Speaker 1Meet Jamie from Florida. She is afraid of flying, but she still flew all the way here to Texas just because she had to tell me her story. Not long ago, her husband, who's a real estate agent, had a book idea. He typed it into chat GPT and by two in the morning had an entire book written. And when he told her, she said, hmm, there's a business there. So today her business is writing books for people who can't write. And yes, she uses AI to do it. And she tells them she uses AI to do it. These are retirees, business owners, and a random mortgage broker that had an idea for a book about aliens. They pay her $22,250 for these AI written books. In a few minutes, we're going to talk about why she teaches free classes at the library and how she actually makes a lot of money from them. Halfway through this, we're going to talk about the one thing that AI still cannot write well, which is why people pay her. And at the very end, we'll talk about the exact prompt that she uses to win clients from a list that only costs $250,000. $125 a year and what that list is. Please enjoy. By the end of this episode, will people have enough knowledge to go out within 30 days and find their first ghostwriting client?
Speaker 2Absolutely. I think through just reaching out to people that you know in your circle, Facebook, LinkedIn, I find a lot of leads on LinkedIn, or just going to local business owners that you might know and say, opening this business, I'd love to help you tell your story as a business owner. Could I? for my ghostwriting business and people that, yeah, sure. Let's go. Yeah.
Speaker 1It's like, if you're an expert, great. If you're not great because people want to be guinea pigged, right. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 2Yeah. I mean, it's just own it and just, just ask because somebody's out there and somebody has, you'd be surprised. And they're like, actually, you know, I have this story that's been with me since high school. And so it's fun.
Speaker 1That's awesome. Yeah. Well, why don't you tell me what you do?
Speaker 2Okay. Um, so I'm a novelist and a screenwriter and most of my job as a screenwriter is waiting. And so I was kind of, didn't want to just sit around waiting for other people to determine my career. And so, um, I've been, I was messing around with AI and I just found that it was really fun to use to develop. In fact, my husband kind of sparked it because he had this idea. He's not a writer. He's a real estate agent. But he had this idea. And so he put it into chat and then chat gave him a chapter, like a really bad chapter, but a chapter. And then he said that he was so excited that he did the next one. And then at 2 a.m. he had a whole book done. And I'm like, oh, that's so cool. That sounds like a business. That sounds like you know, um, every, so what I created was a company where every Friday I drop a chapter in your inbox. And then every Tuesday, um, you send me back the changes. And so we go back and forth and it's collaborative and, um, it's for people who have ideas, but no idea how to write.
Speaker 1Okay. So you are, so you send a, like what kind of a chapter do you send to people?
Speaker 2So we do like a, um, initial development cause we have to figure out what the story is about the characters, the settings, all the things.
Speaker 1So people come to you and they want to write a book. Okay. And do they know that you're using AI to get help?
Speaker 2Yes and no. I mean, I do mention it and the people that care, we have a little deeper conversation. The people that don't care, they don't care. So I let them know like that I pay monthly. It's on my PC. I'm not in the cloud, you know? But yeah, but it's when they read the first chapter, they're hooked. They're like, this is amazing because it doesn't sound like AI.
Speaker 1Okay. So if I'm a potential customer, I come to you and say, Jamie, uh, I want to write a book about what are some like average topics that people want to write about?
Speaker 2So I have my first client was a brokerage, um, mortgage broker in Nevada. And he had this idea of like a alien conspiracy with like the current administration, but renamed and just like, you know, finding on the dark side of the moon, these alien artifacts. Okay. So that's what we started with. Okay. And then I you know I've done this now for a year and a half or so and so from doing this with so many different clients I've built out like the 12 steps that we need to go through to get to from the idea to the chapter by chapter breakdown yeah okay so that's how that's how that method would work with
Speaker 1you okay so he found you and it's just some random mortgage broker that had an idea for a book and he couldn't get out of his head and he's like maybe Jamie can help yeah so he kind of loosely talks about his concept and then you kind of riff back and forth and then you say, all right, I'm going to send you the first chapter on Friday. Let me know what you think. Yep. I hear it.
Speaker 2Pretty accurate. Okay.
Speaker 1And then he gets it. And how many words would that chapter be on average?
Speaker 2So in the beginning I was doing like a thousand words, but you know, there's, there's some room for movement. So it's generally like 1200 to 1700 is pretty good for me. Okay. Cause the concept for me was a thousand words a week, 52 weeks, you're done with your book. That was kind of like when I started it like 10 cents a word and that was how i was going to do the game but then you know like you say on your podcast all the time like you start one business and you realize you're actually starting a different business which is great yeah so i had to kind of tweak it because i realized like i'm spending all this development time that i didn't put in a price tag so then i did like a 1500 development and then that turned yeah and then that turned into a 2500 which is what i do now because now i have a method so it's one thing to say we're going to develop it but when you have like a step-by-step method, then you, I feel like you can charge more because you're actually bringing value and, and they can take that with them. Cause once you do it once, maybe they can try next time.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So 2,500 upfront is what you landed on. Yeah. But you started at
Speaker 21,500. Yeah. Once I added in the development fee, it started at 1,500.
Speaker 1Okay. And then 10 cents a
Speaker 2word. That's what I started at.
