July 30, 2025 • 23 mins
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions!
Ever feel like everyone has some secret book marketing hack? Most of those “shortcuts” are just expensive detours.
In this episode, I’m calling out three distractions that keep indie authors spinning their wheels. First up: Kirkus Reviews. Are they legit? Yes. Are they worth the price for most self-published authors? Maybe. But if you're hoping a $400 review is going to move thousands of copies, well, it probably won't.
Then we dive into the Amazon Bestseller badge obsession.
Finally, we'll talk about AI. As someone who edits A LOT of manuscripts, I can spot AI-generated content from a mile away. So can readers. In publishing, the long game truly is the shortcut.
***
Want to learn how to actually get your book in front of the right readers? My Amazon Ads for Indie Authors course is officially open—with early bird pricing! Now live at publishaprofitablebook.com/amazonads.
🎉 NOW OPEN - AMAZON ADS FOR INDIE AUTHORS!
Get lifetime access and early-bird pricing right here: https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/amazonads
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Write the Damn Book Already
podcast.
My name is Elizabeth Lyons.
I'm an author and book editorand I help people write and
publish thought-provoking,wildly entertaining books
without any more overthinking,second-guessing or overwhelm
than absolutely necessary.
Because, let's face it, someoverthinking, second-guessing
and overwhelm is going to comewith the territory if you're
(00:23):
anything like me guessing, andoverwhelm is going to come with
the territory if you're anythinglike me.
In short, I love books and Ibelieve that story and shared
perspective are two of the mostimpactful ways we connect with
one another.
A few things.
I don't believe in gimmicks,magic bullets and swoon-worthy
results without context, as in.
Be sure to reveal that a resulttook eight years or required a
(00:43):
$30,000 investment in ads,because those details are just
as important.
What I believe in most as anauthor, the long game is the
shortcut For more book writingand publishing.
Tips and solutions.
Visit publishaprofitablebookcomor visit me over on Instagram
at Elizabeth Lyons Author.
Hi everybody and welcome back.
(01:06):
All right, this is actually avery exciting week because,
after many, many, many, manymonths of prepping and fixing
and refixing and all the things,I have finally launched Amazon
Ads for Indie Authors.
So for a point of reference.
Today is Wednesday, july 30th,pretty sure 2025.
(01:28):
And this course I'm soincredibly excited about because
it finally simplifies Amazonads.
Now you do need to be an indieauthor, meaning that you're
either self-published or you insome way, shape or form, have
control of your book's listingthrough KDP, because you will
need to be able to get in thereto run the ads.
(01:50):
But as long as you have thatability whether you're a
self-published author or ahybrid published author who has
access to your ads account andyour book's listing on Amazon
this course is here to simplifythe entire Amazon ads process
for you, simplify the dashboardand, frankly, even if you didn't
(02:10):
want to run ads ever or yet, itcovers the first thing that
most indie authors forget, orthey just don't even know that
they need to do when it comes tooptimizing your book's listing
so that you're found more easilyand more readily by people who
(02:31):
want to find you on Amazon, whoare already trying to find a
book just like yours.
So, in the areas of keywords,categories and book description,
I have all of the tips andstrategies that I have used over
the years to help ensure thatyour book is set up as optimally
as possible to find, not tofind, but for the people who
(02:52):
want to best find your book, tofind it.
We are still in early birdpricing and I've got the link to
the course in the episode notes, or you can go to
publishaprofitablebookcomforward, slash Amazon ads and
see everything that is includedin the course.
Again, super excited.
I'm thrilled to be welcomingpeople in and I hope you will
(03:13):
join us.
Okay, so this week what I'mgoing to do is focus on some
FAQs that I've gotten over thelast couple of weeks, or couple
of months even, and the firstone is with regard to Kirkus.
So if you're not familiar withKirkus, lots of times when you
it's spelled K-I-R-K-U-S.
When you see a book there willbe it'll say it received a
(03:36):
Kirkus starred review, or evenon the book's listing on Amazon
or on the book's cover you willsee the review from Kirkus.
So now indie authors have theability to also get a Kirkus
review.
It's something that for a longtime was only available to
traditionally published authors.
