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> produced nine books Mmm. Nine books in five years plus doing tons of other stuff? I don’t know anything about the specifics of this situation but have seen e

> produced nine books Mmm. Nine books in five years plus doing tons of other stuff? I don’t know anything about the specifics of this situation but have seen enough of the publishing industry and of the influencer/executive/thought-leader side of it that I can assure you the normal way someone in those positions writes nine books in five years is by writing zero books. “Producing” is the right term indeed… maybe. Usually they outsource that to one company or another as well (or start a company for it and have someone else run the company, too—I’ve seen this, lol). They provide an outline and final say on each chapter.

safety1st 2y ago
Sure, probably all true. Who cares? "Producing" a book with the help of a team is also a greater career achievement than not producing one. If I look at which I would be more proud of - producing a book or doing nothing - it's pretty obvious.
- vundercind 2y ago
  You can do it how they do it pretty easily with chatGPT. It’s brought the process within reach of the DIYer who doesn’t want to or isn’t able to (time constraints; skill problems) actually write a book. That’s how the companies that write these for them do it now, so it’s not even a worse process—ghost writers are gone, ChatGPT does the first draft of each chapter, with some of the money saved on writers going to (way) more editor hours than they used to need. If you’re decent at prompting chatgpt you can do that part yourself, then you can hire the editing out ($5k-$15k, depends on the length of book and how good the editor is) or also DIY that if you’re good at it. Pro tip: keep using ChatGPT during the editing, it’s great for normalizing tone after you’ve changed stuff. Or if you don’t need to save cash, just do what others in that position do and hire the whole thing out. $25k-$50k and 20-40 hours of personal time spent and you can “write a book”. Depending on the topic and how much you care about the final product, the time investment part can go under 10 hours, if that’s your preference.
  - safety1st 2y ago
    Amazing comment

safety1st 2y ago

Sure, probably all true. Who cares? "Producing" a book with the help of a team is also a greater career achievement than not producing one. If I look at which I would be more proud of - producing a book or doing nothing - it's pretty obvious.

vundercind 2y ago
You can do it how they do it pretty easily with chatGPT. It’s brought the process within reach of the DIYer who doesn’t want to or isn’t able to (time constraints; skill problems) actually write a book. That’s how the companies that write these for them do it now, so it’s not even a worse process—ghost writers are gone, ChatGPT does the first draft of each chapter, with some of the money saved on writers going to (way) more editor hours than they used to need. If you’re decent at prompting chatgpt you can do that part yourself, then you can hire the editing out ($5k-$15k, depends on the length of book and how good the editor is) or also DIY that if you’re good at it. Pro tip: keep using ChatGPT during the editing, it’s great for normalizing tone after you’ve changed stuff. Or if you don’t need to save cash, just do what others in that position do and hire the whole thing out. $25k-$50k and 20-40 hours of personal time spent and you can “write a book”. Depending on the topic and how much you care about the final product, the time investment part can go under 10 hours, if that’s your preference.
- safety1st 2y ago
  Amazing comment