How to Write a Book With AI: Zachariah Stratford

Show notes

How to Write a Book With AI: Zachariah Stratford on Publishing, Storytelling and Building a Business

Almost everyone wants to write a book, and few ever finish. Publishing and AI expert Zachariah Stratford joins Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen to explain how to write a book with AI without losing your own voice, and how a book can grow a business.

Randy met Zachariah at an AI meetup for entrepreneurs. Zachariah tells how he went from entrepreneur to publisher, what he learned from a company that failed, and why so few people get their book across the finish line. He also explains why a full book carries more weight than an anthology.

Then he walks through his process. Start with who you're writing for, do a brain dump, build an outline and write chapter by chapter. Your own stories are what make an AI-assisted book yours. He also covers testing titles and covers with ads, why selling only on Amazon means you never see your readers' details, and how to structure a book of 12 to 14 chapters.

Finally, they talk about treating the book as a framework for your business, the different ways to work with him, and why helping people "know and be known" matters.

Writing a Book With AI, Self-Publishing and Selling Your Book

What you'll discover:

Why most people who want to write a book never finish
Start with your reader: the avatar
From brain dump to outline to chapters in your own voice
Testing titles and covers before you publish
Why selling only on Amazon means you lose your readers
Using your book as a framework for your business

Timestamps

[00:00] Welcome: Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen with Zachariah Stratford
[01:39] How Randy met Zachariah at an AI meetup
[03:07] Writing a book in two years, or much less
[04:37] From entrepreneur to publishing
[06:05] Building a publishing company around AI
[07:32] Why most Americans want to write a book
[09:01] Everyone has a story
[10:29] Books vs podcasts as influence
[11:57] A full book vs an anthology
[13:27] Lessons from a company's downfall
[14:55] Getting authors across the finish line
[16:24] Early experiments writing books with AI
[17:53] Start with who you're writing for
[19:20] The brain dump, then the outline
[20:51] Personal stories make an AI book yours
[22:21] Testing book titles and covers
[25:15] Ad results and click-through rates
[26:45] An app built on three years of prompts
[28:13] Why selling only on Amazon loses your leads
[29:41] A systemized process
[31:11] Helping non-technical people write with AI
[34:06] Live events, marketing and prompting
[35:33] Step one: the avatar
[38:31] Talk about their problem, not your solution
[39:59] Your book is a framework for your business
[41:28] Structure: 12 to 14 chapters of 3,000 to 4,000 words
[42:57] Writing chapter by chapter
[44:26] An outline in your own voice
[45:55] When AI becomes a friend
[47:24] Taking responsibility for how you communicate
[48:52] Building your own AI coach
[50:20] The clients he worries about
[51:50] Simplifying the steps with AI
[53:18] Using several AI tools
[54:49] Done-for-you and lower-cost options
[56:16] Lead magnets and funnels
[57:45] Picking a title that sells
[59:14] Tracking the funnel: calls and close rates
[1:00:43] Tweaking ads and price: it's math
[1:02:11] Who can use a book: the astronaut example
[1:03:39] Where it all started
[1:05:07] Turning a vision into chapters
[1:06:35] Helping people know and be known
[1:08:04] Ten years from now
[1:09:34] Wrap-up and resources

🌿 SPONSORED BY AG1 (Athletic Greens)

Fuel your health and performance from the inside out.

Try AG1: https://shop.drinkag1.com/tales

About Zachariah Stratford

Zachariah Stratford is an entrepreneur and the founder of an AI-integrated publishing company that helps entrepreneurs write and launch books. He met Randy through an AI-for-entrepreneurs meetup in Austin.

Find us online:

🌐 Website: https://talesofabundance.com/
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GfYV9TXuxE
▶️ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Tales_of_Abundance
🎧 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tales-of-abundance/episodes/Ep--14---Zachariah-Stratford-e2vdo6q