Speaker 1Yeah. And what is it per word now?
Speaker 2So now I'm, I'm kind of capped it now at 20,000 plus the development fee, 20,000 words. No, no, no. $20,000 per book. Okay. Plus the development.
Speaker 1So it's not really per word anymore.
Speaker 2It really is. And I still try to stay within certain parameters. Um, it's probably around like 25 cents a word now if I had to figure that out. Okay. But I've just found that, um, like some clients don't want to wait a whole year. So, you know, they may be, or they don't, they don't want to do four chapters a week cause they can't afford it. So I just kind of work with them within that realm. And it just makes it easier to be like, oh, it's 20,000 in the end. So you want two chapters a month? No problem. This is how much it's going to be. Or you want three chapters a week? We'll get done in four
Speaker 1months. Okay. So if it's four months, will you just kind of make it like five grand a month-ish then? Yeah. Okay. Because you were probably thinking in the beginning, this will be great recurring revenue, 52 weeks, that's great. But then people read the first chapter and you become a victim of your own success, or like, I want the next one now. Yeah. And you're like, well, like, what do I care more about what the customer wants, or like the original business model that was based on really no precedent, just my idea?
Speaker 2No, exactly. And then also, what I found is, it's fun at first, but then as we move through, I think, like any, like just writing a book in general, it's a lot of time. And I think when we move toward the end, people start to get anxious, and they just don't want to wait the whole year. So that's kind of why I was looking at the model going i don't think this is the right way to do it anymore
Speaker 1okay how long did it take you to figure
Speaker 2that out um i think it was probably like um maybe the third client that it just felt like it was dragging yeah um and then like he you know sometimes they're like we want to go faster so i'd go faster and but then the price is more for that week and then they kind of were like well wait why is it double and i'm like because you wanted two chapters you know yeah so you know it's just how we are when we get a price and then the price changes we don't like that so saying it's 20 000 for the whole book how do you want to pay that makes it you know time wise and and financially more flexible for the client now
Speaker 1are people kind of shocked by that number as opposed to 150 a week or no um
Speaker 2i mean because i'm i'm way way less than any ghost writer i mean most ghost writers charge you an 18 and 50 000 for a book okay and um you know like i me and my buddy Claude before I came in I asked Claude like what's the numbers and like 54% of Americans want to write a book wow 15% actually start so you're looking that high honestly yeah yeah so you're I mean like everyone's bucket list has a book everyone who owns a company you're supposed to have a book you know so like roughly 140 140 million Americans want to write a book yeah so it's there's definitely a lot of people out there but not everyone finds the value in spending $50,000 to write a book. Or can afford it, even if they didn't see the value. Right. And they just want to write a book for their company so that they can be one step above their competitors. But for 50 grand, that's crazy. But so then what I offer is I have a short story, a novella, or a novel length. Okay. So maybe you just want a table book. It's not a real book. You're not really into writing. You're not an author. You just want to have a table book.
Speaker 1Like a coffee table book?
Speaker 2No, like say you speak, you personally, You go speak somewhere and then you sit down at your table and you have some books to sell. Okay. So maybe you don't.
Speaker 1Something to sell when you speak.
Speaker 2Yeah. So maybe you don't want a whole, you know, novel. Yeah. So I have like for five grand, I'll do a short story for 10 grand. I'll do a novella. And for 20 grand, I'll do a novel. Okay. So you have a little flexibility in there too. And it's just by word count. That's really all that changes. Okay. Because the times, you know, time changes.
Speaker 1Yeah. What are some commonalities you see on types of books that people want to write?
Speaker 2There's a lot, a lot of people want memoirs, which are trickier because you have to do interview time. So you're the development feed for me turns into a, um, more of a, like a deposit. And then when I, or like a, an attorney, what is that? A retainer retainer. And then, um, so I have to say, well, this is five hours or whatever, and then we'll readjust, um, memoirs, business books. A lot of people want to do like a combo, like, you know, this is what I learned in my business vice versa, which is nice. And then on the flip side, there's a lot of fantasy. like mostly it's like magical realism fantasy like aliens um magic in in the blood in in a painting that that turns into like life extensions and yeah just very that's my wheelhouse i write magical realism mostly for kids like harry potter those kinds of books so i love that but it's all you know just interesting thriller-esque fantasy is is what people like so
Speaker 1it's like business and
Speaker 2fantasy yes that's pretty much it's like the
Speaker 180 20 of it yeah okay
Speaker 2yeah from my experience and
Speaker 1how did you find that first customer the mortgage broker
Speaker 2um he was through the association of ghost writers so i was speaking at a local writer's event in jacksonville florida and somebody had mentioned they were a member and i'm like oh what's that i've never ghost written before that sounds interesting and so i applied and i got accepted and it's like 130 bucks a year and then you bid so they send out an email and they're like hey this is the survey that they filled out you take all that you send them an email and then they reach out to you and go hey i'd like to hire i have um last year i think i had four three clients from there and right now i have four clients from there
Speaker 1wow so you're paying 130 bucks a year to make six figures yeah and do you get clients from anywhere
Speaker 2else yes i also get clients when i speak i do a lot of speaking and i have like you know 10 years experience but anybody can go to the local library and say you know i am here to help people write their memoir and you just go into ai and you go give me a one hour presentation on how to write a memoir and i'm like okay i'm going to go to the library and i'm going to go to how to write a memoir okay you know it's not you have to have some level of skill as a writer but you really don't if you have a system you know