Many authors still today, manyreaders still today, think that
(03:59):
it's kind of a mark ofcredibility, because if you've
gotten a Kirkus review at all,then surely your book is
credible, which I would agreewith, and for indie authors, it
is something that we can pay forthat service.
Now, what I'm not 100% sure onjust full transparency is when
you pay for the service.
I'm quite certain that it's anhonest review and then you can
(04:24):
decide whether or not you wantto use it.
That part I would need to lookinto more, how it all works.
It's several hundred dollars,it's not.
It doesn't break the bank, butfor some people it could.
So I don't certainly don't seeit as a must have.
If you're pinching your penniesright now or trying to budget
your money, when it comes towell, anything but certainly
(04:46):
book marketing, I would not sayrun and go, get a Kirkus review.
However, in the last couple ofweeks I've been asked twice by
authors whether or not, a it'sreputable and they should do it,
and then B from one author whoactually had a Kirkus a starred
review, has a starred review onher first book.
(05:08):
Should she pursue a second oneLike is it those favorite words
that we love worth it?
See the air quotes.
My feeling on it is this itdepends which is everyone's
favorite answer.
I don't think in my experiencethat a Kirkus review is the be
(05:28):
all end all.
Nothing is the be all end allfor a book getting momentum.
Even if you've written the mostamazing book on the planet, if
nobody knows about it, it'sprobably not selling very well
or it's not selling very well.
The thing that a Kirkus reviewcan do that is nice is, as
(05:48):
mentioned earlier.
It does provide that addedlayer of credibility on a book's
listing, because Kirkus isn'tgoing to write a review a good
review of a book that they don'tfeel deserves it, and they
certainly are not going to givea book a starred review if they
don't feel like the bookdeserves it.
So if you feel like that'ssomething that you would like to
(06:11):
have or you would like to try,then I say you know, go for it.
It's certainly not sooutrageously expensive that I
feel like it's not a value addin any circumstance.
That being said, if you'rethinking of it like this will be
the magic bullet that will getmy book noticed, I would
(06:33):
encourage you to think aboutthat differently, because the
only magic bullet that gets yourbook noticed is someone
mentioning it, either you orsomebody else, and even then it
you or somebody else, and eventhen it's a magical.
It's quick and it does not.
It's not long lasting,typically so.
If, when you're deciding onyour marketing plans and how you
(06:58):
want to position your book andwhat accolades you want to
pursue, I get similar questionsabout different sort of awards
that you can enter to win and,unless they are very, very
well-known awards, which canoften raise your visibility to
(07:20):
agents, it can raise yourvisibility to publishers, that
sort of thing, and that's great.
There are a lot of lesser known, lesser reputable, lesser
understood in the industryawards that are just created as
a moneymaker for whomever isgiving out the award.
(07:41):
So the idea that if we say, well, I have an award-winning book,
that that is going to help itget legs is, in my experience,
not accurate.
So I encourage you to reallythink about is Kirkus legitimate
?
Absolutely.
Is a Kirkus review legitimate?
(08:01):
Does it give your book somecredibility?
Yes, legitimate.
Does it give your book somecredibility?
Yes, will it, on its own, giveit the momentum that you're
hoping for?
Most likely no.
So it will still require thatyou're on the other side of that
, using social media, your emaillist, et cetera, to say here's
the Kirkus review or this bookhas a starred Kirkus review
(08:23):
review, and continuing to getthat message out over and over
again to your readership and toprospective readers for it to
really have any true solideffect on your book sales.
Okay, so another question thisisn't really a question, but I
got recently was someonemessaged me and was in a very
(08:46):
big hurry to get their bookformatted and launched, and when
I inquired about the urgency,what I heard back was that there
was a competitor in the spacewho was launching on a certain
date and this person reallywanted to beat the competitor to
(09:13):
market so that they could getbestseller status on Amazon
before this competitor gotbestseller status on Amazon.
And through conversation I notterribly unsolicited, I tried
not to do this unsolicited, butwhen the question became, isn't
this a good idea?
