So you want to write a book, well at least have ChatGPT write one for you. Well turns out you are not alone! There are a lot of people looking to write a book with ChatGPT! So let’s get into it. Can ChatGPT be used to write a book?
ChatGPT can be used to write a book. There are limits of course and human editing is required to create a quality final product. Additional context may also be needed to be sent in via a prompt to ChatGPT.
So there you have it! You can write a book with ChatGPT stay tuned and I will show you exactly how to do it including the prompts that you will need.
Table of Contents
- Breaking Your Book Down Into Tiny Pieces
- Creating a Chapter Outline For Our Book
- Ok We Have A Chapter Outline, Now What?
- Copyright: Who Owns What?
- Final Thoughts
Breaking Your Book Down Into Tiny Pieces
One thing that most people don’t realize is that ChatGPT (as of today Jun 20, 2023) will only put out about 500-550 words max per prompt. So you are going to have to break your book down into pieces that are small enough that it can write each piece a bit at a time.
So how can we do that?
Well, we need to break things down first by chapter, then outline the chapter, and then begin to write out each piece of the chapter.
Let’s take a look at an example to see how this works first for a non-fiction book.
Creating a Chapter Outline For Our Book
Prompt: Create a Chapter Outline for A Non-Fiction Book
ChatGPT please act as a GARDENER and author with a great deal of experience who is going to be writing a book about his experiences with gardening. Please create a chapter outline for a 200+ page book about growing flowers in my garden, including information for different climates and all popular species.
Title: Blooming Tales: A Gardener’s Guide to Flowering Paradise
Chapter Outline
- Introduction
- My Journey to Gardening
- The Philosophy of a Gardener
- The Power of Flowers
- Understanding Your Environment
- Introduction to Different Climates
- How Climate Affects Gardening
- Adapting Gardening Techniques for Different Climates
- Soil: The Foundation of a Flower Garden
- Soil Types and Properties
- How Soil Impacts Flower Growth
- Soil Preparation and Conditioning
- Flowers and Their Life Cycle
- The Life Cycle of a Flower
- Seasons and Flowers
- Understanding Flower Lifespans
- Flowers of Temperate Climates
- Most Popular Flowers in Temperate Climates
- Specific Care Instructions and Growth Tips
- Success Stories from My Garden
- Flowers of Tropical Climates
- Most Popular Flowers in Tropical Climates
- Specific Care Instructions and Growth Tips
- The Wonders of My Tropical Flower Experiences
- Flowers of Dry or Arid Climates
- Most Popular Flowers in Dry Climates
- Specific Care Instructions and Growth Tips
- Resilience in the Face of Adversity: Tales from Arid Landscapes
- Flowers of Cold Climates
- Most Popular Flowers in Cold Climates
- Specific Care Instructions and Growth Tips
- Blooming in the Frost: Stories of Cold Climate Flowers
- Designing Your Flower Garden
- Principles of Garden Design
- Combining Flowers for Visual Impact
- Creating a Year-Round Floral Display
- The Practicalities of Flower Gardening
- Watering and Fertilizing Your Flowers
- Dealing with Pests and Diseases
- Pruning and Deadheading: Ensuring Continuous Blooms
- Special Gardens: Container and Indoor Flower Gardens
- Best Flowers for Container Gardening
- Taking Your Garden Indoors: Houseplants and Window Boxes
- The Joy of Small Spaces: My Container Garden Adventures
- Bulbs, Seeds, and Transplants: Starting Your Flower Garden
- Understanding Seeds, Bulbs, and Transplants
- When and How to Plant Flowers
- My Experiences with Seeds, Bulbs, and Transplants
- The Art of Companion Planting
- What is Companion Planting?
