The Publishing Performance Show

Lucy McCarraher of Book Magic AI - The $100,000 Book: The AI-Powered Secret to Writing Your Business Book in Record Time

• Teddy Smith • Episode 59

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Lucy McCarraher is the Founder of Rethink Press, BookMagic AI, the book-writing app, and the Business Book Awards. She also hosts the ABOO – A Book of One's Own – women writers' network. She is the author of 13 books including three novels, four self-help books and six books on writing books. Lucy mentors non-fiction and fiction authors through planning and writing their books and is the UK's most experienced business book mentor. She recently won a Stevie Award for Women Helping Women in Business; and the Great British Businesswomen's Award for Creative Industries Businesswoman of the Year for her work supporting more women to write and publish their business books.


In this episode:

  • The journey from idea to published business book
  • Using AI tools to support (not replace) writing
  • Creating authentic business books
  • Hybrid publishing vs self-publishing
  • Book positioning strategies
  • Writing habits and routines
  • Distribution and marketing approaches


Resources mentioned:


Book recommendations:


Connect with Lucy:


Connect with Teddy Smith:

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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Writing and AI is something that a lot of people are talking about at the moment. It's a bit of a hot topic. So I'm really happy to be talking to Lucy McCarraher, who is from bookmagic. ai. And it's a tool that helps you to write your book from scratch in minutes, rather than just taking ages and ages to write it yourself.

[00:00:19] Teddy Smith: You can use AI to help you with certain aspects of it. Now, I know this is quite controversial for a lot of people. So we talk about some of the morals behind using a I for writing some of the reasons why you might use a I for writing and some use cases why you might not use a I for writing as well.

[00:00:33] Teddy Smith: It's a really fascinating episode. And Lucy is like one of the experts in this area. So I've been looking forward to Getting on for a long time. So I think you're going to have a really enjoyed this episode. Hi everyone. And welcome to publishing format show. I'm here with Lucy Makara, who is the founder of rethink press and book magic AI, and she's also the author of 13 books and she is the UK's most experienced business book mentor.

[00:00:56] Teddy Smith: So thank you for joining us, Lucy. 

[00:00:59] Lucy MaCarraher: Oh, thank you for inviting me. It's great to be here. 

[00:01:02] Teddy Smith: So you're the most experienced business book mentor. What do you mean by that? 

[00:01:07] Lucy MaCarraher: Well, over the last 12 years, I think I have taken probably over 2000 entrepreneurs business leaders founders of, of small businesses through the process of writing a book to build their business.

[00:01:23] Lucy MaCarraher: I've developed a process to help people do that and I've refined it with, you know, loads and loads of people. So having, getting lots of feedback on what works for people and what doesn't. And I think I'm pretty sure that that is more than any other business book mentor that I know of.

[00:01:44] Teddy Smith: So your background is in business books. Is that a, so why don't we talk a bit about your background and what led you to writing the type of books you do today? 

[00:01:54] Lucy MaCarraher: Okay. Well, um, my background is sort of is, is pretty very, I started off actually publishing, um, a theatre magazine in Australia when I was still a student and that kind of, we, I did that for eight years with my ex husband and then we'd gone out to Australia to for a lecturing job for him.

[00:02:10] Lucy MaCarraher: And then we came back to the UK and then we went into television and and, and video and we, we developed something. I mean, it sounds like it's all books again, but we developed something that at time we called the video book, which was actually the very first time people had done a kind of how to, videos.

[00:02:29] Lucy MaCarraher: So we did cooking with Prue Leith, we did gardening with Alan Titchmarsh. And those were, those were American listeners. Those are quite famous people in the UK. And, and that was sort of my next kind of 10 years. And then I weirdly went into the area of work life balance. and became kind of, by complete accident, became a consultant in Work Life Balance.

[00:02:53] Lucy MaCarraher: And that was where, when I wrote my first book, I was commissioned to write two books, one for businesses and one for individuals. So the first, I think the first book I actually had published was called The Book of Balanced Living. And it sounds, I mean, these days it sounds really kind of, it makes it seem all so old, but Work Life Balance was a new concept at the time.

[00:03:12] Lucy MaCarraher: that point. So it was kind of breaking new ground, but it was in fact, funnily enough, it was a sort of turned out to be a sort of template for the business books that I mentor people through now. 

[00:03:26] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. So the types of people who would come to you to get to write a business book, who would they be industry experts and people like that and want to build their reputation is that.