Hit Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Tales of Abundance. 🔔

Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:07] hello good morning good afternoon wherever it is in your time zone I am John Ober and this is Tales of onance and I am here as always with Randy Lorensen how are you Randy uh doing great you good it's I mean for us in the studio it's the new year and so uh new year new us we've got uh well same show there you go that's great new guest new guest there you go new year new guest and uh really excited about today today is a a fun episode about something I never thought I would do writing books yeah an AI I think it's books and it's AI excited about this which is how we got here right so we want to Welcome to the studio Zachariah Stratford Zachariah not Z not Zach zachar how are you man happy to be here what have you been called other than Z or Zach Z money Z dog um just Z my team just calls me Z No One Call you zizzle zizzle no I wouldn't no you would that I mean you know zizzle I guess maybe had a fun night out you you you always dress like a zizzle zizz St zizzle you could be a zizzle zizzle z yeah we're going go Zachariah we're Zachariah we're going to stick with that's great so this whole relationship uh came about because you know for me with Randy met Zachariah introduced me and it didn't start with where we're going to end up which is writing books books it started out with AI mhm yeah I I think so I was learn looking to learn about AI right and there was a group I think it was on Meetup and it was AI for entrepreneurs and and you used to you hosted these things down at the business school at the University of Texas on Saturdays and I was gone every Saturday my kid was being recruited to play football and I was in New York one week and I was in Chicago and I was I was gone and then I showed up during spring break I was actually in town it was the first time I was in town I show up and the business school is locked because it's spring break and a bunch of us are standing out there and nobody can get in right and I was and I I think I didn't meet you but I met other people there they gave me your email and I said look have you ever thought about I I'm fascinated by this topic I want to learn about AI but an AI for entrepreneur sounds fascinating but it's always on Saturday and I'm I'm just not available right have you ever thought about doing this another day and your response was well you should join my book challenge where we write a book in 5 days yeah and I was like I don't want to write a book I have no desire to write a book but the good salesperson that you are you're like look you don't have to want to write a book just you'll learn AI actually better than you will and I actually thought that made sense yeah so I joined well I'll be damned I wrote a book in 5 days it's I think the original one sucked and then as it turns out I actually did want to write a book and that wasn't the AI though that was you well the AI has helped a lot but two years later I'm still rewriting said book so um yeah again now you're in the hole Yeah but what I just want to say though that you veered off L doesn't take normal people to write a book in two years you kind of veered off to the left of where we started and and are now have a massive book that you're writing which is going to be epic and amazing when it launches and when we get it there but uh epic I the draft I saw was like 9918 Pages it's not quite that it's a big it's a big boy it was it was like it was like pillars of humanity or whatever I wrote I read a book that was like 900 Pages once in my life and I was like I just I felt like I read four books well it's the history of money in the United States it's a it's a it's not a like it's like an encyclopedia great we're going to break it up we're going to break it up but in and In fairness listeners should know that and John will appreciate this I did not necessarily follow said system so Zachariah one of the things he has an amazing system that literally if you follow it you will get a book in five days and you'll get said results well I decided I wanted to do something different than said system so um so that is yeah that's on me that is that that says there's nothing about the system I will tell you the system is fantastic and and it was me that took it a different way so but zachar it wasn't AI that got you into books I mean you've been in books and publishing it's almost I mean is it genetic for you yeah so my my uh stepdad has a publishing print on the man self-publishing company so I was never interested in publishing or books I was always a entrepreneur I was an entrepreneur before that I wanted to own my own business and um I I did I was in commercial real estate for a long time and then I invested in a cannabis company and that was in Oregon when cannabis was going wild right after Colorado and I lost everything I invested all of my money lost everything so I was kind of needed to restart and so I moved to Austin and started working helping my dad kind of Rebrand his Publishing Company Rebrand that um and from that I fell in love with the kind of the entrepreneurial journey of authors which I never thought about or knew about and it really is such a mountainous task to write a book and then people can spend months or years on that and then they get to publishing that book and that's another mountain of a task and making that book successful is another Journey as well and so I I wanted to help people do that so I I worked my way up to CEO of the of the print on demand self-publishing website we took it ASO we took it from 60,000 published titles to over 100,000 published titles and then AI came about and I was like oh this is the thing uh that's going to take people who've always wanted to write a book you know people I talk to people every day they've I've been wanting to write a book for 10 years 20 years right I hear this all the time and so I knew that that was the thing so I stepped down as CEO and then started to build my own Publishing Company where we work with entrepreneurs we integrate AI into all of our systems not just in supporting and writing the book um yeah and I love it I love what I do every day so what about when all these people want to write a book what is it what is it that draws them to that everyone has uh story right everyone has a challenging life and I think at at their core everyone wants to help and give back and provide some sort of value in the world whether that's Legacy or um sharing of their gifts or most of the time what I see is people really want to um they want to help their younger self right and so they said I've learned all this information I've gone through these trials and tri relations I really want you know to serve and help other people so they don't have to go through the same that I went through and that's that's at its core why people are writing books and then you get into the business of books and you have a you know most most good marketers or big big influencers they like okay I want a book that helps does that thing helps people but then also helps me build my business and is a lead magnet for my business so I think we're kind of in that in section of we help a lot of people that have that dream and desire I mean it's over 90% of Americans want to want to write a book they have that dream and vision and so I wonder if it's tied into the American dream in a way too of like the entrepreneurial Journey or sharing of knowledge um and then when they realize that they can create a business from it right and it can actually be a really good Revenue Source then they're even more excited so what so this is interesting to me I I'm even weirder than I thought 90% of people want to write a book I'm in the 10% that didn't yet somehow I ended up writing one but most of that 90 don't end up writing one so what what holds what holds them back why don't they so many things fear fear uh either fear of success or fear of failure right and um fear that they're not good enough imposter syndrome um they don't know they feel like they don't know what they're doing they've started and stopped a million times you know they they don't have the guidance or know how I mean writing really is a it's a profession it's a vocation right and you talk to professional writers they'll tell you like it's a there's a process you go through it's not it's not something you just kind of walk into it's like you know the guy that wants to study karate and be a black belt in a week it's not it's it's a lifetime of getting there and but you don't you don't have to have the profession of writing to write a book anymore you can use other tools ghost writers AI like there's so many things you because everyone does have a story yeah and I was talking to someone yesterday literally about this who called me and said hey I'm interested in this you know how do I do more in the world and I said you should think about writing a book and he said well what what do you mean like I he never even considered it but it's so easy today to do that I it's like an infomercial now you know but people want to be known yeah yeah I I agree and people want to be known and they want to give back and I I think a book is still the number one Authority piece that you can do for your brand or business so as an entrepreneur it's a must right nowadays