Speaker 1and people like even if the people that attend these seminars no claude no like they want kind of a person to represent that correct does that make sense it does to present it and like an actual human that they can refer to yeah and
Speaker 2most of them um they're not going to do it otherwise they're just never going to write that story um one of my clients now um he's had this idea since college and he's retired so wow you know we're working on this idea that he's been holding in his heart for 40 years you know it's like really cool and he can't afford a traditional ghostwriter um i am charging him the 20 000 but it is spread out over years yeah and like i love that i love that like i can take his widow's might yeah you know what i mean and honor him by telling his story and i don't think that it's something that anybody can't do you know it's just getting a system and a guy like
Speaker 1that i would imagine doesn't really care if it sells well no he just wants it yeah he just wants
Speaker 2it in his hand and the thing too is like say say you started this company this ai ghostwriting business and you're just not sure so you write this book with a client so then you go hire an editor you spend like two to four thousand dollars to have a human edit it and let you know where you screwed up and then you run those you know changes through claude and then you're very confident for your first few books that i can do this yeah you know
Speaker 1okay where would you find an editor like
Speaker 2anywhere google um local author events no no not at all and and their their prices vary you know it just depends but you're not going to spend more than like four grand is your max like but maybe a few hundred to a few thousand and you
Speaker 1could i mean you could just pay that from what you've already been paid correct from your client
Speaker 2yeah you just eat that cost for your first few books until you feel like you understand what you're doing better
Speaker 1yeah tell me about this walking into a library strategy yeah have you done that oh yeah yeah how does that work so you
Speaker 2just reach out to the library and you just say that you're going to do this book and you're going to say that um i would like to talk on this topic and you just call
Speaker 1them or you walk in you can
Speaker 2do either yeah what do you do because um i mean i talk on everything but my my two most popular subjects are how to how to write a comic for teens okay and um how to write for film until tv for
Speaker 1adults okay but when you reach out to libraries are you calling
Speaker 2or walking in um usually i think i'm emailing or i'm walking in because i'm speaking but yeah i would say email is just enough okay and
Speaker 1what is the pitch
Speaker 2exactly it is just hi i'm jamie um i'm a local writer i have this idea i'd love to share on how to write memoirs or i just wrote a comic book i'd love to teach your patrons on how to write a comic book or you know you can go to their website and sometimes they show like what they're doing for spring break or what they're doing for summer they usually have a theme and the thing is libraries have um a responsibility to provide free courses to the community okay so they already have a need to fill with speakers so how many people
Speaker 1are reaching out right can't
Speaker 2be that many can't be that many no i don't think it is yeah and then so you can come in i've taught classes where they're paying me a few hundred dollars to speak and only the librarian is the only person there but you know you got paid but i got paid and they checked their box that they offered it to the community so it's like they they have to do it anyway you know which i love yeah and there's not a lot of high paying clients that come to the library because it's a free class but you'd be surprised you don't need a lot i mean how much do you want to make you get one in one year that's 20 grand like or 2250 but you know like that's that's not a bad side hustle yeah
Speaker 1okay so you reach out and say i want to teach about writing a comic or whatever and then you just kind of coordinate a date yeah and do they ask about qualifications or anything or do they say like what's in it for you are you going to pitch are you going to charge or is it like no
Speaker 2come teach it's just come teach um then sometimes they'll have a budget and they'll pay you sometimes you can't like if you have books to sell or you know you want to sell your you want to collect names you know sometimes you can't sometimes you can okay so you just have to ask them up front whatever you want to do like if you want to collect names which i always recommend um because then you can send emails after the fact and you can you know kind of say hey we met at the library um i hope you enjoyed the memoir class i just want you to know that i'm teaching here or do you need help you know yeah um sometimes you can't do that and so when i can't do that i because of my experience i charge more because there's no end game after that it's just the face-to-face yeah but if i can collect numbers then i'll i'll go on a lower budget because i'm getting names yeah
Speaker 1when you say collect numbers do you mean like they are going to have people register and they'll pass that to you or do you mean like literally when you're there you have like a clipboard both okay
Speaker 2i do both i ask them for their list because not everybody who signs up shows up and then some people who didn't sign up show up so i ask for both um just to have that that lead funnel and
Speaker 1if they say no that's not available you're i imagine they're going to be like oh i'm going to say no that's not available you're i imagine you're still able to say this is my name like this is my number yeah you're not going to withhold who you
Speaker 2are no i do that and then i have like these bracelets here on the inside is my website so i give these away to everybody and i just let them know my website's on the inside if you have any questions and i i always get somebody that reaches
Speaker 1out so worst case uh a library says we can't pay you you can't collect names but we'll promote it we think we'll get a handful of people there is that worth doing yeah
Speaker 2in the beginning anything like that is worth doing um because you're you're getting your name out there you're getting into the community and you're really just looking for some practice and it's kind of a good client if you know you find someone who wants to write a memoir you've never done it they don't have a lot of money and you can say hey look i'm opening this ghostwriting business i'm using ai yeah i really think you have a great story would you be willing to let me work with you and kind of guinea pig i do that all the time kind of guinea pig people love that yeah so they get a deal right you know