[00:03:37] Teddy Smith: Yes, 

[00:03:37] Lucy MaCarraher: exactly. I mean, they, they usually founders of small businesses. And when I say fat, uh, small businesses, I don't necessarily mean startups, but I mean, small businesses that have probably a six or seven figure turnover by now, and they've expanded to a stage where they kind of need something. to be a game changer and take them on to the next stage.

[00:04:01] Lucy MaCarraher: And we found that actually becoming an author and writing your own book is something that they often haven't thought of. But when they do do it, it really makes a difference. It really builds their authority, their credibility. And they have a book that then goes out there and I always call their book their undercover sales agent because I'm totally against, you know, a book that is just kind of a marketing brochure in disguise.

[00:04:25] Lucy MaCarraher: I mean, that's, that's no good to anybody. but having, but a book that has real value in it, but maybe very niche in terms of the. And the business is market. So that's, that's the, that's how we and of course, a lot of these entrepreneurs are not writers by trade. So they, you know, they're the experts in their field.

[00:04:49] Lucy MaCarraher: But they don't really know often how to start writing or even, you know, go through the process of writing a book. And so that's where I have come in and found that I'm able to kind of break down the process and take them through so that they actually end up with a really valuable book and a book that they're proud of on a book that, you know, is kind of.

[00:05:11] Lucy MaCarraher: You know, their legacy, but also really, really works to help them build their business and their visibility as a key person in their industry. So that's what, that's, that's, that's, that's where that came from. And that's why my business partner, Joe Gregory and I started Rethink. Press, which is a hybrid publisher.

[00:05:31] Lucy MaCarraher: We specialize in business books. We, we started off publishing. We published a few novels and other things, but we've kind of, I mean, we ourselves have niched down to a market of, this sort of entrepreneurial and expert author market. And so we publish books for expert entrepreneurs and because.

[00:05:51] Lucy MaCarraher: You know, I mean, obviously a traditional publisher is looking for a wide market book, is looking to sell as many copies as possible. So the hybrid business model for publishing, where the author pays up front to get their book professionally created, edited, designed, etc, etc, and published. Works very well for them because we're not a gatekeeper.

[00:06:12] Lucy MaCarraher: We're not a gatekeeper publisher. Anybody who's got a good book to write, and obviously we don't publish rubbish but, but, you know, we ensure that the books are well written, they're well edited, they're, you know, well, well produced then, of course. But, you know, you don't have to then have, uh, you don't then have to sell lots of copies in order for your book to be successful and valuable for what you want it to do.

[00:06:37] Teddy Smith: Mm. So Rethink Press if an author or entrepreneur, for example, comes to you and they've got this idea for a book, do you handhold them through that whole process of like getting that book written, structuring the book and then the publishing process and getting out there as well? 

[00:06:51] Lucy MaCarraher: Yes, that's right. I mean, Rethink Press is also unique in that we realized that you know, the, the, I mean, we started with the publishing end of things cause we, you know came to us with their books written and then and, you know, we were able to publish them.

[00:07:05] Lucy MaCarraher: But we also realized there were a lot more people out there who wanted to write their book, but didn't know how to do that. So, uh, I mean, two things happened. One was that we started working with the key person of influence program. where uniquely, again, I think publishing a book is part of the, is part of the program.

[00:07:26] Lucy MaCarraher: It's kind of part of the, the accelerator curriculum, if you like. So I became the publish mentor for the KPI program. And, and, but also we developed at Rethink Press a, a team of coaches. Of writing coaches and and, and ghost writers who could help entrepreneurs and business owners to, to write their books and plan their books.

[00:07:53] Lucy MaCarraher: Brilliant. Um, so, so yeah, so I, I, I don't know any other publisher, hybrid or traditional that actually has a team of coaches as part of the as part of their, their team and their process. Yeah, that's, 

[00:08:05] Teddy Smith: that is really interesting. 'cause obviously publishing is quite a. Daunting process for a lot of people and you know, these entrepreneurs who have got this great idea, they might want some extra help with all of those different steps because a lot of concepts are quite foreign.

[00:08:17] Teddy Smith: Like for example, what's the proposal, what's the, what's the query letter, what are those concepts mean? You know, if you, especially if you're, this is just something I was talking about yesterday, but I just didn't really know what that process was being self published entirely myself, but publishing has loads of these strange like jargons that you don't necessarily understand if you're coming at it from the first time.

[00:08:37] Lucy MaCarraher: No, I think, I think it's really, it really is quite alien and people are quite scared of it. Or on the other hand, sometimes people think, Oh, you know, self publishing is really easy. All I've got to do is, uh, you know, I write my book and whack it up on KDP and get a cover designed on Fiverr. But there's, you know, there's a back end to publishing that is also more complicated than people realize, I think.