there's there's there's I think the three biggest plays are social media being an influencer on social media which can take months or years to build right a big following on social media right a TED Talk which depending on your skill level of public speaking or if you can get over that Fe that's another one right Ted or Ted X whichever one and bestselling book there's no other authority play that you can make that's going to give you that level of authority unless you guys can think of one or no one I I haven't been able to I think there's a couple others you can get to you can be an A-list celebrity which I don't ever have the risk of being like I I don't I'm not at risk of being an aist celebrity um or you can be an academic with a really big following and that takes you know 10 12 15 years of schooling so right right right months and that's months or years still like a like a yeah or like a pod maybe like a podcast right a podcast influencer we're cling our but even still that's like influence that's like influencer level and that months or years to build well it's almost like it it seems and you know I've talked about this before the show it almost seems like a book is a little bit of a calling card you I went back I went so my grandfather was a public speaker he was a surgeon for years decades really successful surgeon Army Corps before there was the Air Force flight Sur and then into private surgery hospitals all over California when he retired I didn't know that he was a public speaker and as a public speaker he wrote a book chapter and someone I don't know 10 years ago gave me a copy of that book and and I saw what he wrote that he was speaking on and so he had a book because he had written a chapter and he gave that out as a part of his speaking tour so even like in the 70s and 80s this was a thing the anthologies yeah yeah yeah we were we're looking at doing we're starting to do dabble in that realm of anthologies I think it's great but but here's the thing with anthologies it's it's like a baby step to a book and now it's just just write the book Let's just write the whole thing you know cuz it's it's not much more work to write an entire book than it is to do an anthology and I still think there's something with maybe people's fear is like they want to do an anthology because they feel like they're maybe not good enough to have a full book and Anthology is like a safe play you know but I I think it's just better to have a full book well it I think the Anthology he had had some really big names at the time right so it's like if I was going to go write a book versus an anthology one argument for me might be if you know some super famous person was the headliner maybe I would be able to put my name next to their yeah that could be yeah that could be it yeah yeah Randy can we go back to something Zachariah said about he lost it all like that that's an interesting part of the entrepreneurial Journey for lots of people can we yeah absolutely I mean that's a lot of tuition you paid in Life to kind of put your entire life savings into one place and then go to zero I've done that it was painful for me I'm guessing it was painful for you oh yeah what what you know looking back have you learned some lessons that you've really taken with you that have shaped you about things that were good things that were bad whatever it might be from that instance what I really learned is I I wasn't I didn't give a about cannabis right like the cannabis industry I saw purely a money thing and I was driven by money and what I realized as I had Partners in that and I really just like let them I wasn't really involved and it was just cool to say that I wasn't you know had a cannabis company and and I think my downfall there was was leaving it to them because they were doing you know gray gr we'll call it gray Market stuff and so that led to kind of the downfall fall of the company so I wasn't very involved um and I I need to give a about what I put my life savings into I need to be invested and and either be controlling or be you know have some sort of say because I left it to a lot of other people and I paid the price for that well that's you know for somebody that's gone through the process with you that's very different than where you are now it's that's very evident to me that your give a certainly not broken when it comes to the book right and the thing right like you you really pour yourself into the process yeah yeah yeah I this I the when you see someone publish their book and they've always wanted to and that was their dream like that's why I do what I do right when when I do a lot of like challenges like the one that you were in and I haven't done one in a few months I need I'm getting back into it but to see these people like I always at the beginning of the challenge I say who's been wanting to write a book for more than a year right A lot of people raise their hand more than 5 years a lot of people raise their hand more than 10 years so a few people raise their hand 20 years and to get them that inspired and motivated and then to see some of them cross the finish line cuz not not many people do like there's people that print out their manuscripts right and have them done you know at the end of that challenge and um yeah and then the whole publishing process uh to to see them go through it it's it's that's what that's it that's why I do it yeah it it it's cool it's cool to watch the process and you know I hadn't thought that much about all the steps that go into writing a book right like when I thought about writing a book it's like well you write a book which I wasn't a writer so how do you take people like you really have a system that if people follow it it really is simple I don't want to say it's easy because it's still a lot of work and a lot of things you have to do but it's simple can you kind of just take listeners through that a little bit sure um so do you want me to go through like if they were to yeah yeah let me kind of like if they were going to go through working with my ghost riders or do you want no I I think them writing so so I'll just tell you what I remember and then you fill in you can expound on that so when I started we started out like you you really had given a lot of thought to who is the audience right the Avatar and the tone and and so I think the entire first day was spent on that as I recall yeah right so let's start there I'll dive into that so what I found and this this is this is um when when we first started playing around with AI and and writing books I worked with a guy named John Benson who's one of the top copywriters in the world um and we really dove in we spent a lot of time because this was early AI back when like Jasper had just which was conversion Ai and then it was Jarvis for a while um we really spent time on what inputs do you need to put into AI in order to get really good outputs and we tested everything so many things and what we found is when we narrowed it down it was really your avatar so who you're speaking to Niche the niche that you are writing in and primary goal and we're kind of diving into prompting a little bit and and um and how prompting works with AI but from there um I worked with we worked with him and that that kind of helped us get like just content writing in general using Ai and I was like okay how do we do this for books and so I I really spent about a year working not just with some people like Benson but you know top top um ghost writers copywriters in the world developing prompts to how do we write a really good book using artificial intelligence right and so when you came in that was kind of the you know we were good ways of working through these systems of writing writing books with AI but the the when it starts well always start with who you're writing the book for right or who you're writing the book to and that is someone like if you were to Picture This is how I tell people if you were to picture you're sitting across from someone at a coffee table and you're pouring information into them like you're lit up they're lit up this is who you know you've always been meant to serve right who is that person let's get really granular on that and then we we get a really good idea of that and we call that person your avatar are because this is who you're writing the book for this is who you're who you're going to be maybe developing courses or Retreats or all all of the backend things of what's going to actually make you money right that's this person and so you start with the Avatar right then we go into Nisha we we work we work through Avatar um once we're clear on the Avatar then we go into like your tone so how how are you using the to get the book to sound the way you want it to sound so we use tools like other AI tools like voice in capture your voice capture how you sound and then we have the AI develop kind of your your style of writing so that you can get the AI to sound like you um then from there we develop your outline so everything you want to say we work from like a brain dump so let's take everything out of your head and just get it out onto paper onto a computer and from there we take that and develop your outline and after your outline um you're with the outline you're pouring in your personal stories it feels weird to explain this not having a computer screen in front of me right and from