My exact answer was you mightbe asking the wrong person,
(09:37):
because I have long believedthat Amazon bestseller status,
especially if it's not in thetop 10 of the whole store or in
the top 10 of a big, bigcategory, big category does not
mean very much, it's veryfleeting, and so people will
spend a lot of energy and moneyand time putting together these
(10:01):
campaigns that seek to getthousands of people to purchase
the book at 99 cents so that youcan rise up for between one
hour and, we'll say, 36 hours tobe the bestseller new release,
number one new release, whateverthe case may be, in either your
category or normally it's in apretty obscure category.
(10:25):
So anytime that you arecontacted by a marketing agency
or an agency of any sort whosays we guarantee bestseller
status, to me that is a huge redflag, because what that means
is the only way they canguarantee it is if they put it
in an obscure category wherethere are only, say, 10 books
(10:46):
and those books aren't selling,and so they know that if they
just sell two copies of yourbook in an hour, that you're
going to hit bestseller statusbut it won't do anything overall
for your book.
You'll sell those two books andthat's probably that, and then
it'll drop from bestsellerstatus the next hour or the next
day and that'll be the end ofit.
(11:09):
So when people are rushing and Itypically see this in the
entrepreneur space, where peopleare rushing to get that
bestseller status because theyhave a firm belief that by being
able to say my book is anAmazon bestseller number one,
able to say my book is an Amazonbestseller number one, they'll
sell a lot more of them, andnumber two, that they can then
(11:35):
bring people in more readily totheir course or their program or
their speaking.
Whatever they're doing that,they're using their book as a
lead magnet for, for lack of abetter explanation of that, for
lack of a better explanation ofthat, and it doesn't work
terribly well because not onlyis the industry really keen to
this practice, but readers arebecoming very aware of it and
(11:57):
clued into it as well.
And so, if you have not like,when I talked to this individual
, I asked about editing and theresponse was there's no time, it
doesn't need to be edited, I'vejust got to get it out there so
that I can hit this bestsellernumber before my competitor does
.
Even if you were to do that,the result isn't going to be
(12:19):
what you want.
I can say that with a strongdegree of certainty because if
you have not put, I watch somany people put so much time and
energy and love into their bookand still have to work quite
hard.
Every author who's been anauthor for more than five
minutes knows how much time andenergy you need to put into your
(12:43):
book, for as long as you chooseto put it in there, in order to
get those sales going and keepthe sales going and keep the
momentum.
So the idea that you can justthrow something up there that
really hasn't been well edited,well worked, well structured,
well intentioned, and hit thatstatus and that the result of
(13:07):
that is going to be an influx ofreaders who are going to review
it positively, and then that'sgoing to continue.
It's going to become like atipping point and it's just
going to be like the ballrolling down the hill.
That is not what happens.
So if anyone else who'slistening or watching is
thinking, feeling this angst ofI need to get the book out
(13:30):
quickly because my competitor isdoing something similar, try to
think about how your book isdifferent from your competitor,
so that you could actually sortof ride the wave, which is
different from riding thecoattails of your competitor,
not compete against them,because inevitably there's
(13:52):
something about your book andyour process that's different
from your competitor.
There has to be, otherwisethere's no place for it in the
market.
So if you can focus on that andrelax a little bit and let your
competitor do his or her thing,and then release the book when
you're ready, and when the bookis ready and you can parlay, so
(14:15):
you know like how, if you readthis, you'll also love this, and
here's why this is going togive you something a little
different from what so-and-sogave you.
That is a great opportunity tomake use of and allow a
competitor's book to become acomplimentary book, not a
competitor's book.
(14:36):
This whole competition thing inthe book world is quite
different from the businessworld, and it still exists, but
there's a lot more opportunityto complement instead of compete
, and that's what I wouldencourage people to do who want
(14:57):
their book to truly bewell-received, be well-reviewed,
be well-recommended andtherefore continue to gain
momentum.
All right, last question fortoday is I'm really hesitant to
even bring this one up, buteveryone's talking about it.
So when is it okay to use AIwith writing books?
(15:18):
This is just my opinion on this, so this is not the right
opinion.
This is not the be all end, allanything.
This is how Elizabeth feelsabout it.
I don't feel like there's evera good time to use AI to write
anything that has to do withyour book.
(15:39):
Beyond helping you with astructure and I helping the word
is helping.
So if you take the structurethat AI gives you and you say,
well, this is it, and I helpingthe word is helping.