[00:09:00] Lucy MaCarraher: So you know, there's, there's, there's that end of things as well that at Rethink Press, you know, that's, that's part of what we do for, for people, for our authors. 

[00:09:09] Teddy Smith: Now, obviously, as a, as, as you mentioned, you're a hybrid publication at Rethink publishers at Rethink Press. So there's upfront investments.

[00:09:16] Teddy Smith: So it's more for people who have. Who have got that idea and they really want to invest in that in their business going forward, but I'm guessing you've got all of that knowledge that you've built up over the years from working through rethink press and built into a tool that people can use by themselves.

[00:09:31] Teddy Smith: And that's what book magic is. 

[00:09:33] Lucy MaCarraher: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. I mean, it suddenly, suddenly occurred to me when AI started kind of coming in and being, you know, I think it was really the beginning of last year when suddenly people said, Oh, look, there's chat GPT. Look what it can do. And it suddenly occurred to me that actually you could, you could create something really user friendly and helpful to people writing their books.

[00:09:56] Lucy MaCarraher: Yeah. But not with the AI actually doing the writing because well, I think there's numerous reasons why that's not a good idea. But, but it can do some really helpful things. So we, we, we teamed up with a fantastic app designer called Jonathan Farah. And he was, was actually wanting to write his own book.

[00:10:18] Lucy MaCarraher: So he was kind of invested in the idea of creating He made it for himself. That would yes, that would help him as well as other people and it's turned out to be a brilliant partnership because he totally gets the process and I think perhaps, I mean, one of the most important things I think is that people often think that writing a book is a sort of big amorphous project that you kind of go away, you know, the writer is the creative who has to get in flow and go and sit in their lonely garret scribbling or tapping away and you know, there's no, there's no kind of structure.

[00:10:53] Lucy MaCarraher: to it. And actually what I've found over the years is the most important thing in a way is to break it down into discrete stages so that you never get overwhelmed because I think one of the reasons people don't start is because it's overwhelming and they don't know how to. But then a lot of people start their book and kind of get a few chapters in and then like, Oh, it's all gone crazy.

[00:11:14] Lucy MaCarraher: This is chaotic. I don't know where to go next. And actually, if you break every single bit down from the Positioning your book to your ideal market to planning your book in detail before you start writing and then writing in distinct kind of phases. So, you know, writing your first draft first without doing any editing and then going back.

[00:11:38] Lucy MaCarraher: To edit and then sharing it with a few beta readers and then doing a final edit. That's our sort of our writing stages. It just helps people keep on track and in the app with AI, support and suggestions and ideas and planning, and also having a, a schedule as well. And reminders that's, and the word count there all the time, it just kind of keeps people on track.

[00:12:03] Lucy MaCarraher: And that's. That's what's that's, that's how it works. So, well, I'm sorry to say, I think the app actually does it better than I do in person. 

[00:12:12] Teddy Smith: I'm sure that's not true, but so book magic basically takes someone who's got a book idea. It walks them through step by step exactly. How to get a book written how to get it published and also the AI helps them with writing some of the words or is it more about the structure maybe 

[00:12:30] Lucy MaCarraher: it can what we've done in book magic is we've enabled people to ask the AI so what we do is we we get them to create their ideal reader avatar.

[00:12:41] Lucy MaCarraher: And by telling, you know, the, the, the app a lot of, you know, it asks a lot of questions. So there's a lot of information going in there and then in the writing process, you can actually ask the AI, what should I say about this subject? What have I missed? What do you, as my ideal reader, what do you want to hear about this subject?

[00:13:00] Lucy MaCarraher: So it gives lots of ideas and it will, you can ask it to give a summary or a kind of a run through of a particular. Subject, but we don't allow you to copy and paste it into your actual manuscript, because I think certainly at this point, and I suspect going forward, I think it's just too dangerous to, to, well, for a start, I mean, most publishers will not publish AI generated content.

[00:13:28] Lucy MaCarraher: No, Amazon does 

[00:13:29] Teddy Smith: actually ask. And Amazon asks as well, yes, and 

[00:13:32] Lucy MaCarraher: you have to, but also, I mean, I just think at the moment there is too much danger of potentially breaching other people's copyright. We really don't know where it's coming from. You have to check the AI content so carefully because of its hallucinations and its inventions.

[00:13:46] Lucy MaCarraher: And you don't know where it's getting stuff from. It doesn't, I mean, most of it. I mean, some of them are better than others at referencing, but sometimes you don't know where it's taken stuff from or whether it's actually come from another source. So anyway, our kind of our whole kind of attitude is you need to write the book yourself.