there once you have your outline you're pouring in a lot of like your own voice so what do you actually want to talk about there's a lot of AI tools that are like one click of a button and it writes your entire book for you and those are right and they're not going to provide any value and people aren't going to like him so what I'm trying why is that I mean I I I agree but let's talk about why for a minute that's such an important Point uh yeah I what makes like my belief is that there's no real new information you look at like meditations by Marcus aelius he's talking about the same stuff like not not wanting to get up in the morning I mean he's dealing with the same problems 2,000 years ago and you look at Tony Robbins or Grant Cardone I mean they're they're kind of recy and rehashing a lot of the same information so why are there new business books that come out every single year Well the reason is is because I'm going to reach a different audience and talk to a different people than you're going to talk to Randy or you're going to talk to John right and so really what makes the difference is my personal stories my background and who I can connect with to deliver that information that's it because there's no new information and so when you're writing a book with AI and you remove the personal stories hey here's me and it's bland and and you remove who you're writing the book for and you're not really targeting their pain points their you know you're you're missing the whole entire thing of what makes a really good book a really good book you can get a book you can go to you can go to any Ai and have it write a book for you with a prompt it's just not a book that's going to work the way that people want to right yeah we do a lot of what we call paino testing and so we work with our authors to develop hey what is the true pain of the person you want reading this book and we come up with lists of pain points and statements and John we've done this and Randy we've done this what are those things that they're saying in their mind that they're strugg struggling with now we take those we test them on using Facebook ads we run ads directly to them and we test that so now I have a list of about 10 to 20 things of pain that that person is going through well if they open up a book right and every single chapter is touching on that pain what how are they going to feel I think this a really I mean this is important because you could get real data right and I remember like so um we're I'm releasing a book uh inside my business coming out in the next few weeks here and we we had 40 different covers for that book yeah and and I was like okay these are the top three for sure and then these two are definitely never going to work we don't even need to test them and it's the two we definitely did not need to test because they were so bad that were like number one and number seven and the ones that I chose were like number 45 and like number 48 because I wasn't a part of the group I was talking to right I was I wasn't the demographic but I knew that testing was going to give me information I just didn't realize how wrong I was going to be yeah so here I am like Dr. John Oberg I can tell you well but that's why we test right because the data and and and you have to be willing to be wrong right and that's such a powerful and and with AI and the way that you test you can do it so inexpensively to figure out like oh how do I actually Reach people right so if the goal is to write the book for yourself because you want to write the book for yourself then you don't need to do any of that yeah yeah but if the goal is to write a really good book that speaks to the person you're trying to engage then testing is everything so we we actually switched that process around we used to start with like brain dump and outline what do you what do you the author want to say and how do you want to say it let's draft the outline around that we stopped doing that now we do the testing first because those pain points are so so powerful and and um yeah it's a lot of fun and then the cover design you don't know how often I'm wrong John and I'll get these book covers and they're just you know I don't like them I I like pretty things I like good design and sometimes the one that wins is the most Bland the most boring the most unfun but it tests and we've done this I'll even test it again data I'll test it again and be like no that can't be right it can't be right and it comes out on top again and so it's like hey this is the data I give it to the author and I let them make the choice not they don't always choose the top one sometimes there's a few that are close and they're like hey this one I really like and it's number three or number two and they'll choose that one over the best over the one that performed the best just because they wanted to match their branding a little bit more whatever whatever that is I I think in my case there were we tested 100 20 or 130 yeah different covers book maybe it's 140 it was a ton yeah and some of them we got rid of that performed well just because I didn't think they sent the right message right I didn't think they were they were accurate enough yeah but yeah I like I was surprised what one and what yeah some of them that I thought would be do well performed poorly yeah you had 170 covers total we tested we tested about 110 of them and but but guess what you you had up until recently Randy you had the top performing clickthrough rate that I've ever seen you had like a 10 almost 11% click-through rate which means 11% of people that saw the ad clicked on it clicked on the book cover and we're like I I whatever that is I want to know more information an average clickthrough rate on Facebook is 1 and a half% for the viewers and ry's got a 10 and a half% for his clickthrough yeah that cover was epic to so get that when the book it's so so and you know um so I tried to use so a couple things I did in my I I wrote a book once without a ghost writer and it's it's so terrible that it'll never see the light of day it's just like a it yeah I could I could vomit on paper it would look better uh and then I hired a ghost riter and we didn't get all the way through the book because it was just so hard to get the process done with just a ghost and this is probably you know four or five years ago wow and then you know you and I went through the process and it was like it was meticulous right it was like it was like project managed and it went through well but there are people who don't need to have the full experience they just they're on a budget they don't want to spend a ton of time they just want to do most of the work themselves they want to use AI they may not want to sell the book they just want to have a calling card like you can do that these days like Technologies come so far that you can have a a book for a little bit more money than a business card not I mean not a ton more so if you're on a budget and you know Shameless plug we're launching an AI writing tool called author wizard. a that's coming out soon and I was going to plug it if you didn't if if you're on a budget you know that that app takes goes through the same prompts that I've worked on for the last three years right and it's just a better system than chat gbt to write the book but from there you have formatting like editing if you're going to get to edit which grammarly is a great option if you're on you know if you don't want to use it um pay someone Fiverr is also a great option you know for to hire an editor for two 300 bucks you know you get your full book edited then formatting then cover design I mean you could literally technically use Fiverr for all of those and get your book edited formatted cover great cover design done and then you're just uploading it on Amazon like publishing is not what it used to mean yeah right and if you don't care about you know I have I have my I don't like Amazon right but if you don't if you just want to get a book out you can spend maybe 500 bucks and do it right if you're really we don't hate Amazon here because well we want to you know sponsors eventually here's here's my here's my hold up about Amazon Amazon is great we publish all of our books to Amazon Apple Books and Barnes & Noble but here's a thing when you publish on Amazon think of this you're spending months years writing a book you've wanted you've wanted to poor you know you've wanted this thing for 10 years or more then you spend months years maybe you're paying you know thousands of dollars to my team to help you write the book then you're publishing and promoting and you're telling all of your friends family you're telling all of your leads anyone you've ever met to go buy the book on Amazon but then you know Amazon is not sharing any of that data with you their emails their phone numbers nothing so you're basically saying hey Jeff Bezos here's all of my hard work right and you can keep the lead right and so for building a business it doesn't make sense to focus solely on Amazon because you can't sell them you know another service you can't say thank you and send them a message you can't build that as an audience none of those things can be done um and because Amazon is going to sell them other Amazon products and so it's really a waste of a lead right and if that's what your goal is is to it's for it to support you