Speaker 1do you have any bearing like what what's an average amount of people that would
Speaker 2come to these um it does depend but i mean if i had to say an average probably like eight to twelve people okay that's about what i would
Speaker 1have thought yeah any bearing on like how many sales i could turn into like one twenty thousand dollar sale or um
Speaker 2i mean because i do other things i do editing i do coaching i do book proposals so
Speaker 1okay i get at least it doesn't have to be 20 grand it could be correct it can be something
Speaker 2else yeah because you know you know when you go to the grocery store and you've got all those things on the side when you're checking out like i try to have those you know i try to have those you know like a fifteen dollar book you can buy a book on how to how to use ai to write so there's that and then you know i have a class and then i have me and then i have the you know all the options and then the ghost right so i think having some tiers of things that are accessible you just want to bring them into your i call my thing the angle verse i'm just trying to get them into the angle verse and so i try to get them in for free okay you know because like with you i mean i come to you i listen to your podcast i'm there for free you know but then you have something to offer and i pay for it you know it's just like you know it's just like you know it's just like you know so going to the library for free and getting that list going getting it started finding people and then you know people are like oh i wrote this short story or i need a resume you know yeah i won't do anything writing wise because i i can just go to claude i've never done it before great yeah hey claude help me right whatever congratulations
Speaker 1we're now all experts
Speaker 2right
Speaker 1like nobody knows even if you're using chad gpt it's like we need to remember i'm now an expert in whatever i want to be correct um how many public libraries are there in the u.s i mean
Speaker 2just in florida there's like hundreds i mean if you think about in my county where we're from you know brevard county there's 105 last count of mine um schools just schools in brevard county and
Speaker 1so i guess i wasn't even thinking of libraries and schools yeah just that
Speaker 2yeah there's you can also do um school events where you can go in and talk to kids about how to use ai to like properly write something you know like it's just there's so many opportunities or how to um how to build a resume you know you go to high schools and we're going to go through how to do that or how to build a proposal or
Speaker 1something 125 000 libraries in the united states
Speaker 2alone so you can probably book one of those i would hope so
Speaker 1so school libraries media centers are about on 98 000 and then public library systems are closer to like 25 000 yeah and
Speaker 2they're always looking for programming
Speaker 1yeah i'm sure yeah they just sit around and there's like nothing going on yeah it's like well we got someone wanting to do something and they're
Speaker 2wanting to do something here right and then you know if you just sit this is what i did i was because i do these ghostwriting books um a company on linkedin saw me because i would be like hey writing a memoir hey writing of sci-fi fantasy fantasy and they were like wow you write every genre we'd like to hire you to write um an audio first book for us so they wanted to pay me twenty thousand dollars i had never made twenty thousand dollars before that to write a book yeah this was in the beginning and um so they hired me to write this book and they were like we like ai and i'm like great so do i yeah and because um most writers chris do not well it's very
Speaker 1frowned upon from my brother-in-law is a writer and he's like you don't even talk about ai
Speaker 2yeah which is good for me yeah because i'm like um trailblazing yeah this is my lane and um writing deeply human stories with generative ai is my thing
Speaker 1the purist and the and the writers are like no ai but they're not your customers no they're not so if you're willing to be the pariah and come out and say i use ai your potential customers are like you're different because everyone else i've talked to or it's treating that like a four-letter word right and
Speaker 2and the truth is like it's not i don't know how to put it but you're different because everyone else i've talked to or it's treating that like a four-letter word it's really not a matter of i don't want to use ai i'm a writer and my words are my words yeah because if you use um siri if you use grammarly if you use word if you google something you're using ai now they all have ai built in and integrated into the system so it's like you have to it's it's not a matter of i'm not going to use this it's a matter of i need to learn how to use this so that i can be competitive it's really what i think yeah it's like fighting gravity like yeah or saying i don't believe in computers right oh okay that's fine with that
Speaker 1go live with the amish they're great people great people so you use claude for everything
Speaker 2i use claude for creative um i use chat for like sometimes development and just kind of bouncing ideas i'd use claude for that too i use co-pilot for more business so if i'm doing like a linkedin post or a newsletter post for my followers but claude is i mean if i had to pick one forever it would be claude
Speaker 1and what model are you using to write which cloud model that's a great question
Speaker 2whatever the like second newest one is and the newest is
Speaker 1it fable i like fable
Speaker 2i like both of those but i feel like
Speaker 1it's fable okay yeah and how much are you having to actually edit or fix or
Speaker 2so it really depends um i always go back over and read it and just adjust it the thing like i've i've worked with it enough and trained it enough to where like it knows like do not use the not this not this but that you know all those phrasings the negation stuff drives me crazy um and it kind of knows my voice now and it knows what i'm looking for so the thing that it really doesn't do well is dialogue so when i'm reading and i read like a paragraph like it'll say you know jamie and chris sat in the office talking about this and they did that and i'm like why are you telling me like show me the conversation and then it'll go back what are they saying yes yes and it'll go back and it'll go you're right and it'll rewrite the conversation interesting my ai would never tell me again i'm right i would be very happy yeah hate that yeah like i know dude that's why i just said it anyway so yeah but that's my that's how i go back and that's really the thing i feel like it doesn't do very well is the dialogue yeah um and tension so yeah like if you think about a scene like um let's say that um somebody was your your father was showing up and he was just coming home from um from being overseas in the war right being deployed and he shows up the ai will have a tendency to be like so chris went to the door and his father was there from overseas and he had been deployed and he was home and they were both so happy but
