Artificial Intelligence Co-Wrote a Great eBook With Me. It Took Only 6 Hours.

One 30-minute tutorial, 6 hours, and 22,000+ words later, it’s actually usable content.

Recently, I wrote about my second investigation into the controversial but fascinating world of artificial intelligence writers. If you missed the great A.I. experiment I completed last year (30+ articles in various styles of writing), you can find that here:

If you missed the article I wrote last week, peek into my second attempt at A.I.’s fiction capabilities here:

In a nutshell, A.I. writers continue to improve, and quickly. It’s amazing what I’m seeing now compared to this same time last year.

Last Year’s A.I. eBook Experiment

Last year when I did the multi-month A.I. experiment, I did attempt to co-write eBooks. It was a somewhat mundane experience that involved very active participation on my part. I had to direct every detail of the eBook, and then closely double-check the outputs. A lot of gibberish was generated. Random, untrue facts were spawned. Sometimes the robot would just veer off course and start writing about another topic. And if the subject matter was too new and did not have strong, representative content online already, there was a good chance the results weren’t what you wanted at all.

The eBook experiment from last year was a partial success in that I was able to get some decent content. I ended up with ~10,000 words. It was a painstaking effort, however, and it took several hours. The eBook I started last year never got formally published, as it was truly for experimental purposes. I’m guessing 25–33% of it was usable content.

Looking back, for whatever reason, I chose not to write about that experience in detail. I was new to A.I. writers back then and wasn’t confident in my abilities to use the platforms.

This year, however, is different. I’m more educated, have lower expectations, and the A.I. writers have advanced capabilities. The eBook writing experience is smoother and my results this time are something to write home about.

This Year’s A.I. eBook Experiment

As I mentioned last week with my fiction experiment, I chose to use the popular A.I. writer Jasper for this experiment. It’s a popular robot writer that I first tried in 2021. Jasper was giving away crazy amounts of bonus credits last month so I took advantage of it. Whatever I had left over after my fiction experiment, I used to test out a new eBook.

Jasper has a library of public YouTube videos and “recipes” that users can learn from (templates for writing different types of content). I found several videos on writing informative, non-fiction eBooks and settled on a half-hour tutorial on their site’s archives.

This tutorial + my follow-along experimentation during the tutorial took ~1 hour to complete. This effort resulted in a list of eBook titles, a book outline, and a set of commands + the process for how to co-author the content for each chapter. Here’s the tutorial I followed:

Once I got my feet wet, I spent another 5 hours thinking through and co-authoring the eBook with Jasper. This involved me prompting the robot to write paragraphs of information. If I had to describe this process, I would say it’s like a pyramid. You start at the top with one topic, then keep drilling into all the elements of each potential subtopic underneath. You feed both high-level and detailed information to the robot writer about where you want it to go, and it just starts writing content…that’s usable.

A few times I did have to start the paragraph with my own sentences after a few failed attempts so the robot could learn my intent. Once you understand the mechanics of how the robot writer works, you create the lanes and the robot does its best to stay within those lanes but also takes into account what your overall vision is. This was a huge step in the right direction from last year.

The robot writer of today did not require as much micromanagement as the one last year, just a lot of time to complete the content for all chapters. Last year I had to tell the robot writer to “write multiple paragraphs on why readers should read this specific book”. This year I could just type “why should readers read this book?” and the robot ran with that prompt and generated hundreds of words over several paragraphs in seconds.

For this year’s experiment, I decided to select a topic that I’m actually an expert on, a subject matter that has been floating around the internet for over a decade. The resultant writing gave pretty good results. I tested it further by poking it for expert tips on the topic and my robot writer was able to produce accurate content that matched my professional experiences. I was astounded by the accuracy I saw. Part of that success is due to the prolific topic I chose, and part of that is due to the now advanced abilities of these A.I. writers. I was pleasantly surprised.

Here’s an example of one of the outputs (with some of the words intentionally masked, as I do plan to convert this into an eBook someday). This is under the introduction chapter about who the book is and isn’t for:

This book is not for those who are looking to make a quick buck or have unrealistic expectations of making millions overnight. It’s also not for people who aren’t willing to put in the effort and time it takes to create [x, y, and z]. This book is focused on creating a sustainable [a, b, and c] and requires dedication, hard work, and patience. If you’re not prepared to commit yourself fully and stay consistent with your efforts then this book may not be suitable for you.

Concluding Thoughts

Last year I would’ve said the eBook I attempted to write would have required months of editing to get to a publish-ready state. This year, 50%+ of what was co-authored is good content and can be used in the final eBook. However, don’t get me wrong, it’s not publish-ready right now. It’s still rough and needs a good edit. But if I put my mind to it, we’re talking weeks, not months, to polish this draft.

We’re not at the point with A.I. where you can prompt it with something like “write an eBook about x, y, and z” and the robot just writes the whole thing for you. I intentionally use the terms “co-write” and “co-author” in this article because that’s what’s really happening here. I’m the brains and the robot is my grunt worker. You have to be the visionary and the one who knows how to write a decent book. The robot is just an order-taker and can help you fill the void with decent-sounding words.

After 2 years of working with A.I. writers, I see even more today why they’re becoming more popular. I’m almost tempted to jump on the bandwagon. The prices are dropping on subscriptions (and ChatGPT is even free for now), new A.I. writing platforms are coming out, and the technology as a whole keeps getting stronger. Companies and individuals can pump out words at a fraction of the cost. It gives me pause (as it did once before) on what direction I want my writing journey to take.

Resources

If you’re curious about Jasper’s capabilities, here are some YouTube videos that will give you an idea of how Jasper is being used in an informative, non-fiction eBook context. However, be forewarned that these videos are from a year ago. Jasper has most definitely gotten better since that time.

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