So if you take the structurethat AI gives you and you say,
well, this is it and I'm notgonna modify it at all.
That's not great either.
You're going to have a veryformulaic, probably boring book.
Many of the topics that it'soutlining you probably can't
(16:01):
even speak to.
So if you would like, if it'shelpful to you to use it as a
starting point, I personallyhave no problem with that.
I, as an editor, see book afterbook after book lately where I
respectfully go back to theauthor and say, with all due
(16:22):
respect, I can tell that thischapter was written by AI.
There are so many tells now andit kind of sucks because the em
dash is one of the biggesttells and I love the em dash.
I just don't love it where acomma would work better and in
most cases with AI the em dashis plugged in.
But I have a list I mean thereare about 10 now that I'm very
(16:46):
aware of that are an immediateAI tell.
So one of them is the MDASH,one of them is, in case you're
interested, things are always aseries of three.
When you're giving examples,there's always a series of three
.
There is an overabundance ofmetaphors, to the point where
(17:07):
you first start reading a bookand you think, oh, these
metaphors are really clever, Iget this.
But the more you get into itit's like, oh my God, there's
another one, there's another one, there's another one, it's just
there's too many.
Another is things like thetruth is, or here's the crazy
thing, or the thing is, and thenanother one that's just right
(17:35):
at the top of my head is it willspit out something like it's
not just blank semicolon, it'sblank.
When you start having thosethings repeatedly in your
manuscript, it is beyond evidentthat you've used AI to write it
and even if the reader doesn'tpick up on, oh, this is written
by AI, they will quickly getbored because it's not your
voice and it doesn't feel likeyour voice.
So unless that information isheavily honed so that it sounds
(18:02):
like you using words you woulduse, using analogies that you
would use, but not everyparagraph, using personal
stories or stories from clientsor wherever, it will fall flat
for the reader because theydon't know quite what about.
It isn't connecting.
What they know is that it's notconnecting.
(18:22):
So as an editor, I can see itand say I'm 99% sure this is AI
generated, and lots of timesauthors with whom I'm working,
even feel embarrassed about that.
So they'll say no, no, it's not, I swear it's not, and I just
say okay.
So they'll say no, no it's not,I swear it's not, and I just
say okay.
Well, regardless, it doesn'tfeel quite like your voice, it
(18:43):
feels flat.
This chapter feels completelydifferent from a previous
chapter in terms of, like, yourcreativity going.
I don't necessarily thinkthere's anything wrong with that
(19:05):
.
I use podcasts for that, I useTV for that, I use conversations
with my friends.
For that you're activelywriting.
It really needs to be yourvoice, your experience, your
expertise and more often thannot, the reason that authors
(19:29):
don't do that is one they'reimpatient and they just want to
get the thing done quickly andout, because maybe they are in
the entrepreneurial space andthey're using the book to help
attract people for a course or aprogram or they have crazy
imposter syndrome, which istotally understandable.
So there's this thought that ifsomething else, even though it's
a robot taking content fromother people who have already
written it writes it for me,then it must be good and it'll
(19:52):
sound good.
And I'm not a writer and Idon't have great grammar skills
and I don't have greatpunctuation skills.
So this thing.
This tool over here will dothis for me.
It has the opposite effect, andevery author has to lean into
his or her feelings of impostersyndrome when writing a book and
(20:14):
get more and more comfortablewith what do I want to say and
how do I want to say it, andthen trusting an editor to help
finesse that so that it doessound air quote better in a book
, because we speak differentlyfrom the way that we write, and
so partnering with someone whocan come in and help make those
(20:38):
words sound better and keep themin your tone and style is
incredibly important.
With 42 million plus books onAmazon, getting your book
discovered is hard enough Onceyou've exhausted your friends
and your family and yourcolleagues, and now you're
(21:00):
pushing out to the next layer,which is a colder audience who
hasn't heard of you.
It becomes all the moreimportant for your book to be
able to stand on its own, notjust on oh, I like you, so I'm
going to support you, or I wantto support you, or it's 99 cents
today.
Whatever the case may be, thathas caused people to purchase up
(21:22):
until now, so that's my feelingon that, but I would love to
hear what thoughts you have onthat, because I'm always
interested in how other peopleare using AI with integrity in
the book writing space, becauseit's different in all different
spaces.