Speaker 1you would be like he stops before he gets to the door and wonders like it's the same father that i knew before he left because
Speaker 2he touched the knob and it was cold or was that his hand you know like you would show that moment happening so that's the other thing it when there's a tense moment it has a tendency to just like kind of glance right over it because it's hard that's a human yeah you
Speaker 1know it's like slow down here like this part's very important
Speaker 2yes and that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's all you just have to go back and tell it and be like look i don't i need i need this expanded i need this shown yeah and those are the only things and that's where an editor would come in where you write the book with the with the ai you know and you get all the things mapped out and then you hand it over to a human editor and the human editor will be there to say you know you should rewrite this and show the dialogue because i've edited several books that i were written by ai and they don't tell me but one and a half pages in i'm like oh they use chat yeah so now i know and i i messaged them right away i'm like hey i noticed you used ai to write this book so i'm gonna take all the ai slop out if that's okay with you
Speaker 1yeah they're like you got me
Speaker 2yeah yeah because sometimes they're like this is my voice and i'm like yeah nope no no
Speaker 1it's not it drives me crazy that like when i get sent something from someone that's ai written and they clearly didn't read it right because it's like the pendulum is going all the way in the opposite direction we're all using ai it's fine but like at least know what you're sending right
Speaker 2well and i think the reason i've thought about that too like most people who don't write when the ai writes it for them it's really good yeah because they don't write that well right so they're just excited to be like wow look how good i sound you know but they don't realize that if if you use it a lot it's just it's screaming ai yeah
Speaker 1what about these new like watermarks that claude's using for ai writing is that affecting anything you're doing i mean not
Speaker 2me personally because it doesn't i don't care about it but um i know like in i think that's what they say like for say i wrote a book and i wanted to submit it and i used claude just to come up with like the outline in the very beginning they won't accept it how would they know because you have to tell them that's i mean that's it you have to tell them and to me i feel like that's a tool i use it's none of your business what i
Speaker 1did this would be like simon and schuster yes they they have to know
Speaker 2yes they ask you did you use ai at all and if you click yes they won't read it and i'm like well if you googled anything you used ai so that's a stupid question you know it's like gonna change that they're gonna have to it's like being an airplane or being a train in the airplane world you just can't yeah and i like 10 years ago when everyone was self-publishing and all the big five publishers were anti you know like um simon schuster all the big ones now they have self-publishing arms you know so it's only a matter of time capture it yeah yeah so i think what's gonna happen and where the big five will start to see like value is maybe they have an idea they want to write a dog who goes into outer space to save a mouse who heard that the moon was made of cheese right well they don't want to hire a writer to write that book they want to just like maybe run it through claude to get a chapter and just it's like
Speaker 1netflix making their own show yeah and just
Speaker 2pull it and just be like hey does the audience like this story they do great so now we're going to give this idea to our best writer and have them write it instead of giving an idea to a writer writing the book spending a year and a half and god only knows how much money to find out that it's a flop yeah nobody cares about mice and dogs and cheese how many
Speaker 1books have you ghost written so far um i've
Speaker 2probably at this point in the past two years i've probably done about 15 okay and
Speaker 1how what would the split be between like fantasy and business or memoirs
Speaker 2um mostly i do the fiction mostly the fantasy um i i try to move away from the non-fiction it's just it's not as much fun and there's a lot more room to mistake everything because it's your story like it's yeah and there's like
Speaker 1institutional knowledge like i'm like you're like i haven't worked in the steel manufacturing industry you know i don't know this i don't know how you talk whereas with fantasy like that's your language
Speaker 2right exactly yeah and i don't like i don't write um very sexual like i'll tell people right away like it'll sound like a doctor's pamphlet no one will want to read that even if i use claude like i won't be able to read it you know yeah so that's my only thing i don't write but i write horror and you know short stories whatever yeah no genre but but mostly i prefer um the fiction to the non-fiction and how many of
Speaker 1your clients if not all of them are like really wanting to get it published and to do well and sell well versus just like check a box yeah i
Speaker 2think all of them want it published and so because of that um i i opened up some publishing options you know i've only done i haven't done any yet i just opened this up that i'm doing some formatting okay and um you know it because i i've learned i have a program i can use that's pretty simple and it really just takes a word document and you feed it in and it breaks down the whole interior to like get it ready to publish yes so you can put it on amazon you know because the the thing is that most people they want they want the whole like dream of getting an agent getting a publisher getting a deal you know and it's really hard um it's not because their idea isn't good it's just hard because there's a lot of competition and it takes so long and then you don't own anything you know like yeah i've published 25 books of mine um i own all the rights to all of them i have had an agent i have had a traditional publisher i have fired everybody for not doing what they said and not doing it fast enough and now i own all my rights and i was able to work with dreamworks last year and sell them one of my ideas wow good for you yeah and i have a book going to um with the producer of jenny and georgia that's hopefully heading to netflix you know that's amazing i know and and i own those so i don't have to ask for permission or do all this work and then give someone else 90% of the time and then i'm like okay i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it