in your business so you focus on entrepreneurs and people that are using this as like a lead magnet and generating dollars in their business and but but there's other people that have written books with you too yeah yeah yeah there's other people that like don't care as much about that like Randy you're we one of them for for example you wanted to promote the podcast and everything that you're doing here and that's fine too right we still we still every book we publish is still a bestselling book on Amazon so we still do a lot of Amazon promotions so you still use it to build your Authority um but some people still just want it as a calling card and they don't have those aspirations yeah I for me the thing that has been was really impressive about the operation like John said it was so systemized and it's literally do this do this do this but things you know the the testing of the book cover the creating of the book cover the testing of the book cover the pain points the marketing you've really thought through the entire process that I just just don't think the average person knows how to do and even authors you know when I got into this because I knew nothing about writing I started doing some research right I started Googling or asking Ai and I came across two or three articles of I don't want to throw them under the bus but well-known authors basically on AI to write yeah and they're just saying well it doesn't work and I'm reading what they're doing and I'm thinking well it would work if you worked with Zachariah right these are well-known but these are well-known people that have been written you know legit books and they're legit authors right but they didn't understand the process of and maybe they understand it intuitively but they didn't know how to prompt and how to get AI to get them the results they wanted and that's that's one of the things you do really well and and the other thing that I have to compliment I've told you this before but being in a in a a zoom call with you and people that have a hard time some some of the people literally have a hard time turning on their computer and have no technical knowledge and yet you have the patience of Job you are able to take these people with no technical ability and get them to write a book with AI yeah I mean that that's fun look I love that right you're like that's fun I love I love that heart I love that motivation it's just but but that really is I think it's one of your best abilities I asked you before the show what your superpower was and I didn't think of that then but but that patience to work with people and really that empathy and walk them through it really is really is special thanks man thank you for that I appreciate it as long as I hit on it what is your superpower I would say my my biggest superpower is motivating and inspiring people to actually believe that they can get it done like at at its core at our core our company is just we just create things right and we actually do it right we take their Vision their idea their concept that dream that they've had in their mind and we turn it into reality and so I would say that is my superpower and the inspiration like helping people believe in themselves that they can do it even working with us you know we still I still have to it's a lot coaching I still have to even our highest ticket highest paid clients it's still coaching because they have the you know impostor syndrome that comes up they you know they get overwhelmed when they're when we're asking for some certain things or diving in and we really got to just hold their hand through it and and get them to the other side well I don't want to like ask you like because I didn't we didn't prep for this but and and you probably can't share the names of some people but some of the names you've published they're big names like these are people that like listeners would know yeah and um and and so it's it's fun to be able to take those people and say Hey you can do it when right I think everybody suffers imposter syndrome at some point right or many points yeah yeah we did one that I'll share is we did um we just wrapped up with Preston Smiles uh book launch right and he's at Preston smiles and he's he's done testimonials for me so he won't he doesn't mind and we worked with him not saying that he had any of that he's a badass right and and it was a lot of fun working with him and his team um but compared to you know what what other publishing companies does he's published twice by Simon and Shuster already right and and what we did for him you know was 10 to 20 times more because where we've helped him with the systems because we're using AI I can do way more than most publishing companies and most publishing companies I'd say are not focused on digital marketing which is which is where publishing is going um it's it's you got to be a great digital marketer right now you have to understand Facebook ads you have to understand how to get click through you know how to get click through rat you got to understand how to get people to show up to a live event right and that's that's really where our focus is I think I mean so live event the the marketing stuff and then prompting like how to ask the right questions in AI to get good data back those are topics we definitely want to jump into can we take a quick break uh and then we'll come right back so we'll be right back okay welcome back well here we are with Zachariah Stratford talking about how to make books with AI you know we were talking at the break real quickly people have been writing books for 2,000 years without AI like it's and we really are in a moment of AI moving us forward maybe in the way the printing press did in in terms of Technology but I don't want to take us there I want to take us into the actual process of writing a book you know I think you said it before the break like you write the book you then format and publish the book and then you promote the book like all those things have to happen to a book that's commercially successful and we we didn't talk about like how many books are commercially successful over the last 50 years but it's not a big number yeah and so what you're doing by testing through the whole process is giving people a way to publish a book and then make it commercially successful whether it's by sales of the book or by building another business around it so let's let's take the listener through like what is it like exactly to to write a book today we know how hard it was well I think people assume how hard it was and probably rightfully so before AI right but when you're talking about writing a book like step one you said was the Avatar so you figure out who you're talking to and that takes some work like you've really got to think through there's a whole lot of questions around that to get answered yeah yeah there's a there's a few questions that you need to answer with with the prompting is and the two things that we do really well or that that you should do is obviously use AI right and then use your a voice in or something to capture your voice so instead of typing you're just explaining to the AI then it becomes more of a conversation right and so you're telling the AI okay hey and I'll just go through the ACT actual prompting hey I'm writing a book my avatar equals and then the person I am writing a book for is you know a man in his early 30s who wants to get fit who's tired of being out of shape who doesn't like the way he looks in the mirror who you know wants to look great on a beach and d d d you go through all those kind of pain points that you already know one thing I'll I'll say caveat to this is it really helps to be an expert in in your process or your own business right because it just helps you answer those questions more if you already know the person you're working for that really helps when it's harder if you're trying to fake that or you're starting a business from zero and you don't really know who you're customer is so start with hey the person I'm writing a book is uh you know man in his mid-30s da d d d da right and so so if you don't know that maybe you need to get out there and talk to some people and and see what's actually happened in the world successfully right like and let me say part of your process by the way you as I recall you asked us these things and we started with pain points but then you've got a system a whole process that walked me through asking a whole bunch of questions and the AI refined those pain points yeah tremendously well like it it really an unbelievable process I went and used it in my business I've helped other people use it in their business the same process to identify their pain points and who their ideal customer is it's the first step is a standard a avatar document like who your ideal customer is ideal customer document Avatar document right lots of people have different names for it but it's your standard at so you answer these questions and then you place a prompt so Avatar Niche the niche I am writing in is self-help personal de development Fitness weight loss um CrossFit right then the primary goal so what is the primary goal oh I yeah what is the primary goal of what is the primary goal of this person they want to wake up every morning and have six-pack abs they want to be able to take off their shirt and when they go to the beach or they want