[00:14:04] Lucy MaCarraher: Use AI to help you research and plan and, and get, get ideas, but actually write the book yourself, because in fact, the kinds of books that we are helping people write and publish are books about their own their own process, about what they do and why they do it, their own experience, their expertise case studies with, you know, their real clients.

[00:14:27] Lucy MaCarraher: So. That's the stuff that AI can't get to. They have to get that out of their head themselves. And it doesn't matter if it's not perfectly written because that's what professional editors are for. And at this point I still think, you know, human editors are better than AI editors. So that's, that's, that's, that's our sort of stance in, in book magic.

[00:14:49] Teddy Smith: So when, if I say I came to book magic and I've got an idea for a book, what would be my first step? What would be the first tool I'd use? 

[00:14:58] Lucy MaCarraher: Okay. So the first tool you use might be something that seems a bit tangential. So what we ask you to do first is to go through a values exercise and, and, sort of establish what are your main personal or, or even business values and how do those relate?

[00:15:13] Lucy MaCarraher: to the content of your book and what you, what you want to do with it and how you're going to get through the process of writing it. So it seems, it might seem tangential, but actually it allows the AI to create a very nice kind of introduction for you to why you're writing your book. And, I mean, that's not going in the book.

[00:15:32] Lucy MaCarraher: It's just a really nice sort of summary by your AI coach of why you're doing what you're doing. So that's a, it's a kind of soft. landing starting point. It's not difficult to do. It's just kind of, you know, getting you into the, into the, into the kind of arena of, of your ideas and your values. And then we, we, we get into the positioning.

[00:15:54] Lucy MaCarraher: I mean, the first real kind of solid book work is where you position, your ideal client, you kind of, you've, you answer all the questions about who they are in terms of maybe demographics or roles in business or what kind of area of, of, of business. I mean, you might be writing a B2B book or you might be writing a B2C book.

[00:16:13] Lucy MaCarraher: But just getting that very, very clear. And and then also talking about your business and, and what you do, and then that helps the AI to really position your book. I mean, we have this thing called the three P's of position, which are person. So that's the ideal client or reader, pain, the problem that they have when they come looking for your expertise and promise.

[00:16:39] Lucy MaCarraher: And that's what you are giving in your book to get them from pain to pain. And also that, those three P's we find really helps with the, with the genre books that we're writing. It really helps create a great title and subtitle that tells the ideal reader. You know that this is the book for them.

[00:16:59] Teddy Smith: So before any outlines written or anything like that, you have a section where you create the positioning for the book and you create your values for the book. And does the AI take that information that you've put in and adapt it for your input into your book? So when you do come to start writing it, it says, Oh, actually, no, Teddy.

[00:17:18] Teddy Smith: One of his values is honesty. I mean, that's quite a basic one. Yeah. One of his values is honesty. Yes. And you've lied a lot.

[00:17:28] Teddy Smith: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, one of his values is honestly, and is the book now getting to that point? Is it, is it, is it accepting that as one of the values inside the book and that's what the AI does? Or is it just an exercise for you? 

[00:17:40] Lucy MaCarraher: Well, I, it probably actually, it probably doesn't take a moral stance. Not that really, but it does, you know, it does help in that it has all that it has all that data.

[00:17:50] Lucy MaCarraher: So when you start asking questions about, you know, say I want to cover this topic in this chapter, what do you think I should, what, what, what would my ideal client like to know? What order should it go in? then it takes all that into account as well. So it's just there as kind of background knowledge and information that it might, you know, throw back at you as, as a way of getting your, your, your content across.

[00:18:17] Teddy Smith: That's interesting. So say, for example, if I was writing a book and my target audience was Retired people, just for example, and in my book, I kept writing and I was using very much like Gen Z language. It might say, Oh, actually, this isn't the right position for your book. And you should be thinking about this sort of wording.

[00:18:32] Lucy MaCarraher: Yes, I mean, it can do that because, and also you can set the AI, you can, you can set how the AI kind of responds to if you like. So you can say at the beginning, I mean, you can choose an AI coach. I mean, I'm one of them, but we've got kind of five other AI who, you know, they're just our AI coaches who will be in the videos and talk to you.

[00:18:54] Lucy MaCarraher: And but you can also ask how you want the AI to respond linguistically. So do you want formal language? Do you want informal language? Do you want it to be chatty? You know, so, so it will also kind of help you you know, with that kind of thing as well with your tone. And, and and, and yes, possibly, I mean, you can ask it things like, you know, is this too technical for my ideal client?