So please feel free to justemail me and let me know how
(21:44):
you're using it in a way thatfeels good to you and where you
found it to be beneficial.
But that is it for today.
We'll be back next week withanother interview and again.
In the meantime, if you haven'tyet checked it out, check out
the show notes or go topublishaprofitablebookcom
forward.
Slash Amazon ads so you can getin on early bird pricing on the
(22:04):
Amazon ads.
I'll talk to you again nextweek.
Hello and welcome to the Write the Damn Book Already
podcast.
My name is Elizabeth Lyons.
I'm an author and book editorand I help people write and
publish thought-provoking,wildly entertaining books
without any more overthinking,second-guessing or overwhelm
than absolutely necessary.
Because, let's face it, someoverthinking, second-guessing
and overwhelm is going to comewith the territory if you're
(00:23):
anything like me guessing, andoverwhelm is going to come with
the territory if you're anythinglike me.
In short, I love books and Ibelieve that story and shared
perspective are two of the mostimpactful ways we connect with
one another.
A few things.
I don't believe in gimmicks,magic bullets and swoon-worthy
results without context, as in.
Be sure to reveal that a resulttook eight years or required a
(00:43):
$30,000 investment in ads,because those details are just
as important.
What I believe in most as anauthor, the long game is the
shortcut For more book writingand publishing.
Tips and solutions.
Visit publishaprofitablebookcomor visit me over on Instagram
at Elizabeth Lyons Author.
Hi everybody and welcome back.
(01:06):
All right, this is actually avery exciting week because,
after many, many, many, manymonths of prepping and fixing
and refixing and all the things,I have finally launched Amazon
Ads for Indie Authors.
So for a point of reference.
Today is Wednesday, july 30th,pretty sure 2025.
(01:28):
And this course I'm soincredibly excited about because
it finally simplifies Amazonads.
Now you do need to be an indieauthor, meaning that you're
either self-published or you insome way, shape or form, have
control of your book's listingthrough KDP, because you will
need to be able to get in thereto run the ads.
(01:50):
But as long as you have thatability whether you're a
self-published author or ahybrid published author who has
access to your ads account andyour book's listing on Amazon
this course is here to simplifythe entire Amazon ads process
for you, simplify the dashboardand, frankly, even if you didn't
(02:10):
want to run ads ever or yet, itcovers the first thing that
most indie authors forget, orthey just don't even know that
they need to do when it comes tooptimizing your book's listing
so that you're found more easilyand more readily by people who
(02:31):
want to find you on Amazon, whoare already trying to find a
book just like yours.
So, in the areas of keywords,categories and book description,
I have all of the tips andstrategies that I have used over
the years to help ensure thatyour book is set up as optimally
as possible to find, not tofind, but for the people who
(02:52):
want to best find your book, tofind it.
We are still in early birdpricing and I've got the link to
the course in the episode notes, or you can go to
publishaprofitablebookcomforward, slash Amazon ads and
see everything that is includedin the course.
Again, super excited.
I'm thrilled to be welcomingpeople in and I hope you will
(03:13):
join us.
Okay, so this week what I'mgoing to do is focus on some
FAQs that I've gotten over thelast couple of weeks, or couple
of months even, and the firstone is with regard to Kirkus.
So if you're not familiar withKirkus, lots of times when you
it's spelled K-I-R-K-U-S.
When you see a book there willbe it'll say it received a
(03:36):
Kirkus starred review, or evenon the book's listing on Amazon
or on the book's cover you willsee the review from Kirkus.
So now indie authors have theability to also get a Kirkus
review.
It's something that for a longtime was only available to
traditionally published authors.
Many authors still today, manyreaders still today, think that
(03:59):
it's kind of a mark ofcredibility, because if you've
gotten a Kirkus review at all,then surely your book is
credible, which I would agreewith, and for indie authors, it
is something that we can pay forthat service.
Now, what I'm not 100% sure onjust full transparency is when
you pay for the service.
I'm quite certain that it's anhonest review and then you can
(04:24):
decide whether or not you wantto use it.
That part I would need to lookinto more, how it all works.
It's several hundred dollars,it's not.
It doesn't break the bank, butfor some people it could.
