Full transcript
0:00It is finally time to start talking
0:02about automations on this channel. Now,
0:05I was originally going to start doing
0:07this after doing a bunch of updated
0:09tutorials for other AI programs for
0:12writers like Novelcrafter, Sudorite, and
0:15Raptorite. But honestly, I find that I
0:18have so much fun with the automations
0:20and they are personally all I use now
0:23for myself. So, I decided I'd start
0:26making more content on this subject
0:28because I've learned that we've got to
0:30just go with what lights us up the most
0:32rather than what we think people might
0:34want or need or making content about
0:36your strongest affiliate just because
0:38they pay you well. So, I'm going to
0:41start talking about automations. I've
0:43had absolutely a blast playing around
0:45with them and building new ones and I've
0:47got many many more that I've been
0:50working on and have in the pipeline. And
0:53so what we're going to be doing in the
0:54near future is I'm going to be having
0:56most of the videos that you will see
0:58coming out over the next couple of
0:59months will all be about different
1:00automations or skills needed to improve
1:03your automations. So what exactly are
1:06automations and why should we use them?
1:09Simply put, an AI automation is a series
1:11of steps the AI takes automatically,
1:14saving you a lot of time that you no
1:16longer have to spend doing multiple
1:18steps in a chatbot or something similar.
1:20And while that might not sound like such
1:22a groundbreaking thing, it really is. I
1:26have found that my ability to write
1:29quickly or to get certain tasks done
1:32quickly has skyrocketed since I started
1:35using automations. things that probably
1:37would have taken me an hour to do just
1:40by, you know, copying and pasting a
1:42bunch of prompts and other materials as
1:44well as writing my own prompts and
1:46things in a chatbot in a multi-step
1:49process to pursue to produce some kind
1:51of result. I can now do with a single
1:53click and then I can just sit back and
1:56not worry about it until the automation
1:58is done. Now, I do want to differentiate
2:00the idea of automations versus agents. A
2:02lot of people kind of confuse the two
2:04and they put the two together, but they
2:06are a little bit different. So, let me
2:08explain. An automation is just a series
2:10of steps that happen. Uh, you can think
2:12of it as a series of prompts, but it's
2:14not just AI prompting. There's other
2:16steps that could be involved there.
2:18Whereas an AI agent is really more of a
2:22uh think of it as an autonomous
2:23individual, as a sort of intern that can
2:27to a certain extent think for itself.
2:30Now, I do use AI agents in some of my
2:32automations, but I don't rely on them
2:34too heavily because in my uh use cases,
2:38they're not quite at the point where I
2:40would trust them to do much. Uh, but
2:42they do do some simple tasks for me
2:45inside of an automation. So an agent can
2:47exist inside of an actual automation
2:50whereas the automation is the full path
2:53that several AI agents or several AI
2:56prompts will all be strung together. Now
3:00a year or two ago AI was not really at
3:02the level where it worked well to
3:04automate what it did because it required
3:07far more micromanaging at every single
3:09step of the process. And while that's
3:11still the same today to a certain
3:13extent, you do need to micromanage AI a
3:15lot more than you would with say a ghost
3:17rider or an actual human, it's far less
3:20of an issue now than it used to be. And
3:22there are many steps of the process that
3:24can be fully automated. And then we
3:25bring the human in at key points in the
3:28process where they bring their own
3:30creativity to the table. That way,
3:32you're not wasting time doing stuff that
3:34you either don't want to do or tasks
3:36that are taking away from the actual
3:38creative work of the process. And this
3:41is why I tell people that AI isn't a
3:44replacement for their creativity. It
3:46actually takes away the parts of your
3:47life that are distracting you and
3:50allowing you to focus more on the
3:51creative parts or the parts that you
3:53love to do the most. And if you're
3:55interested in seeing how that can work
3:56for you, uh, go check out my StoryHacker
3:58Gold group down below to learn how.
4:01We've got a lot of resources there to
4:03build you up into a writing and AI
4:08machine essentially. All right. So, how
4:10do you do automations? I'm going to
4:12introduce you to two tools right now.
4:14The first is called make. You may have
4:16heard of it called make.com. And this is
4:19roughly what it looks like. If you check
4:20out one of the automations here, you'll
4:23see there are multiple steps in the
4:24process. And uh and it looks pretty
4:27simple overall, but you can clearly see
4:30the path that it's taking, right? And
4:32I'm going to do a full video comparing
4:35make to this second automation tool uh
4:38called N8N. And N8N works very
4:42similarly. And uh you'll have like a set
4:46of steps that'll happen and so forth. So
4:49they both function in a very similar
4:51way. And again, I will do a more
4:53detailed comparison between the two cuz
4:55there is one that I think is superior uh
4:58for authors at least and most of the use
5:00cases that authors have. But just know
5:02that while there are other automation
5:05tools out there, there's Zapier, there
5:07is uh there's one from Google that I'm
5:09the name is escaping me at the moment,
5:11but these are the two you will hear
5:13about the most and they're by far the
5:14most commonly used at least for AI
5:17automation types. And while I will be
5:20going deep on every single automation
5:22that I've made so far, I do want to kind
5:24of just show off briefly what this looks
5:26like. So without getting into too much
5:29detail, this right here is a short
5:31little automation I created that allows
5:34you to bring in a document full of short
5:36stories. Okay? So the document can have
5:38multiple short stories in it. And what
5:40it'll do is it will go through each
5:43short story individually and run a very
5:45detailed analysis of that short story in
5:48a way that is designed to help the human
5:51learn how to write a good short story.
