9:31personally. For instance, I'm building
9:33one right now that goes through all of
9:35the incoming news reports that I get and
9:38different newsletters about AI and kind
9:40of summarizes them and puts all of the
9:42links in a convenient way so that I can
9:44very quickly go through and look through
9:46them. And it's just stuff like that that
9:48can be really, really useful. I also
9:50created a YouTube script generator that
9:52I used to actually monetize another
9:55YouTube channel that I have. It was an
9:56experiment, so I'm not working on it
9:58now, but I managed to monetize it in
9:59about 3 weeks, which is an insanely
10:01quick thing. The only way I was able to
10:03do that is I released a a video every
10:05day and the only reason I was able to do
10:08that is because I had a YouTube script
10:11generator that made the first part of
10:13the YouTube process very, very slick.
10:15But I also use it for writing as well.
10:18As you can see, I've got a couple of
10:19different things here. I'll show you
10:21this one for instance. This is my
10:23automation that takes an outline and
10:26generates chapters from that outline.
10:29And it's a very lengthy, multi-step
10:31process and right now the tool that I
10:33mentioned is something we're working on
10:35that actually takes what you see here
10:38and incorporates it into the tool so you
10:41don't have to learn all this stuff to do
10:43it. You can just click a button and
10:44it'll do it for you. But regardless, I
10:46think having the knowledge to build
10:48something like this is an extremely
10:50valuable knowledge to have. In fact, we
10:51even have a member of my community who
10:53learned N 8 N and then got a pretty
10:56significant promotion at work because he
10:59was doing this kind of stuff for the
11:01people he was working with. So, it's
11:02definitely a valuable tool to have and I
11:04strongly recommend it. All right, the
11:06fourth and final tool that I want to
11:08talk about today is a AI art/video
11:12aggregator. And there are a lot of these
11:14out there. The one that I personally use
11:16is called Higgs Field, higgsfield.ai.
11:18There are others like FreePik that is
11:20pretty good. But Higgs Field is the one
11:22that I'm using, it's the one that my
11:23buddy Akello is using and you may have
11:25seen some of his videos talking about
11:27Higgs Field and what you can do in Higgs
11:29Field. But basically, the value of
11:30having an aggregator like this is it
11:32kind of takes all of the major AI art
11:34and AI video models and puts them in one
11:37place so that you only have to pay one
11:38subscription for access to all of them.
11:40Doesn't cover everything, of course.
11:42Midjourney famously does not have an API
11:45and so Midjourney is not included in one
11:47of these things. That said, Midjourney
11:48has kind of been falling behind lately
11:50and so it's not necessarily something
11:52that you're going to need in the future
11:53even though I still think it has really
11:55amazing aesthetics. But regardless, it's
11:58handy to have access to any of these
12:01models at your fingertips anytime you
12:03need them. Now, this is one thing that,
12:05you know, maybe you don't need a really
12:07expensive subscription to Higgsfield.
12:10Maybe you just need something that you
12:12could do pay as you go with Nano Banana
12:13or something like that. Maybe you don't
12:15have the needs for AI art or video as
12:18much as you you might think. But I think
12:19once you start getting into the business
12:21side of writing where you're creating ad
12:23copy and ad images and you might be
12:26doing little TikToks with AI video that
12:28are based on your books. Once you start
12:30getting into that stuff, it's really
12:32useful to have a tool like this and have
12:33some knowledge of how to use it. At the
12:35very least it can help you with your
12:37branding and making sure everything
12:39looks nice wherever you are on the
12:41internet. Like I used it for some assets
12:43here that I put inside of my school
12:45community. I used it for silly stuff
12:48that I just random things that have
12:49nothing to do with my business. I've
12:51been working on this little AI video for
12:54like this 8-bit character that looks
12:56maybe something like me if I was a
12:57little bit more handsome and in 8-bit.
13:00And you know, lots of other things as
13:02you can see that I've been using it for
13:04just various assets and including video
13:07where here's that video I was
13:08mentioning. There's just a lot you can
13:10do with something like this. So I
13:11strongly recommend you check it out and
13:13have access to something like that. It
13:15can save you a whole lot of time and
13:17really boost you forward especially when
13:19you get into the marketing side of your
13:21books. Before we go, I want to just add
13:23a couple of honorable mentions. These
13:25aren't all AI tools but they're tools
13:27that I use regularly in my author
13:29business. First, there's AutoCrit, which
13:31is an AI editing tool. It's not all AI.
13:34It didn't start out as an AI editing
13:36tool, but they've incorporated a few AI
13:37features that have been really, really
13:39helpful over the last couple of years.
13:41Then there's Atticus, which is a book
13:43formatting tool. You also might use
13:45Vellum if you have a Mac, but a
13:47formatting tool is, in my mind, an
13:49essential piece of the publishing
13:51process. If you don't have a good
13:52formatter, you're probably going to have
13:54a hard time publishing to Amazon because
13:57your books are going to be a bad
13:58experience for readers. I also have a
14:00tool called Publisher Rocket that I use
14:02very frequently for research,
14:04specifically for keyword and category
14:06research to see what are people
14:07searching on Amazon and, you know, how
14:10could I potentially fill a need like
14:12that on Amazon. There's a website called
14:14Miblart, m i b l a r t, and they are one
14:18of my go-to services for book covers.
14:20They're very affordable for the quality
14:22of book cover that you get. I know you
14:23can actually go and develop book covers
14:27on a tool like Higgsfield, for example,
14:29but I found that authors who don't have
14:32design experience, doesn't matter what
14:34AI tool they use, they end up having a
14:36book that looks very unprofessional,
14:39especially when it comes to typography.
14:41Usually, that's where the problem is.
14:42And add to that the fact that authors
14:44don't always know the trends in terms of
14:47visuals on the book cover for the genre
14:49that they're writing in. Whereas, a
14:50professional designer would know those
14:52things. And so, I usually defer to a
14:54professional designer that knows what
14:56they're doing. And Miblart is the
14:57service that I use primarily for that.
15:00Last but not least, I want to highlight
15:01Suno. I added Suno as an honorable
15:03mention because it's not really
15:05something that authors need to have, but
15:07it is a kind of fun to have because Suno
15:10allows you to generate music, including
15:12instrumental music, which I have been
15:14using pretty heavily recently to just
15:16develop soundtracks and almost like a
15:18mood board, but for your ears for the
15:20books that I create. And it's just been
15:22a ton of fun. So, it's one of those
15:23things that you like it's definitely not
15:25something you have to do, but I strongly
15:27recommend at least playing around with
15:28it and checking it out. If you want to
15:30know my exact workflow, my exact
15:31prompts, even copies of all of the
15:33automations that I use, along with early
15:35access to the tool that I mentioned,
15:37check out my membership down below
15:38called Story Hacker AI where I present
15:40to you what I truly believe to be the
15:43fastest and most affordable way to
15:45produce. We're talking 12 plus books a
15:47year using AI and without sacrificing
15:50your creativity or ethics. Link is down
15:51below and I'll see you in the next
15:53video.