How to Use ChatGPT in the Book Revision Process
“I would just say start writing. Half of what I write down inside this manuscript and outside of it doesn’t go anywhere. And that’s fine. I can choose if I want the words to go somewhere or not. But it changes my brain and it changes me by physically writing it.” —Sybil Hall
I met Sybil Hall when we were teaching at an international school in Shanghai. She also taught in Rome, Dubai, and Brussels and has a track record of empowering educators worldwide to define their purpose and cultivate their well-being. But even with her years of experience in education, she knew she would need help writing and publishing her book, so she joined one of our “Authors Who Lead” coaching programs.
In this episode of “Authors Who Lead,” I talk with Sybil about her journey writing her book, Burn Bright, Not Out: 35 Lessons That Cultivate Teacher Well-Being, and how she used ChatGPT during the editing and marketing of her book.
The Writing Journey
When Sybil started in our coaching program, she really didn’t have a concrete idea of the book she wanted to write. She knew she wanted to write a book to help teachers in general, but she had no idea it would turn into a book on financial, physical, and mental well-being. It was only after she went through her own transformation as she worked through the exercises in our group that she “realized that this was really a transformational journey about finding my own well-being and helping other teachers do it.”
ChatGPT
ChatGPT has been all over social media and the news lately. It is an AI language model that has the ability to synthesize data and learn, have human-like conversations in real-time, and assist with many tasks. I don’t think people should use AI to write their books for them—the AI can string pretty words together with a prompt, but the authentic human connection is what really makes a book shine. Readers are already drowning in raw information; what readers need is you, the human’s experience and emotions.
However, we can use ChatGPT as a tool to help us as writers. Sybil has used ChatGPT to help her brainstorm titles for her book, edit her author bio, and organize the theme of seasons in her chapters. But there are so many more areas for AI assistance in the book-writing process. New technology can be frightening to adopt, but as authors, it’s important to understand and utilize tools such as ChatGPT so that we don’t get left behind in the ever-changing landscape of sales, marketing, and finding readers.
In this podcast, Sybil also shares with us:
- You can write a book even if you don’t consider yourself a “writer”
- A great way to use ChatGPT is to give it a model and have it deconstruct it for you
- Your creativity lies in the “messiness” of your writing
- That having a writing community can help you feel less alone
- That writing a book can help build your business
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Have you used ChatGPT as an author? If so, how have you used it? Share in the comments below!
That’s all for this week. If you have a message inside of you that needs to be written, today is the day to start. Don’t delay—take action.
Episode Resource:
Connect with Sybil here:
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