Speaker 1for doing nothing i've heard a lot of mixed results about like self-publishing versus publishing like from really smart people that have done both yeah um where do you stand on that
Speaker 2so i always recommend to clients um for six months try to query agents because you just never know because it is easier to get a traditional deal because if you think about it you're selling your book to one person you're selling your book to the publisher so you make a lot of money on one sale it doesn't matter you don't have to do anything else like you should you should go promote your book and you should go try to like sell it for them but really that's it you're done whereas for me i have to make every single sale yeah i might get more money but i'm not selling a million copies yeah today yeah today so um so for me i always recommend like just try if if you're if you're not an entrepreneur and you don't care like you just want to get your book done go with a traditional publisher get an agent if you're a little impatient and you just want to get your book done and in your hand go with a small to mid-sized press there's a lot of really good ones out there just not not like a vanity press where you're paying yeah um if you're like computer savvy and you kind of entrepreneurial and you you like like for me you like merch like i love merging my stuff um do it yourself because you're really going to do the same amount of work no matter which way you go it's just a matter of do you want one sale do you want like maybe a little bit more sales than just you by yourself with a mid-press or do you want like to do everything and have to sell everything yeah
Speaker 1because like a penguin they'll take like 85 won't they
Speaker 2yeah they they take um no you get 10 of the retail okay so
Speaker 1two bucks per per book yeah and
Speaker 2then the the trait like the mass paperbacks it's less yeah
Speaker 1but then audiobooks a little more audiobooks a
Speaker 2little more and ebooks are a little more and you can negotiate those things but and the issue with like the mid-sized presses they they use that same template so like if penguin they don't have the distribution right if penguin's doing a hundred thousand books i'm making a dollar a book great but if you know mid-sized press is doing a dollar a book and they're really relying on my 50 family and friends and maybe like 20 people from their newsletter then that's
Speaker 1yeah that's not great yeah you make 100
Speaker 2bucks yeah that's pretty average but if if you just want to get a book you know you're retired you're a business owner like you just want to have a book to sell then it's a great you don't have to do all the legwork it's a really great way to get a book in hand but it
Speaker 1sounds like if people really want to make money and be in this sphere the best thing to do is what you're
Speaker 2doing i think so it's it's just it's a hustle you know i mean i've been doing it for 10 years plus um but like you know now i i can do whatever i want with the books and now they're starting to get some traction because of the you know the movie stuff is building and the truth is like you want to go with the big five press because you want to get your books out and then hopefully you get the movie deal like that's every author's dream so if i have i just do everything backwards like so i have the movie deals first and then i'm like well if if metal mouth goes to tv then people will find it and they'll go buy the books and then i get you know all the sales so that's way better is metal
Speaker 1mouth the one that you're excited about
Speaker 2yeah that's the one with um with the jenny and georgia producer okay yeah that's exciting what's
Speaker 1the what's the concept of that a
Speaker 2girl from melbourne wears braces melbourne florida she gets struck by lightning and now they're transmitting a boy's voice in her head and she has to figure out if he's real or not
Speaker 1how did you think of that idea
Speaker 2it was a dream and i woke up laughing really yeah i had this dream of this girl hearing this boy and like i just woke up giggling and i'm like oh my gosh that's adorable i have to write this book i feel like
Speaker 1metal mouth is such a good name that's what i don't know why it's just like it just invokes so much curiosity yes that's
Speaker 2why it's doing so well and it's a great book it's a great story but that's the i mean everyone in hollywood who has looked at it that's what they're like i love this yeah it's a great
Speaker 1title okay so um you've been doing the ai ghost writing for like a year and a half then right yeah and how has how has your revenue and profits been over time so the
Speaker 2six figures which i've never done in my life yeah um like it in profit yeah yeah because i mean there's really not a lot of expenses books yeah well i mean it was more than that because i was charging less yeah but and i had like a couple of other things like some editing jobs here and there too but i mean i was charging between i'm probably like eight and ten eight and twelve per book okay and then i had a few at 20 okay for that and you got your
Speaker 1leads from that what was
Speaker 2the association association of ghost writers and there's several like that okay that's not the only um and then from um facebook just from people seeing me post just your
Speaker 1personal facebook not like you're not like a big influencer
Speaker 2i am not yeah nobody even listens to me in my house like i influence but it's
Speaker 1like if you have 500 facebook friends statistically right uh 200 of them want to write a book right and like if you just look at like the average income in america of those 200 statistically 40 can afford you right so it's like how many of those 40 can you convince yeah and in
Speaker 2if i was like um writing non-stop i could write 40 books at a time with ai because it's about an hour per chapter okay and there's 40 hours in a week and i drop a chapter a week yeah i would hate my life but i could right so what i am doing now is i have um i have a ghost writer and i have a ghost screenwriter like
Speaker 1humans okay and so
Speaker 2they're part of my when i need it team
Speaker 1okay are they using