So I don't certainly don't seeit as a must have.
If you're pinching your penniesright now or trying to budget
your money, when it comes towell, anything but certainly
(04:46):
book marketing, I would not sayrun and go, get a Kirkus review.
However, in the last couple ofweeks I've been asked twice by
authors whether or not, a it'sreputable and they should do it,
and then B from one author whoactually had a Kirkus a starred
review, has a starred review onher first book.
(05:08):
Should she pursue a second oneLike is it those favorite words
that we love worth it?
See the air quotes.
My feeling on it is this itdepends which is everyone's
favorite answer.
I don't think in my experiencethat a Kirkus review is the be
(05:28):
all end all.
Nothing is the be all end allfor a book getting momentum.
Even if you've written the mostamazing book on the planet, if
nobody knows about it, it'sprobably not selling very well
or it's not selling very well.
The thing that a Kirkus reviewcan do that is nice is, as
(05:48):
mentioned earlier.
It does provide that addedlayer of credibility on a book's
listing, because Kirkus isn'tgoing to write a review a good
review of a book that they don'tfeel deserves it, and they
certainly are not going to givea book a starred review if they
don't feel like the bookdeserves it.
So if you feel like that'ssomething that you would like to
(06:11):
have or you would like to try,then I say you know, go for it.
It's certainly not sooutrageously expensive that I
feel like it's not a value addin any circumstance.
That being said, if you'rethinking of it like this will be
the magic bullet that will getmy book noticed, I would
(06:33):
encourage you to think aboutthat differently, because the
only magic bullet that gets yourbook noticed is someone
mentioning it, either you orsomebody else, and even then it
you or somebody else, and eventhen it's a magical.
It's quick and it does not.
It's not long lasting,typically so.
If, when you're deciding onyour marketing plans and how you
(06:58):
want to position your book andwhat accolades you want to
pursue, I get similar questionsabout different sort of awards
that you can enter to win and,unless they are very, very
well-known awards, which canoften raise your visibility to
(07:20):
agents, it can raise yourvisibility to publishers, that
sort of thing, and that's great.
There are a lot of lesser known, lesser reputable, lesser
understood in the industryawards that are just created as
a moneymaker for whomever isgiving out the award.
(07:41):
So the idea that if we say, well, I have an award-winning book,
that that is going to help itget legs is, in my experience,
not accurate.
So I encourage you to reallythink about is Kirkus legitimate
?
Absolutely.
Is a Kirkus review legitimate?
(08:01):
Does it give your book somecredibility?
Yes, legitimate.
Does it give your book somecredibility?
Yes, will it, on its own, giveit the momentum that you're
hoping for?
Most likely no.
So it will still require thatyou're on the other side of that
, using social media, your emaillist, et cetera, to say here's
the Kirkus review or this bookhas a starred Kirkus review
(08:23):
review, and continuing to getthat message out over and over
again to your readership and toprospective readers for it to
really have any true solideffect on your book sales.
Okay, so another question thisisn't really a question, but I
got recently was someonemessaged me and was in a very
(08:46):
big hurry to get their bookformatted and launched, and when
I inquired about the urgency,what I heard back was that there
was a competitor in the spacewho was launching on a certain
date and this person reallywanted to beat the competitor to
(09:13):
market so that they could getbestseller status on Amazon
before this competitor gotbestseller status on Amazon.
And through conversation I notterribly unsolicited, I tried
not to do this unsolicited, butwhen the question became, isn't
this a good idea?
My exact answer was you mightbe asking the wrong person,
(09:37):
because I have long believedthat Amazon bestseller status,
especially if it's not in thetop 10 of the whole store or in
the top 10 of a big, bigcategory, big category does not
mean very much, it's veryfleeting, and so people will
spend a lot of energy and moneyand time putting together these
(10:01):
campaigns that seek to getthousands of people to purchase
the book at 99 cents so that youcan rise up for between one
hour and, we'll say, 36 hours tobe the bestseller new release,
number one new release, whateverthe case may be, in either your
category or normally it's in apretty obscure category.