to be you know they want to look like a Greek god they want to go down the list of everything they want and you got to avoid talking about your like and that's why my thing is going to help them don't go into that just talk about this person specifically so Avatar Niche primary goal once you have that you can say hey AI give me you know answer a bunch of questions or give me a full document um about explaining everything I would need to know about this Avatar and then let the AI do its thing from there now you have your avatar document and we have prompts and and I'll have to get a you know we'll put a link in here for and I'll give the prompts away for free so now you have your avatar document okay that's your starting point this is who you're writing the book for from there you could go into Ai and say and again use your voice in Hey I this is everything I want to write about in the book or the other thing is and you said this earlier John your your book is your calling card right so what what is your if it's a calling card what is your business and what steps do you take people through in your business that's we call that a framework right so if you take this person your dream customer from A to Z what are the steps that you take them through step one they're going to you know uh we'll just stick on the diet theme right step one they're going to clean out their their fridge of all the shitty food step two they're going to do this step three they're going to go to the you know all of those steps that's a framework for your business that's every chapter of your book right and so the next step is to dump that or put that somewhere into and um tell AI hey write me an outline based on this framework right and we have prompts that that do this but I'm giving I'm trying to give people the over the overview if they want to try to do it themselves right but your your AI is trained like I can go into chat GPT and do this and I'll get an answer right but that's not the same as a fully tuned system you're using correct so so so yes you could use it and get you could move yourself forward but there is a benefit to having a tuned AI That's designed for whatever you want the AI to do that's you're hearing about an agentic world today where agents are being used for things and an agent in an AI just means that the AI is doing things on its right it's taking one step two steps three steps and it's kind of working through its own workflow and so it's it's like One Step Beyond an automated workflow yeah yeah so F yeah either you can use our stuff or you can find one on your own that there's other book writing you know ones out there none there this sorry that was easy that was easy but yes but if you're doing this on your own I'm trying to get have people understand the actual process so they start with their who they're writing the book for then they go into the outline of their book which is their framework for their business you think a book is break down a book A book is 3 to 4,000 words per chapter 12 to 14 chapters will get you 25,000 to to to 30,000 words yeah okay now now we just got to break that up an outline all right you have the framework for your business your outline is 12 chapters it's the steps in your business and maybe you don't have 12 steps so you have an intro which is one chapter the 10 the nine steps in your business plus a conclusion there you go that's your outline for your book then the then from the outline now you're just using AI to write those chapters so if you played a little bit with your tone which we talked about earlier is giving the AI some of your existing writing or talk for 20 minutes right or find a find a either podcast or a training that you've done tell the AI hey grab my tone how do I write I want you to give me a detailed explanation of my tone and how to write in this style AI is going to do that now you have your tone so you're training the AI on All These Little Things who you're writing the book for what style of writing it is and and how you um how you get the AI to sound like you and then your framework in your brain dump what the system is in your business or what you're writing about and from there you're putting that all together and just writing the chapter one by one right so from the outline you'll have the chapter plus probably four sections for that chapter and you work on those chapters I'd say here inside of the piece use a a voicein tool to give like let's say it's writing those sections for the chapter and you have four sections so one of the sections is um you you know using High high-intensity interval training to burn more calories okay and and the AI will give you a section of that well right after that you know use voice in to just start explaining what would you talk about high-intensity interval training like what what do you want to say about that section right and use voice in to just start just just you know spewing what what your knowledge is this is the difference between those one click AI books and what's going to make a a book an AI book that's yeah good for you is like taking your knowledge so yes you can get that outline and then you can start writing those chapters but I would spend time on that outline go through each section of the chapter and really pour into if you had to talk about this or do a podcast about it or do a five- minute training what would you say about that topic go through each one of those topics right down through your 12 chapters of your book and now you have a really powerful outline that's in your voice that is talking about the things that you want to talk about in the framework that you have and using your actual training from there you're using the AI to expand on that chapter to 3,000 words repeat 12 times and you're done you make it sound so easy it's easier than it used to be does does that did I explain it well okay yeah it's look from my experience I would go through and some things the AI did a fantastic job and sometimes it just missed the mark it wasn't what I was trying to say right and so I would have to go through and rewrite and then I would have the AI rewrite what you know it was like hey let's change this and emphasize this more or make this point and then have it put that into more flowery language or just iier for the reader yeah and and that's the good part in between the outline and the chapter writing once it writes a chapter or breaks it up by sections however the AI is doing it you can say rewrite this hey I don't like the way you said this or I would never say this please rewrite it you know using using your own you know using this tone or whatever it is right that's you having the conversation with the AI and that takes time and a little bit of work right but what I found is that people like the AI becomes their friend like you know one of my clients calls it chatty daddy oh I got to go to chatty Daddy and have it you know rewrite something or yeah it becomes a conversation and a relationship where it's immediate versus like working with some of our Ghost Riders who you know we meet every week we're we're giving them their content they're reviewing content it's an immediate feedback to like to creating content right and so that's where the the AI is a benefit versus versus the traditional route you one of the things the two of you both get really well is that good prompt in good information out bad prompt in bad information out and and it's going to be a real opportunity for the world to look at itself like when it doesn't communicate well yeah you know I joke with my kids like you know they sometimes talk to me in half words and and you know quarter sentences and they wonder why I don't know what they mean it's like and some of them are even grunts you know one of them jok the other day he like uh I was like yeah like I know what that means you know and it's a little bit that way with prompting right if if you send a bad prompt or or maybe said differently if you don't get the information you're looking for in The Prompt instead of blaming the computer maybe you take a look and say okay was that what I really meant or how can I be more more crisp with the question that I'm asking and my hope and this is my own personal stuff that I'm projecting into the conversation My Hope Is that AI makes us better at connecting with other humans because we have to take responsibility for how communicating because when you're with an AI it's not the computer mhm it's you yeah and so you've both really done a good job of becoming better at prompting which really means better at yeah yeah and working through the prompting too is is constantly refining those questions right and and how you ask them and and then you get a bad result and you go okay go back up okay maybe this wasn't clear you know maybe maybe I need to put this in all caps like you know always right in tone I find myself doing that sometimes or it's it's just a it's like a relationship right that's why I said that that people be it they name it their their chat BT has its own name for them or maybe it's chatty daddy or maybe something else and and they really do it becomes their friend and it's because you're going back no I didn't like this or yeah I did like this oh great job I love this keep going in this way and that's relationship building like 10one right it's so there are people that come in and they