5:53Essentially learn what is making these
5:56stories tick. And the way it works is it
5:58starts out with just a manual execution.
6:00So you click a button basically it goes
6:03and creates a new document for its
6:05analysis to be deposited into it. then
6:09in this step goes and gets the document
6:12that has all the short stories in it and
6:14it split those splits those up by
6:16headers. So it looks at the headers for
6:18each short story and now it knows that
6:21we're going to be running a prompt on
6:22just one at a at a time and from there
6:26it creates this loop that you can see.
6:28So it continues to do this loop on each
6:30of the short stories individually and it
6:33runs a single prompt on that document on
6:37each short story. Uh looking for
6:40different things like uh what's a quick
6:43summary of the short story? What's the
6:46hook of the short story? Who are all the
6:48characters that are listed in the short
6:49story? What do we get in terms of world
6:52building or the setting? What's the
6:53inciting in incident? What's the
6:55conflict? What's the magic sword? uh
6:57which is a a term that we talk about in
6:59my group. What are the different tri
7:01fail cycles? What's the climax? What's
7:04the dum ma? Um I'll have it give a
7:07couple of pros examples given some of
7:08the best examples of the pros from the
7:11book. And then this all is just
7:14formatting information on how I want it
7:16to be formatted uh in in its output. And
7:20then it takes what that output gives it
7:23and it dumps it right here into a new
7:25document uh into the one that was
7:28created here in the beginning. It
7:31updates that document and then it
7:33repeats this cycle on each short story
7:35in the document. So if you only have one
7:37short story in your document, great. It
7:39will just go through and it'll be done
7:40in one loop. But if you have say 10
7:43short stories in one document, it will
7:46just go through and repeat this process
7:47for each one. So you can just go and
7:50have your coffee and come back when it's
7:51ready. The reason I use this as my
7:54example is because
7:56um we in the story hacker gold group are
7:58very concerned with making sure we're
8:01actually improving as authors and
8:03learning what makes these things tick.
8:04So every quarter we have a challenge
8:09where we write a short story without AI
8:12and but using AI in ways like this to
8:14learn and learn [clears throat] what
8:16makes a good short story and we write a
8:18short story without AI in that in the
8:21actual writing process and then we
8:22submit it to the writers of the future
8:25uh contest. And uh we've only done this
8:28once. We're about to do it again in
8:29January. But the first time that we did
8:31it, we actually got uh three members of
8:36our group. I don't know what percentage
8:38that is of the people that actually
8:39submitted, but it's a high percentage.
8:42Uh three members of the group who
8:44actually got an honorable mention in the
8:45writers of the future contest. And if
8:47you're familiar with the writers of the
8:48future contest, you'll know there are
8:50thousands, potentially tens of thousands
8:52of submissions every quarter. and to get
8:56an honorable mention alone even though
8:58you're not you're not you're not in the
9:01top three is a still a huge honor. And
9:04so the fact that we had three authors
9:07um who got there without you know this
9:11was our first time is really incredible
9:13to me. One of the big things I think
9:16contributed to that was the fact that we
9:18used AI in this manner to help us learn
9:20what makes a good short story because we
9:22put the winners of past writers of the
9:24future contests into this automation
9:28and allowed it to sort of teach us what
9:30was making those stories so impactful
9:33and then we could go on and write our
9:34own short stories. So, it's really a a
9:36cool way that we've managed to do this
9:39process inside of the StoryHacker Gold.
9:41And this is just one of many automations
9:43that I have available. Uh, all of which
9:46are available in the StoryHacker Gold
9:48program. By the way, um, I'll just give
9:50you a quick example of another one
9:52that's a little bit more complex just to
9:54see the potential here. Um, I'm not
9:57really going to talk too much about this
9:59in detail, but suffice it to say, what
10:01this does is it takes a bunch of books
10:04in a particular genre and I it isolates
10:07all of the similarities between them so
10:09that you can essentially know how to
10:10write a book in the same genre. So, it
10:13looks at tropes, it looks at the the
10:15plot, it looks at the characters, the
10:16world building, the themes, the pros,
10:18the marketing. It looks at their books
10:20descriptions and sees what it's doing
10:21there and creates this really awesome
10:24guide. Now, this is one that I use for
10:26me in my business personally. Um, not
10:30necessarily one I share publicly, but
10:32you can just see just how complex this
10:34thing is and what it's capable of doing.
10:38So, uh really cool stuff that is uh
10:42possible with these automations and uh I
10:46look forward in the future to sharing a
10:48whole bunch of the techniques and tips
10:50that I have found work for me as well as
10:53give you ideas on different ways that
10:54you could build an automation to create
10:57in really cool things for your business.
11:00Uh, and I'm also tracking a few few
11:03things in my business, things that I'm
11:05publishing, uh, that have been largely
11:08made possible because of automations
11:09like this. People ask me all the time if
11:12I'm going to make my own software. And
11:13my answer for that, at least for now, is
11:15no. Because why do that when I can teach
11:18people how to easily create tools like
11:20these automations, each one of which
11:22could be a standalone software. If I
11:24sold any of them as a software, you
11:27would have to use it in the way I had
11:28built it. But if I teach you how to use
11:31automations, you can take my automations
11:34and make them your own, tweaking and
11:36improving for your specific use case
11:38that I could not possibly anticipate.
11:40So, I'm going to keep you in the loop on
11:42all of that and look forward to the next
11:44video where we're going to be talking
11:45about the difference between NAN and
11:47make and which one I recommend. and uh
11:50I'll see you