[00:19:16] Lucy MaCarraher: Have I used, you know, too much jargon and it will, you know, give you, give you a response on that. 

[00:19:22] Teddy Smith: Oh, that's so interesting. Or you could 

[00:19:23] Lucy MaCarraher: say, can you rewrite this so it's, it's less jargony 

[00:19:28] Teddy Smith: and it 

[00:19:28] Lucy MaCarraher: will give you, I mean, then again. You know, the idea is, as I say, not to copy and paste it into your manuscript, but to, but to get ideas from it and to, you know, generally you'd have to rework that yourself a bit.

[00:19:42] Lucy MaCarraher: But I think that's, that's really helpful. 

[00:19:44] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Of course. Now, obviously writing is quite a long process, you know, even if you're only writing a book that's 40 words, you know, that's 10 times the length of your university dissertation, you know, and people that might be the longest thing that anyone's ever written.

[00:19:59] Teddy Smith: Oh, 

[00:19:59] Lucy MaCarraher: absolutely. I mean, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:20:01] Teddy Smith: Yeah, I mean, have you noticed that people have been able to save a lot of time by using this? 

[00:20:07] Lucy MaCarraher: Yes, I mean, that's the good thing. I mean, our kind of strike line has always been author faster, and it certainly helps to plan out your book in detail in advance. So when I say plan, I don't just mean chapter headings and then, you know, fill them in roughly as you go.

[00:20:23] Lucy MaCarraher: It's literally. Within each chapter, it's every topic you're going to cover, every case study, perhaps every reference you're going to make, every piece of data you're going to include. So, we've got a lovely kind of planning system that helps you do that in the first place. And that really then speeds up the writing process.

[00:20:41] Lucy MaCarraher: But also we have we break, as I said, we break down the writer, the, I mean, it's called the writer process. So we, we ask people to write their first draft by doing an hour's writing a day or, you know, five days a week or whatever it is, or whatever, or getting into a writing habit that is little and often, because I think that is a much better way to write, you know, as you say, 40 odd thousand words.

[00:21:08] Lucy MaCarraher: Than to kind of take yourself off on a, on a, on a writing retreat and try and do it all in a week. Because you need processing time as well. So if you take it topic by topic and you take it slowly, I mean, what we say is get into the writing habit that works for you. So some people, I mean, the, the one that works.

[00:21:26] Lucy MaCarraher: Mostly for most people, but not everybody, is in fact to get up an hour early, go straight to your computer, laptop, whatever, and write for an hour, and then start your day normally and don't, you know, don't, don't look at your email before you start and, and don't, you know, do anything else, don't even necessarily kind of shower or anything, just write from, from the minute you get up 

[00:21:50] Teddy Smith: I'm.

[00:21:50] Teddy Smith: I'm so guilty of that, just getting up and going straight to my emails and 

[00:21:54] Lucy MaCarraher: yeah, yeah, I know it's, and then of course, you know, if you go straight to your email, you're just totally distracted and you probably never get back to writing that day. But for some people it's, it's, you know, it's lunchtime for some people it's in the evening when everybody else has gone to bed, say, and I mean, you know, some people take it in really tiny chunks, so they might.

[00:22:12] Lucy MaCarraher: You know, when they've got, I mean, the great thing about BookMagic is it works on every platform so you can just have your, your phone, you can, you know, you're sitting waiting somewhere for 10 minutes, you know, open your phone and write the next for the next 10 minutes. Oh, and also you can also dictate rather than you don't have to write.

[00:22:31] Lucy MaCarraher: I mean, obviously that's not great if you're in public, but, you know, but for a lot of people, I think writing itself is a barrier. I mean, obviously there are people who may be dyslexic, people who, for whom English is not their first language, and people who just don't enjoy actual writing. I think it's really important that they understand they can write their book by, if speaking is their sort of first means of expression, if you like, their best means of expression, then, then speak your book and it will just write it up on the screen as you, as you speak.

[00:23:03] Lucy MaCarraher: So no excuses, basically. 

[00:23:06] Teddy Smith: I'm really sorry. Sorry. My daughter is about to run it. Give me just two seconds. 

[00:23:10] Lucy MaCarraher: I'm

[00:23:34] Teddy Smith: sorry. I've got a two year old. She is very difficult. Yeah, where were we? Sorry. Great. So that, yeah, that's really interesting about the organizing your time and just making sure you are being more efficient with the time you have. Now, if I was a entrepreneur or business owner, or I've got an idea, I want to buy a business book, but maybe I don't have too much of an idea of exactly what my book is going to be just yet.