use your AIS but then there are people that that'll pay you kind of more to help them set up their own version of tone their own version of Avatar so they can say okay either I want to do it all myself I'm on a budget but they could also say look I'm I'm a little bit less price sensitive it's still less expensive than publishing a book with a ghost writer in years past but I want you just to kind of do it for me and te it and and you do all that and set up the whole process so they get their own voice once you've done that work they get their own you know uh AI coach that coaches them through pieces the writing that all you create all that yeah there's there's different levels to to um what we do and a lot of times you know most people are busy or they're just focused on their own business and they just say zachari just do it do it for me right and and that's really what we do and then we're giving them that data same steps that I teach in my my lower ticket stuff we're just doing it white glove for them and they still have to be involved obviously oh yeah oh yeah there's still involvement especially working with a Ghost Rider you know that's a weekly call and tell us about that so walk walk us through working with a Ghost Rider most people haven't done that in their life what's that like yeah um it's a for for it's a lot of fun when you can kind of step back and be the um be the eyes and and say no I like this no I don't like this right and hey let's rewrite it this way you know and you find that there's a balance that comes like some people want to write more right or they want to include more stuff of their own voice and and we have to kind of figure that balance out of what that is and some people are just like yeah it looks good I mean every week we're we're talking with them we're sending them stuff and they're like Yep looks good Yep looks good Yep looks good those are the ones I worry about because you know when they get to the end of the book are they going to be happy with it right and so it's it's a balance but my ghost riders are great they we still use AI in the process because it just helps us do more and um but you're really working with Bobby right to to Really dive into those chapters we're looking at you know what illustrations can we include what what you know what what more can we give what's you know little calls action at the end of the chapter that do we want to do and so we can do a lot more With a Ghost Rider and um build a lot more and then build that into the business like building little one-page bonuses or um um yeah yeah onepage bonuses or you know little manuscripts or a workbook to go along with the book there's because we're using Ai and a professional writer it just really opens up the gates to to what we can create yeah well you've got and if listeners if you're not getting all this that's okay like talk to Zachariah because there's there's different systems for different people right and it is he has the process figured out to walk people through right so there's a lot of steps and people can do it themselves but but he is taking those steps and simplifying them greatly with the use of AI but it's still it's still your book it's still your voice it's your message like AI is not going to just magically take the book you have to have some input but it is a much much easier process either way the more input you give it the more it's going to be of you what's really a trip and what's a lot of fun too is now how good AI is getting at matching your actual voice and so doing the audio books that's nuts and we have we have some clients that got a really grally deep voice they have accents they have everything and we use 11 laps to do the audio book um and it's amazing what it can do right and so I I'm just always amazed at where AI is going and how much more people can do with less was like for example the audio book or now they have the um your hey Jen does your AI um like you can record a what is it two- minute 5 minute video from your phone upload that to hey Jen and now you have a replica of you where you feed it a script and it will speak out that script and just like my mouth is talking so podcast are using that now to do short you know short clips I mean I might be one right now I am for sure so so you don't use one AI you're using a number of different AIS yeah we're always we're always testing and even me I feel like I don't get enough time to test I mean it's moving so quick you know Sora just came out I haven't even had a chance to play with the video creation tool like that can be amazing think of Randy with your book it's a creative non-fiction right of Sora creating a movie to go along with the book I've thought about this believe no don't do it you you got to finish the book but now we can get into character creation I mean there's so much like so if I want to do this I'm just trying to like I'm thinking about like all the different listeners if I want to get in and do this like super low budget I can come in I can essentially pay you for your AI and I can do all the work and and and you would say like here's all the steps you got to follow and I can do all the work if I want someone to have white glove handhold I can do that and so there's like that's two different levels right and there's one in between where you can come together with a group of people like kind of like a mastermind almost and I can take the AI take the process but get in a virtual room with a whole bunch of people like-minded and have that community of people and so's like three different levels am I am I capturing that right yeah there's there's yeah there's four different levels we have we we offer two kind of publishing Services now we do our our big boy White Glove right where we doing all the ads we're doing your launch with you that's for people that are serious about building the business then we do kind of your sub $10,000 you know um publishing package where it's just Bare Bones we get it out on Amazon we get it the bestseller on Amazon we get the ghost writing editing formatting cover design so simple but for those on a budget or those wanting to get that out that's there and then we have a mastermind where it's group um where you come in with a community and you're just following the steps along you get your help and then we do the AI tool is like the very lowest right which is 20 bucks a month and you get to do the prompts on your own yeah so I try and that's what I I truly wanted to give no matter what what where you're at you can make this dream become a reality and and that's really what I wanted um and that's probably why I take the time and have the patience on those live calls to really walk people through I mean there's people that go have difficulty getting on zoom and then they're in AI writing their book like that's crazy and they're 60 70 I've had 80y olds do do it and get their books done and so I just want to give those people the the gift of what it means to have a book when it's done and then people have you know for one of the things you've talked about a lot is there are some businesses that have a very particular funnel where you have a lead magnet and you draw people through a funnel and you help them monetize other parts of their business whether they're a you know doctor lawyer professional services provider have a product or have a like any of those types of businesses can work if they have an online funnel you can help them in some cases build it for the very first time Publishers historically have not done that right and and you're not saying you're an expert at like all of marketing all of social media all of online everything but as it relates to the book driving to the next part of their business the next part of their like for the one that I was doing we have a workbook that's coming out and then there's events that'll happen um my partner is running events that he that really important inside of our accounting or a consulting firm rather and so but if you have an accounting firm you can do that if you have a law firm you can do like all those things are possible right yeah the the book is a like you said a lead magnet for their higher what's a lead magnet in case someone doesn't know that terminology a a book is an easy um thing a easy or cheap affordable thing that you can give away that drives people to your other other offers and services so um let's go for example an accounting firm right a great lead magnet for an accounting firm in the sense of a book would be a um you know the 21 hacks you need to know in to get the get the how would I say this for budgeting in your business 2025 budgeting hacks right or best best budgeting hacks 2025 and this this is why we do the testing because you get all the different titles and you test the titles so that's a really great easy lead magnet and that could be a onepage thing or that could be a workbook or that could be a you know a fullon 12 chapter book and so to develop that create that that's going to you you run ads to that on Facebook right anyone who wants help with budgeting in their business in 2025 is going to click on that they're going to either get the book for free or buy the book for a dollar or $10 whatever it is right and then on that thank you page this is the most important piece on that thank you page you say hey great job and taking the first step to