Speaker 2ai uh no they're not which is strange to me but it's nice to have both options you know do you just
Speaker 1give them a percentage
Speaker 2yeah i pay them um i pay them like the screenwriter guy is by the project and then the the um the ghost writer is by the chapter okay so she makes like 40 bucks a chapter for now okay and then the screenwriter guy gets it usually works out to be like a 60 40 split yeah and 60 on him because he's doing all the work i feel
Speaker 1like on the surface um people would look at the screenwriter guy and this idea and say this is this is going away people are just going to do this themselves but here it would be my analogy so i just started lifting weights and i've never lifted weights in my life and i'm using claude to do it to coach me and if i'm unsure about form i upload a video of my form and now like it's going well and i'm enjoying it but i want to get a personal trainer to like just to make sure because i can't see everything the camera angles and so like on the surface it's like oh personal trainers are done for because people use claude but i'm now going to hire one which i never would have before because claude like opened me up to it you know what i'm saying so i just feel like it grows the pie for everyone and like more and more people are going to want ghost writers uh more and more people are going to use ai to write books which means more and more people are going to want a second trained eye to say hey like even if they use claude it's like can i pay you just to look at this because i don't know what's ai slop and what's not
Speaker 2right and the other thing that happens is they'll start remember i said 54 percent want to write a book yeah 15 start the book so a lot of people are going to be like oh i can write a book with ai and get like four chapters in and realize it's less about the talent of writing and more about the diligence of sitting and they'll be like hey i started this book can i hire you
Speaker 1to finish it yeah so or i started this and i don't like it it doesn't sound like me yeah it doesn't there's no soul to it can you help me yeah so yeah so what would someone's like 30-day playbook be to getting their first ghost writing client
Speaker 2um i think like just in general or with ai
Speaker 1yeah if you could go back in time knowing everything you know now and you're watching this and you're like i want to do this i don't have the experience that my guest has what what
Speaker 2would you do um i would probably you're gonna have to use ai because you can't just manufacture a book out of thin air so i would probably start with my own idea and just do like a short story and just kind of practice with it um and then i would probably have somebody like a teacher or somebody you know everybody knows somebody that can write um can you read this and just kind of walk me through it and then i would probably have somebody like a teacher or somebody you know what's working and then i would reach out to like a library and just say hey i'd love to i'd love to share how to do this and that is what we were talking about earlier when i got sidetracked when i did the book for the company that paid me the 20 grand when i was finished writing the book i asked claude to go back through everything and build out a template using how we work together to create the book okay so that i could share that with other people because i thought there was value in how i talked it how i prompted it what i told it not to do and how we went back and forth so that was um that was the thing i forgot okay okay gotcha gotcha so yeah but and i mean i have the two methods to help people that are like hey i'm curious i'd like to start a you know ghostwriting business so i mean i have things that can prompt you through it um and like you said like getting you to the point where you need a human or you feel comfortable yeah continuing when you get
Speaker 1these leads from the association of ghostwriters how do you get these leads from the association of ghostwriters how do you stand out because clearly these guys are getting pitched from a bunch of people like
Speaker 2you they get so many pitches and i've i talked to them um i what i do immediately is i take the whole post and i put it into claude and i go claude i need a query response to this um please highlight because depending on what it is like like one came in yesterday she wanted a fantasy book or and i'm sorry a romance book um and my first movie was a rom-com and i wrote the book so i'm like shoo-in right but so i took i put it into the clod and i said hey um give me an email please focus on the fact that i've written a book like this that i turned it into a movie that i have the movie connections if that's of interest and please also include that i am one of the educators at the writer's day workshops because that's something i do um so i can connect them with agents and and help them with their query process if they want to go that direction so i just have it break it down like that and it's very quick and i just introduced myself i'm jamie i've published 25 books and i'm one of them was a rom-com blah blah blah i think by doing that what what makes me stand out from other people because i i have booked this year i've booked five books with the association wow and um two of them no three of them found me from my profile page i didn't even bid on it they just reached out to me yeah and so that's a great 125 investment to make 60 yeah 60 000 yeah um but what i what i definitely do is i don't i don't try to sell myself i just share why i'm the right And I think there's a difference in there. It's like attraction rather than promotion. Like this is what I've done. This is my experience. This is how I can open some doors for you. But I and then I just say I'd love to if you think this might be worthwhile to you. I'd love to have a chat. Yeah. And you know, they'll call me and I just I'm very like you. I am very transparent. I'm very upfront and very open. And I will tell people I'm not the right fit for you. Yeah. But I know somebody. Yeah. And I'm happy to pass that on. And if I get a referral fee, I'll tell them I'm going to pass you on to so and so. And she cuts me back a referral fee just so you know. Yeah. But that's not why I work.
Speaker 1And they love the transparency. They do. Whatever hesitation they might have about the referral fee is more than offset by the transparency of it.
Speaker 2Right. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1And it makes you feel good. Yeah. When you when you said you do comics and what was the
Speaker 2other thing in writing for film and TV?
Speaker 1Just is that just because you really love it or because there's a better opportunity in those niches?