[00:23:55] Teddy Smith: How much information do you think I would need to bring to something like BookMagic in order to create a book? You 

[00:24:01] Lucy MaCarraher: would need very little information in terms of an actual idea. Because what we are suggesting in book magic, especially for a first time author of a, of an entrepreneur or a business owner is to write about your business.

[00:24:15] Lucy MaCarraher: So the three P's of position bit are what we use to say, this is what your book should be about. You're writing a book for your ideal client. What is their problem and what can you tell them? And that is, that is your first book. So it's, it's kind of about where you're up to now, essentially, you're looking to write a book that will align with and sort of sell in inverted commas, the business you're going to be running for the next couple of years.

[00:24:44] Teddy Smith: Yeah, of course. 

[00:24:45] Lucy MaCarraher: So it's about, it's not about sort of selling your services, but it is about explaining to people why you do what you do. And it's not a, I mean, we tend to suggest that people don't write kind of manuals. So, you know, it's not a sort of step by step. This is how you do what I do. It's about giving them the reasons why they.

[00:25:06] Lucy MaCarraher: Should do it like that. How you do it. I think what's really important is to put lots of case studies in so that an ideal kind of reader thinks, Oh, yeah, that's, that's the position I'm in. That's the problem I've got. I can see what they're doing in, in real life. I need to go back to that person and get them to help me.

[00:25:26] Lucy MaCarraher: And that's kind of the underlying sort of point of, of writing this kind of book. 

[00:25:32] Teddy Smith: Yeah, of course. Now, obviously, you've, as we had 2000 books, you mentioned of people you've worked with. Now, most of these are business books, obviously. So that positioning part, have you got any tips for how business owners could come up with that positioning for their books?

[00:25:48] Lucy MaCarraher: Well, I think it really is. I mean, the most important thing is, is to is to think about who your ideal client is, is to really clarify that. And just then in your head, write to one person who exemplifies that, that person and, and, and, you know. Obviously, a lot of other people will find it valuable and, and you know, the, the, the content will be incredibly helpful to them.

[00:26:11] Lucy MaCarraher: But if you think about the, you know, the kind of avatar of an ideal client and you write to that person and you, You speak on a one to one basis. I think one of the, one of the issues that people have with writing a first book is that they feel, you know, a book needs to go out there and talk to as many people as possible and sell as many copies as possible.

[00:26:32] Lucy MaCarraher: But if you think about it, every single instance of somebody reading your book is a one to one interaction. It's you. Talking to one other person, not, you know, a massive group of people. We don't do book reading as a group activity. So it's really important to understand that you just talk to someone as if they were in the room pretty much.

[00:26:53] Lucy MaCarraher: I mean, obviously, you know, you need to edit your conversational style to some degree. But talk to that one person and then your reader will know, get to know, like, and trust you they're spending, you know, sort of four or five or six hours in your company, finding out who you are and what you do, and, you know, kind of absorbing your values, which are kind of going to be in there by osmosis but also finding out how you work really positively with your client for the kind of outcomes that they're looking for.

[00:27:25] Lucy MaCarraher: Cool. 

[00:27:26] Teddy Smith: Yeah, yeah, of course. Now, once you've got your book written, you've, you know, you've worked on your manuscripts. The next part is obviously getting it marketed, getting it sold. Now, I know book magic does work with your covers as well. And some of that marketing point. So how does that exactly work? Is it, does the AI just read your manuscripts and think, okay, here's some good ideas, some book covers.

[00:27:48] Lucy MaCarraher: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, the, the the, the, the book, I'm not sure if the book covers are up and running yet but they're about to be, but To be honest, I haven't actually tested that bit myself. Alright, we'll leave that. I mean, for the promotional, you know, the sort of PR, the marketing stuff that you can get already out of BookMagic, and it's going to get bigger, is, you know, you can you can, you can click on any topic or chapter or case study in your book and get a whole load of social media posts written about it, or a blog post.

[00:28:19] Lucy MaCarraher: I did it the other day with my first chapter. I said, write a blog post on this. Let me just produce a really, you know, and there's no problem with using AI to write that kind of content because that's not, you know, that's not a copyrighted published book. I'd be, I'd be perfectly happy to use AI for, you know, articles, blog posts, social media content and it just does that, you know, it took like half a minute to come up with a thousand word blog.

[00:28:45] Lucy MaCarraher: And I was like, Oh, that's good. 

[00:28:47] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I still think it is worth editing those when you do AI to do blog posts, because I've done a lot of blogging in my time and Google can see where plagiarism has occurred. In the back end, they can really quickly see, okay, this has got like 25 percent plagiarism. And it's really straightforward for them to do that.