(10:25):
So anytime that you arecontacted by a marketing agency
or an agency of any sort whosays we guarantee bestseller
status, to me that is a huge redflag, because what that means
is the only way they canguarantee it is if they put it
in an obscure category wherethere are only, say, 10 books
(10:46):
and those books aren't selling,and so they know that if they
just sell two copies of yourbook in an hour, that you're
going to hit bestseller statusbut it won't do anything overall
for your book.
You'll sell those two books andthat's probably that, and then
it'll drop from bestsellerstatus the next hour or the next
day and that'll be the end ofit.
(11:09):
So when people are rushing and Itypically see this in the
entrepreneur space, where peopleare rushing to get that
bestseller status because theyhave a firm belief that by being
able to say my book is anAmazon bestseller number one,
able to say my book is an Amazonbestseller number one, they'll
sell a lot more of them, andnumber two, that they can then
(11:35):
bring people in more readily totheir course or their program or
their speaking.
Whatever they're doing that,they're using their book as a
lead magnet for, for lack of abetter explanation of that, for
lack of a better explanation ofthat, and it doesn't work
terribly well because not onlyis the industry really keen to
this practice, but readers arebecoming very aware of it and
(11:57):
clued into it as well.
And so, if you have not like,when I talked to this individual
, I asked about editing and theresponse was there's no time, it
doesn't need to be edited, I'vejust got to get it out there so
that I can hit this bestsellernumber before my competitor does
.
Even if you were to do that,the result isn't going to be
(12:19):
what you want.
I can say that with a strongdegree of certainty because if
you have not put, I watch somany people put so much time and
energy and love into their bookand still have to work quite
hard.
Every author who's been anauthor for more than five
minutes knows how much time andenergy you need to put into your
(12:43):
book, for as long as you chooseto put it in there, in order to
get those sales going and keepthe sales going and keep the
momentum.
So the idea that you can justthrow something up there that
really hasn't been well edited,well worked, well structured,
well intentioned, and hit thatstatus and that the result of
(13:07):
that is going to be an influx ofreaders who are going to review
it positively, and then that'sgoing to continue.
It's going to become like atipping point and it's just
going to be like the ballrolling down the hill.
That is not what happens.
So if anyone else who'slistening or watching is
thinking, feeling this angst ofI need to get the book out
(13:30):
quickly because my competitor isdoing something similar, try to
think about how your book isdifferent from your competitor,
so that you could actually sortof ride the wave, which is
different from riding thecoattails of your competitor,
not compete against them,because inevitably there's
(13:52):
something about your book andyour process that's different
from your competitor.
There has to be, otherwisethere's no place for it in the
market.
So if you can focus on that andrelax a little bit and let your
competitor do his or her thing,and then release the book when
you're ready, and when the bookis ready and you can parlay, so
(14:15):
you know like how, if you readthis, you'll also love this, and
here's why this is going togive you something a little
different from what so-and-sogave you.
That is a great opportunity tomake use of and allow a
competitor's book to become acomplimentary book, not a
competitor's book.
(14:36):
This whole competition thing inthe book world is quite
different from the businessworld, and it still exists, but
there's a lot more opportunityto complement instead of compete
, and that's what I wouldencourage people to do who want
(14:57):
their book to truly bewell-received, be well-reviewed,
be well-recommended andtherefore continue to gain
momentum.
All right, last question fortoday is I'm really hesitant to
even bring this one up, buteveryone's talking about it.
So when is it okay to use AIwith writing books?
(15:18):
This is just my opinion on this, so this is not the right
opinion.
This is not the be all end, allanything.
This is how Elizabeth feelsabout it.
I don't feel like there's evera good time to use AI to write
anything that has to do withyour book.
(15:39):
Beyond helping you with astructure and I helping the word
is helping.
So if you take the structurethat AI gives you and you say,
well, this is it, and I helpingthe word is helping.
So if you take the structurethat AI gives you and you say,
well, this is it and I'm notgonna modify it at all.
That's not great either.
You're going to have a veryformulaic, probably boring book.
Many of the topics that it'soutlining you probably can't
(16:01):
even speak to.
So if you would like, if it'shelpful to you to use it as a
starting point, I personallyhave no problem with that.
I, as an editor, see book afterbook after book lately where I
respectfully go back to theauthor and say, with all due
(16:22):
respect, I can tell that thischapter was written by AI.