Speaker 2Those are the ones that the library in Hillsborough County and Tampa area, they bring me out every summer. I've been going there. This is probably my ninth year. And those are the two that they find the most interest from there. Yeah, I've been doing that one for about three years now. And the comic came about like I, Chris, I don't think I've ever read a comic. Like I'm not a comic person. Like I'm not. But I wrote a comic for one of my TV shows because I thought that would be a really good proof of concept as opposed to like doing a $25,000 trailer. I'm like, I can do a $5,000 investment in a comic book and then at least sell them and recoup. And I turned it into a course using AI. And I did it on Canva, the actual like book. And so now I go to libraries and just talk about the journey and explain how you can write your own comic. And then I sell a $5 Canva book that I made, which is a blank comic book. And it's just got the little balloons and the squares. And it's like, they love it. And I have so much fun. And so yeah, that just came about. That's cool. Yeah, just like, like you said, we're all experts in everything if you're just willing to kind of be gritty.
Speaker 1Yeah. So if someone's doing their first presentation in a library, and they don't know what they're doing, what they're talking about. Yes. You would just have Claude make like a slideshow with notes. Yes. For you to talk about.
Speaker 2Yes. And I would either do the slides if you're wanting to have a slideshow or just have your bullet points. Okay. And just ask it, tell it your purpose and like what you're looking for. Yes. Just to build out like a short presentation. And I always ask the library, like, what are your patrons looking for? And AI is a really hot topic. Yeah. You know, so if you can go in and teach them how to use AI to plan a vacation. Great. Yeah. You could probably have a full house.
Speaker 1And they're going to be shocked at what you talk about. Stuff that you and I are doing, you know, on a daily basis.
Speaker 2Yeah. I think I'm sending out emails right now.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. You know, we're all experts in everything. Like we all gave a report on Jupiter. We all gave a report on Jupiter in high school. Right. We didn't know anything about Jupiter. We don't care about Jupiter.
Speaker 2Right. So true.
Speaker 1It's like we can, we can, we all have the capacity of doing that.
Speaker 2Yeah. I think the problem with the AI is, you know, people, they, they latch onto the, like, it's not my voice. It's a computer or whatever. Because as a, as a writer, I'm actually as good as a machine. It's just my ego being bruised. Yeah. And then instead of like getting educated and learning how, because that's how I started. I took a course. Like not last January, but the January before. And it was on using AI for, as an author. And I raised my hand and I was like, what would you tell somebody who hates AI, but doesn't want to be a train in an airplane world? And she said, take your book and feed it like a little synopsis and ask it to build out your back cover blurb. I'm like, okay, that's, you know, I can do that. And it was so good. Yeah. So then I went down the rabbit hole. I don't know what to change. Yeah. I'm like, this is great. So then I went down the rabbit hole, but I had to feed it that. I couldn't just be like, Hey, Claude, write me a book.
Speaker 1It didn't have the context.
Speaker 2No. Yeah. I can't do it without you. And it's not going to take your job because it's, you know, using AI is like having a conversation with a super smart third grader. Yeah. Like if you just write a book with it and don't pay attention, like I tell my dad, I'm laughing. I'm like, Kevin shows up and I'm like, Hey, Claude, who's Kevin? And he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I just thought it would be cool to add this in. And I'm like, no. Remember that outline we did? I want Kevin. Get back on task.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't ask you about? That'd be interesting for people to know.
Speaker 2I think really the only thing I would leave is like, just try like just a lot of people will mess around with AI, but they don't know what they're doing. So they decide it doesn't work, but it's all about prompting. I took a course. I mean, it wasn't expensive. It was an online course on through Vanderbilt online, and it was how to prompt. So I took prompt engineering and it, it was a really interesting course. And I would just say, just learn it. You don't have to use it. You don't have to write a book with it. Like if you're a writer and you're offended by it, you can still use it to like help you with query letters or, Hey, could you build me a list of, um, all the agents in Florida or Texas, you know, can you build me a list of all the libraries and who I should contact? Like, why would you do hours and hours of that tedious work if you could just have it? Just have the AI do it while you're washing your dishes. Yeah. I just don't get that. Right. So to each their own, I respect, you know, the future where you might pay $45 for a paperback because it has a little ticket that says, um, human created. I'm down with that business plan too.
Speaker 1It's like, we all want made in USA, but we don't want to pay $60 for a t-shirt. We'd rather pay six. Right. You know, we pay, like we vote with our wallets.
Speaker 2Right. Um, that would be my last thing for just, just try it. Just mess around with it. Um, I mean, I have so many free resources on my YouTube channel. Like I, I love helping writers in particular, but I feel like everybody wants to write a book. Everybody has an idea and you shouldn't not be able to write your book because of money. I don't think that's fair. Yeah. I think if you have the desire to write a book, you can. Yeah. And I think that's really exciting. I think AI is opening that up and people should be excited about that.
Speaker 1Yeah. So it's more so now than ever. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Jamie, this is amazing. Where can we find you? What is your YouTube channel?
Speaker 2Um, all my social is at Jamie Engel writes and, um, I have a page on my website for your people. So it's jamieengel.com forward slash TKO. Perfect. And I'll have a, um, I'll have a free download of that 12 step process I told you about. Um, just what all the steps are and that'll be free to download, um, for, it'll be a secret page. Okay. All right.
Speaker 1All right. Well, thank you, Jamie.
Speaker 2Thank you so much. This was great.
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