[00:29:04] Teddy Smith: So I'd be careful about just going. I mean, I'd never recommend people just get AI and just put it straight anywhere because it. No, no, no, no. I 

[00:29:11] Lucy MaCarraher: completely agree with you on that. I mean, I, I would always want to, I mean, it's going to have probably used the word elevate about six times that you, you know, it has various kind of stylistic ticks that you don't want to have.

[00:29:24] Lucy MaCarraher: But the, but the other thing, the other thing is that it's taking the content exclusively, exclusively from your book. It's so it's not going to be plagiarizing anybody else. It is just taking your book content and writing although you never know. You're right. I mean, you definitely need to check it anyway and make sure that it is, you know, saying the right things and it hasn't inadvertently included something that That shouldn't be there and certainly stylistically you know, it's, it's it's never exactly you.

[00:29:55] Teddy Smith: You always have these articles that start with let's delve into the world of X, Y, Z. Yes. Delving 

[00:30:00] Lucy MaCarraher: is a big AI thing. Delving, elevating. Yeah. Sam Altman's written 

[00:30:04] Teddy Smith: that bit. 

[00:30:05] Lucy MaCarraher: Yeah. 

[00:30:07] Teddy Smith: Now we have touched on it a bit briefly, but with the AI doing the writing, do you, do you have any concerns about about that, that writing being, let me, sorry, let me rephrase that.

[00:30:21] Teddy Smith: Now we've, we've touched on it just recently about using AI to do your writing. Do you have any advice for people who may be hesitant about having AI into their, in their books? Because obviously people think a book is got to be written by them. an expression of exactly what they want to say. A lot of people might have some hesitations about using AI for their book.

[00:30:41] Teddy Smith: So what would you say? I mean, we, we, we absolutely in book magic or, or, you know, as publishers with Rethink Press, we absolutely do not suggest that you use AI generated content in your book. I mean, as publishers with Rethink Press, our publishing contract says that the author warrants. That there is no AI generated content in the book.

[00:31:04] Lucy MaCarraher: And if, when we're editing, we find it, we take it back to the author and say, you need to rewrite this in your own words, because it's just too dangerous. Basically, we just don't know, you know, what copyright issues are going to come up later. And in terms of in terms of writing the book with book magic, we, the, the app doesn't actually allow you to copy and paste AI generated content.

[00:31:29] Lucy MaCarraher: Into your manuscript, you need to, I mean, I, I think it's personally and, and, you know, sort of professionally, I think it is really important to write your own content of your book. I think for a start with business books, your readers want to hear your voice. They do not want to hear you know, I think AI is sort of very, it kind of seduces you into thinking that it writes beautifully and it expresses things better than you can and it's grammar and punctuation and subtlety of writing is, is, is, is great. But actually when you read it, it's, it actually is very surface. It's not, it doesn't go into depth. It doesn't sound like a real person.

[00:32:14] Lucy MaCarraher: And even if your reader. It's kind of unaware of AI, you know, perhaps, or, you know, doesn't, isn't, isn't kind of trying to make a distinction between whether you wrote it or whether AI did. I think they'll get, they'll get kind of alienated by it. And, and you know, it just isn't the way. I mean, I, I personally think writing is an expression of thought and, you know, you need to express your thoughts in your way.

[00:32:41] Lucy MaCarraher: And that's how, you know, that's how your book will will represent you and will make you you know, the expert, the authority in your field, because it's how you think about it. It's how you've experienced life, business, clients, whatever. 

[00:32:55] Teddy Smith: And 

[00:32:57] Lucy MaCarraher: so I think even if people feel unsure about their ability to write, it is still going to be better with the help of an editor later on than handing it over to AI and thinking AI can do it better.

[00:33:13] Lucy MaCarraher: I really, really do not believe it can. And not yet. Maybe, maybe at some point, AI will get in your head and be able to interpret your thought processes. But at the moment it definitely can't do that. 

[00:33:25] Teddy Smith: Yeah. It would just be called intelligence then rather than artificial intelligence, wouldn't it? Yeah, 

[00:33:29] Lucy MaCarraher: yeah, exactly.

[00:33:30] Lucy MaCarraher: Nothing artificial about it. 

[00:33:33] Teddy Smith: So once you've got your book written, obviously that is the first step. Now the next part is guessing is that distribution. Now I know the main point of book a magic is to get the book written in the first place, but what would an author do with it? Once they've got it written is Amazon, the main place where you try and get and sell it, or is it somewhere else?