There are so many tells now andit kind of sucks because the em
dash is one of the biggesttells and I love the em dash.
I just don't love it where acomma would work better and in
most cases with AI the em dashis plugged in.
But I have a list I mean thereare about 10 now that I'm very
(16:46):
aware of that are an immediateAI tell.
So one of them is the MDASH,one of them is, in case you're
interested, things are always aseries of three.
When you're giving examples,there's always a series of three
.
There is an overabundance ofmetaphors, to the point where
(17:07):
you first start reading a bookand you think, oh, these
metaphors are really clever, Iget this.
But the more you get into itit's like, oh my God, there's
another one, there's another one, there's another one, it's just
there's too many.
Another is things like thetruth is, or here's the crazy
thing, or the thing is, and thenanother one that's just right
(17:35):
at the top of my head is it willspit out something like it's
not just blank semicolon, it'sblank.
When you start having thosethings repeatedly in your
manuscript, it is beyond evidentthat you've used AI to write it
and even if the reader doesn'tpick up on, oh, this is written
by AI, they will quickly getbored because it's not your
voice and it doesn't feel likeyour voice.
So unless that information isheavily honed so that it sounds
(18:02):
like you using words you woulduse, using analogies that you
would use, but not everyparagraph, using personal
stories or stories from clientsor wherever, it will fall flat
for the reader because theydon't know quite what about.
It isn't connecting.
What they know is that it's notconnecting.
(18:22):
So as an editor, I can see itand say I'm 99% sure this is AI
generated, and lots of timesauthors with whom I'm working,
even feel embarrassed about that.
So they'll say no, no, it's not, I swear it's not, and I just
say okay.
So they'll say no, no it's not,I swear it's not, and I just
say okay.
Well, regardless, it doesn'tfeel quite like your voice, it
(18:43):
feels flat.
This chapter feels completelydifferent from a previous
chapter in terms of, like, yourcreativity going.
I don't necessarily thinkthere's anything wrong with that
(19:05):
.
I use podcasts for that, I useTV for that, I use conversations
with my friends.
For that you're activelywriting.
It really needs to be yourvoice, your experience, your
expertise and more often thannot, the reason that authors
(19:29):
don't do that is one they'reimpatient and they just want to
get the thing done quickly andout, because maybe they are in
the entrepreneurial space andthey're using the book to help
attract people for a course or aprogram or they have crazy
imposter syndrome, which istotally understandable.
So there's this thought that ifsomething else, even though it's
a robot taking content fromother people who have already
written it writes it for me,then it must be good and it'll
(19:52):
sound good.
And I'm not a writer and Idon't have great grammar skills
and I don't have greatpunctuation skills.
So this thing.
This tool over here will dothis for me.
It has the opposite effect, andevery author has to lean into
his or her feelings of impostersyndrome when writing a book and
(20:14):
get more and more comfortablewith what do I want to say and
how do I want to say it, andthen trusting an editor to help
finesse that so that it doessound air quote better in a book
, because we speak differentlyfrom the way that we write, and
so partnering with someone whocan come in and help make those
(20:38):
words sound better and keep themin your tone and style is
incredibly important.
With 42 million plus books onAmazon, getting your book
discovered is hard enough Onceyou've exhausted your friends
and your family and yourcolleagues, and now you're
(21:00):
pushing out to the next layer,which is a colder audience who
hasn't heard of you.
It becomes all the moreimportant for your book to be
able to stand on its own, notjust on oh, I like you, so I'm
going to support you, or I wantto support you, or it's 99 cents
today.
Whatever the case may be, thathas caused people to purchase up
(21:22):
until now, so that's my feelingon that, but I would love to
hear what thoughts you have onthat, because I'm always
interested in how other peopleare using AI with integrity in
the book writing space, becauseit's different in all different
spaces.
So please feel free to justemail me and let me know how
(21:44):
you're using it in a way thatfeels good to you and where you
found it to be beneficial.
But that is it for today.
We'll be back next week withanother interview and again.
In the meantime, if you haven'tyet checked it out, check out
the show notes or go topublishaprofitablebookcom
forward.
Slash Amazon ads so you can getin on early bird pricing on the
(22:04):
Amazon ads.
I'll talk to you again nextweek.
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