- The Best Flower Companions: A Comprehensive Guide
- Harmonious Growth: Stories from My Companion Planting Ventures
- Flower Gardens for Wildlife
- Attracting Pollinators and Birds
- Creating a Habitat for Beneficial Insects
- Gardens Alive: The Symphony of Nature in My Garden
- The Therapeutic Power of Flower Gardening
- Flowers for the Soul: Emotional Benefits of Flower Gardening
- Physical Health and Gardening: A Perfect Union
- A Garden of Wellness: Personal Reflections
- Conclusion: Reflections and Predictions for the Future
- Lessons Learned from a Life in Gardening
- The Future of Gardening in a Changing Climate
- Final Thoughts: Passing the Trowel to the Next Generation
This outline serves as a comprehensive guide to provide readers with an understanding of flower gardening across various climates, insights on various popular species, and recounts of personal experiences, creating a rich and immersive narrative on the joy and challenges of flower gardening.
Great! As you can see from the prompt that I wrote above,
- I asked ChatGPT to be an expert in both writing and gardening.
- I asked ChatGPT to create an outline for a book of a certain length (200+ pages)
- I asked for a book outline specializing in flowers and multiple climates
From this, you can see that getting the book outline is pretty easy. To make the book your own both from a copyright perspective and a human one, I suggest writing at least parts of the text yourself. You can always have ChatGPT rewrite it a bit later if you need to.
Keep in mind that the text that ChatGPT produces is NOT protected by copyright (more about that later).
Ok We Have A Chapter Outline, Now What?
I am going to randomly pick out a topic from our chapter outline and break it down further. This will be something that I will keep doing as we go forward, breaking things down more and more. The important difference as you are going to see is that I am also going to be adding context back into the prompts. (We’ll get to that soon).
So Let’s take “The Life Cycle of a Flower” from chapter 4.
- First I am going to get an outline for this topic.
- Next, I am going to get ChatGPT to write out for me small pieces of the outline
- (Remember we are limited to 500 words for our output)
- I am also going to be adding back into our prompt the text that we just wrote. Why?
- It will help the next piece of text written fit together coherently with what we are writing.
Prompt: Create an Outline for a Sub-Section of a Chapter
ChatGPT please act as a GARDENER and author with a great deal of experience who is going to be writing a book about his experiences with gardening. Please create an outline for my book for a section titled “The Life Cycle of a Flower” (I am including the book outline for context)
Chapter Outline
- Introduction
- My Journey to Gardening
- The Philosophy of a Gardener
- The Power of Flowers ……. (include the whole Chapter Outline)
Chapter 4: Flowers and Their Life Cycle
Section: The Life Cycle of a Flower
Subsection Outline
- Introduction to the Life Cycle of a Flower
- Definition of the Life Cycle
- The Significance of Understanding a Flower’s Life Cycle
- A General Overview of the Life Cycle Stages
- The Seed Stage
- The Formation of a Seed
- Dormancy and Germination: The Wake of Life
- Factors Influencing Seed Germination
- Personal Anecdotes on Seed Germination Successes and Challenges
- The Seedling Stage
- Transition from Germination to Seedling
- Seedling Growth and Development
- Common Seedling Problems and Solutions
- Nurturing Seedlings: Tales from My Garden
- The Vegetative Stage
- The Role of Leaves and Stems
- Key Elements for Healthy Vegetative Growth
- Recognizing and Addressing Vegetative Stage Issues
- Thriving Through the Vegetative Stage: My Garden Experiences
- The Flowering Stage
- Transition from the Vegetative Stage to Flowering
- Anatomy of a Flower
- Pollination: The Dance of Nature
- My Observations on the Magnificence of Flowering
- The Fruit and Seed Formation Stage
- From Flower to Fruit: The Journey
- Seed Formation and Maturation
- How Different Flowers Form Fruits and Seeds
- Nature’s Bounty: Stories of Fruit and Seed Harvesting
- The Dormancy or Dieback Stage
- Understanding Plant Dormancy and Dieback
- Preparing Plants for Dormancy
- The Role of Dormancy in a Plant’s Life Cycle
- Embracing the Quiet: Dormancy in My Garden
- Regeneration and The Cycle Continues
- The Role of Seeds and Bulbs in Plant Regeneration
- How Perennials, Biennials, and Annuals Differ in Their Life Cycles
- The Beauty of Nature’s Cycle: Reflections from My Garden
- Conclusion: The Cycle of Life and Lessons Learned
- The Importance of Each Stage in the Flower Life Cycle
- How Understanding the Life Cycle Informs Gardening Practices
- Life Lessons Derived from the Cycle of a Flower
Now we are ready to start writing out this section of Chapter 4. We need to determine the “voice” that we are going to use while writing. We also need to keep in mind that we are shooting for a book that is about 200-300 pages long.