you know getting your accounting right in 2025 if you want a little more help you know the book is going to only do so much if you want a little more help book a call with our team and we'll see if we can help you we're offering a discount right now or something so that's at like as basic as I can get it for you know what we do for our high higher ticket people and then we're running ads we're tracking you know the cost of what it takes to get that purchase and then we're tracking the sales rate of that thank you page like how many people from there are booking calls and what's their closing rate and you know all of those things are coming into coming into play well and you know there there's so many businesses that are so sophisticated been doing this for decades and so to make that available to an entrepreneur who may not have exposure to that you know certain and there are marketing experts who'd say no you have to like you know it's and I and I you know I think that's right marketing is marketing and you might but to get started for someone who's never done it before as a first step or to build around the book like it just makes so much sense yeah yeah they're getting the authority of now I'm a bestselling author and they're getting the ability for their business to have a really great lead lead source and like you know lots of these brick and mortar or smaller businesses they want to you know they're thinking oh I need to do more social media media and they're like oh that means I got to post every day how many times have we heard that oh my gosh I got oh you got to post every day like you know my fiance is in here who's in social media so but but uh you know and that might not be a fit for most people and for most of the time that doesn't really work to drive leads to your business with Facebook ads and a lead Magnet or a book I I get results right away like you know week week one week two and then we're tweaking and it's a now it's a tweaking game okay this ad works really well we got to tweak this ad or we got to change this you know we got to change the price of the book because you know it's and then it's math yeah and so for for a business to to be able to get leads into their business right away I think it's a no-brainer yeah that's great what are give some other exam give some other examples so I I I like the idea like you just came up with an accountant right who else might use this I know you've worked with a lot of coaches yeah and people like that what I mean what just I don't want to don't talk about anything you can't or that I don't know for some reason somebody would be uncomfortable with but give a couple more examples like that yeah uh we've worked with um gosh coaches um H like CFOs right CMOS or fractional fractional employees as well use a book to you know cuz they're trying to land more clients um I mean like name any give me a list of businesses and I'll tell you which ones couldn't like do well by having a book I hard time with this like I've got one of my nieces is studying landscape architecture I'm like well you could do on landscape architecture right you could do it on another friend of mine has a manufacturing company for office furniture you could do it for that right you could do it as a lawyer you could like you know astronaut I mean I don't know about astronaut but but you could if you have a speaking business as a former astronaut you could do like I'm having a hard time like we should think of one that you couldn't do it for you have a hard time thinking one I don't think there is even employees we write books for employees because that makes them more valuable in the market right to to even if they're just focused on going up the food chain like them compared to let's say they're in a hiring role right or they're they're being looked at by getting hired they have a bestselling book that talks about everything that they want to get hired on well versus a candidate that doesn't who do you think that person is going to choose yeah I bought a book from my son my kids um that uh my son's read it I think my daughter read it too called do hard things where was two teenagers just talking about their experience as teenagers and why you should do hard things as a teenager and that who knows what they turned that book into but I mean a lot of people I know bought that book for their kids just to think about the world differently so I I'm having a hard time thinking about where a book couldn't fit I mean even teachers we we've written books for teachers kids books for teachers um you know books that she can give we wrote a book that she could hand out to her parents to follow along on the curriculum inside of the school that they can do at home like there there's so many uses for it let's let's Circle back to your motivation so you're passionate about this you weren't passionate about the canonist business right and yeah you grew up around the publishing business you got excited about AI but there's more of this there there's more there there's got to be like what what is it what where did all this stem people tick give me a second could have been something happened to the childhood growing up childhood I I think I didn't ever like um I was never the best in school I was never I didn't thrive in that situations that always did well but it was because I kind of was just smart and I didn't really need to study or anything but it the school was never a fit for me so I've always kind of felt like an and I think what I love is really seeing these people that that have had this Vision I think entrepreneurs are a little bit of an outcast too and and I I really at his core I just love helping and inspiring people and and that's it also I love creating and so to take an idea take a vision from someone I've always wanted to write a book about you x i there's so many examples right and like okay how do we do that how do we create that what do the what does the chapters look like what does the cover look like what is that how do we build that story out and then to see that created into existence is is that's my motivation is helping those people I was talking to John about this too think of how many stories that told I was talking to a guy from Bina what it I think it was Bina Faso and he wrote about the government there he was a journalist and he wrote about the government there and all the up they were doing and and then he got uh you know ostracized and they tried to send us they tried to kill him and he was you know in in um in camps and everything else and he finally escaped to America after many many years like I was talking to him and I almost teared up and like I want to tell more stories like that that aren't heard right cuz it's it's great doing a business book but also there's this piece of everyone has these crazy stories and everyone can share and build a business around it and I think that's that's why I want to do anything again my bias is anything we can do to help people know and be known in the world like it's amazing right anything we can do to help people tell their story and get more connected we're doing good things too many things in the world are pulling us apart and I think there's a lot of people that have this fear that AI is dehumanizing the world and pulling us away but this is actually a great use of AI That's pulling people together MH yeah I I think so every everybody's everybody's got stories right for thousands of years people sat around the campfire and told stories and had oral tradition you know to to pass things down and it's the first thing we did as tell stories and so it's not going anywhere and whatever medium is used to tell that story that's what we're going to do and like the advance of social media is a storytelling one of the one of the best storytellers on social media right now is a guy named Christopher Claflin and we've had a we've had a call with him I paid for that he and he's brilliant right and I think we're finding just more and more storytellers and people that connect with other people and and that's it that's all we're doing so play it out 10 years from now like what what's the mark you've made in 10 years I really see gosh I don't even know if I've looked 10 years in the um I will have continue to help people tell their stories and share their gifts at their at its core and and build businesses around it right it's you know we've helped a we've helped a number of people and R and I talk about this too is like what would a few extra thousand a month for some people do yeah it's lifechanging it's lifechanging and I want to continue to do that help people share their stories and create an income around it I think the world is going to a place where you're going to see these micro influencers micro businesses and you know one person is going to have a group of 150 250 people that pay them you know and there's there like micro entrepreneurs right that's where I think it's going and and I think we're just that I think that's I think that's a good place to wrap this up that's great man thanks so much for being here this has been amazing thank you guys continued success absolutely thank you Zar hey listeners for this and for all the stories check out talesof abundance.com we'll have links there from today's podcast links to other podcasts we've done […] thanks for being here we'll talk to you next time