If each section of this outline comes out to 500 words then this part of chapter 4 will end up being about 9 pages long (4,500 words estimate single spaced). That is going to make for a 400-page book! (if every chapter is 25 pages long).
So we should specify that we want ChatGPT to be succinct but clear in its prose.
Prompt: Use an Outline of a Sub-Section Of A Chapter To Write Our Text
I would like you to act as a GARDENER and author with a great deal of experience who is going to be writing a book about his experiences with gardening. Please write in first person with self deprecating humor and a succinct and interesting manner. If I have included any information between the [ ] please consider that you are continuing the text of a book following this excerpt.
[ Alright, folks, sit tight, and buckle up as we embark on a journey that even the best of reality TV can’t rival – the life cycle of a flower! Yes, that’s right, behind the intricate petals and seductive fragrance lies an epic saga of growth, struggle, transformation, and rebirth.
Definition of the Life Cycle
……. (when I ran the prompt I included all the information that it generated for 1. Introduction ……
In the following sections, I’ll guide you through each stage in more detail, peppering in a few of my own gardening misadventures for good measure. But don’t worry, all the plants survived… mostly!]
Outline For Part Of a Book Chapter
Chapter 4: Flowers and Their Life Cycle
Section: The Life Cycle of a Flower
Subsection Outline
1. Introduction to the Life Cycle of a Flower
• Definition of the Life Cycle
• The Significance of Understanding a Flower’s Life Cycle
• A General Overview of the Life Cycle Stages
2. The Seed Stage
• The Formation of a Seed
• Dormancy and Germination: The Wake of Life
• Factors Influencing Seed Germination
• Personal Anecdotes on Seed Germination Successes and Challenges
3. The Seedling Stage
• Transition from Germination to Seedling
• Seedling Growth and Development
• Common Seedling Problems and Solutions
• Nurturing Seedlings: Tales from My Garden
4. The Vegetative Stage
• The Role of Leaves and Stems
• Key Elements for Healthy Vegetative Growth
• Recognizing and Addressing Vegetative Stage Issues
• Thriving Through the Vegetative Stage: My Garden Experiences
5. The Flowering Stage
• Transition from the Vegetative Stage to Flowering
• Anatomy of a Flower
• Pollination: The Dance of Nature
• My Observations on the Magnificence of Flowering
6. The Fruit and Seed Formation Stage
• From Flower to Fruit: The Journey
• Seed Formation and Maturation
• How Different Flowers Form Fruits and Seeds
• Nature’s Bounty: Stories of Fruit and Seed Harvesting
7. The Dormancy or Dieback Stage
• Understanding Plant Dormancy and Dieback
• Preparing Plants for Dormancy
• The Role of Dormancy in a Plant’s Life Cycle
• Embracing the Quiet: Dormancy in My Garden
8. Regeneration and The Cycle Continues
• The Role of Seeds and Bulbs in Plant Regeneration
• How Perennials, Biennials, and Annuals Differ in Their Life Cycles
• The Beauty of Nature’s Cycle: Reflections from My Garden
9. Conclusion: The Cycle of Life and Lessons Learned
• The Importance of Each Stage in the Flower Life Cycle
• How Understanding the Life Cycle Informs Gardening Practices
• Life Lessons Derived from the Cycle of a Flower
Please write out the section “2. The seed stage”
2. The Seed Stage
Alright, let’s dive into the first stage of our thrilling journey – the seed stage. This is where it all begins, folks!
The Formation of a Seed
So, how do we get our tiny, unassuming seeds? Well, let me enlighten you! It all starts with the birds and the bees…or in this case, the flowers and the bees. See, after a flower is pollinated (we’ll get more into this hot gossip in the flowering stage), the ovary of the flower develops into a fruit. And inside this fruit, the fertilized ovules turn into seeds. Sounds simple, right? Trust me, it’s as complex as a soap opera behind the scenes.
Dormancy and Germination: The Wake of Life
Here’s where things get interesting. Seeds, much like teenagers, go through a phase of dormancy. They shut down and conserve energy until the conditions are just right to start growing. Now, this isn’t a case of being lazy. It’s a sophisticated survival strategy. When conditions are prime – think Goldilocks, not too hot, not too cold, but just right – the seed wakes up from its slumber in a process we call germination. It’s kind of like the plant version of hitting the snooze button until it’s really time to get up.
Factors Influencing Seed Germination
Now, what could possibly convince a seed to end its beauty sleep? Temperature, water, and light conditions are the main motivators here. Each type of seed has a sweet spot for these conditions. This is why you might see some seeds sprouting in spring while others wait until fall. They’re not fashionably late; they’re just picky!
Personal Anecdotes on Seed Germination Successes and Challenges
Now, I’ve had my share of face-offs with germination. I remember the year I decided to start a bed of sunflowers from seed. I did everything by the book, prepared the soil, planted the seeds at the right depth, and watered them diligently. But nothing happened! Weeks went by, and not a single sprout appeared. I was about to give up and declare defeat when I noticed tiny green shoots pushing up the soil. The lesson? Patience, my dear gardeners, is not just a virtue; it’s a necessity!
And then there was the time I got overexcited and planted a bunch of zinnia seeds in early spring. It was still a bit chilly outside, and those poor little seeds just couldn’t take the cold. I ended up with a flower bed full of…well, just soil. I replanted a few weeks later when the weather was warmer, and lo and behold, we had lift-off! The moral of the story? Timing is everything!
Alright, I’ve babbled enough about seeds for now. Buckle up, because our next stop is the seedling stage, and oh boy, do I have some stories for you!
Ok, you can see from the prompt a few things. I asked it once again to be an expert, that I wanted a first-person narrative, tone to use, etc… That helps me to get a higher quality more focused product. I also included a lot of context including the section that I just had it write as well as the complete outline for this piece of the chapter.
Why include so much context? It helps ChatGPT to understand exactly how what it is writing will fit together with what it has just written.
From here it is pretty simple you will use this technique to create section after section and chaper after chapter. Expect to need to do some editing of the final product. Also there is another big consideration.
Copyright: Who Owns What?
In the United States up to this point they have ruled that AI gernerated content cannot be protected by copyright.
What does that mean for you and your new book?
Currently there is no regulation in place that you have to state that part of a book was written by AI to claim a copyright. I would suggest that you take the time to write at least part of your book completely by yourself. You are automatically covered by copyright for that part of your book.
You could then place the copyright symbol in your book noting that at least parts are covered by copyright.
Here are some references to court cases in the USA so far.
The supreme court has already spoke in terms of patents and I expect that they will treat copyright the same way.
I expect over the next few years that a lot of these questions will be clarified.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it, you can use this simple formula to create a book! You could self-publish on Amazon print on demand or Amazon Kindle. There are a few good options. I suspect that there is not a publisher in the world right now that will want to deal with a “ChatGPT Book”. There are just too many areas of the law that are not clear.
If you do choose to write a book this way though and want to sell it I suggest that you consider studying a bit about marketing on Amazon and other possible venues.
Once again thanks for coming by and see you next time 🙂