[00:33:50] Lucy MaCarraher: Well it depends. I mean, our, you know, our authors, I suppose, like any other author have basically three options for, for getting published. I mean, there's obviously a traditional publisher which is, is unusual for an entrepreneur author to be able to attract a traditional publisher because they just usually have, the market is too niche.

[00:34:12] Lucy MaCarraher: The content is too specific although some, you know, some of our, some, some of our sort of the people I've coached and mentored through writing have, you know, gone on to get very successful traditional publishing contracts and that's great, but that's, you know, then it's all taken care of. They don't have to worry about that distribution.

[00:34:30] Lucy MaCarraher: At the other end of the scale, of course, there is DIY self publishing which a lot of people, you know choose to do. I mean, I think that has its problems in as much as it's more complicated than people think. And in a way, DIY self-publishing is a misnomer because you cannot do it yourself.

[00:34:48] Lucy MaCarraher: You actually have to have professionals, you have to have a professional copy editor. I mean, never, never. Send a book to publication without, without proper copy editing. You need, I think, a professional cover designer in your genre. That's not just finding somebody on Fiverr who says, yeah, I can whack up a cover design for you, you know, as.

[00:35:10] Lucy MaCarraher: As you know very well, there's, you know, the difference between professional cover design and, you know, and a kind of amateur graphic designer. I, then of course, you know, you're going to need a decent type design and type setting. You really need a proofreader of the typeset when that's done. You're going to need somebody to convert your book to your, your manuscript to ebook format.

[00:35:34] Lucy MaCarraher: And then there is the whole, as you say, the whole distribution end of it. So, if you're self publishing, you will be able to get your book up on Amazon, and there are other kind of online distribution platforms that will be available. It does, self publishing is slightly more restricted than a going with a, you know, say professional publisher, whether that's traditional or hybrid, because a publisher will have accounts with a wider selection of distributors.

[00:36:05] Lucy MaCarraher: There's, there's different levels of getting books into bookshops themselves, physical bookshops which again, really only works. Properly for broad niche, you know, for broad market books, I think if you've got a very niche book you can't, it's, it's difficult to get booksellers to actually buy your book and put them on the shelves because they're probably only going to sell one copy and, you know, however long and it's not in anyone's interest.

[00:36:29] Lucy MaCarraher: And also it costs, costs the author or the publisher money because you've got to do upfront printing and then if you don't sell them, you know. You've, you've potentially lost money on that. 

[00:36:39] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. 

[00:36:40] Lucy MaCarraher: So, and then there's hybrid publishing, which we like to think of as the Goldilocks solution between traditional and, and DIY publishing where, you know, Rethink Press is a publisher.

[00:36:51] Lucy MaCarraher: We are a professional publisher and we do exactly what a traditional publisher would do. It's just that the business model is different and the author pays for their. the production of their book but then they end up with a publisher who does all the distribution and is there for them after publication.

[00:37:10] Lucy MaCarraher: So, so I think, I think it's, you know, it's, it's horses for courses, really. 

[00:37:15] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I think, yeah, I think there's lots of different options. I mean, self publishing through Amazon, you're right. There's, there can be a lot of work to it. It can be straightforward, I think, but you're not guaranteed anything.

[00:37:26] Teddy Smith: You know, you could have a book which ends up not selling, but I guess the good advantage of doing it through Amazon is it because Your book is printed on demand. You don't have that upfront cost of printing lots of versions of the book. So 

[00:37:38] Lucy MaCarraher: you've got to 

[00:37:38] Teddy Smith: work out what's best for you, I think. 

[00:37:40] Lucy MaCarraher: Yeah. Yes.

[00:37:40] Lucy MaCarraher: Yes, definitely. And I mean, Amazon is, is, you know, whatever is the most important platform for any book to be on, I would say Amazon. And I think, I think you should always publish initially in print and in Kindle in ebook format and ideally at some point do an audio book as well. Because I don't think the three, I don't think having the having different formats reduces your, it doesn't reduce, I mean, if you, if you have an audio book, it doesn't mean fewer people will buy your print copies.

[00:38:10] Lucy MaCarraher: They might, you know, listen to the audio book and then decide they want a print copy as well. I mean, it just gives you more more, it gives your readers more options really. 

[00:38:18] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. I think with nonfiction books, especially it seems in my experience and you know, you might have noticed something differently, but I've noticed that nonfiction books tend to be more bought on paper and fiction books seem to be more but bought ebook format.

[00:38:31] Teddy Smith: And I'm just quite surprised about that because you'd have thought with a lot of business. Yeah, no, it's interesting, 

[00:38:35] Lucy MaCarraher: isn't it? Yes. 

[00:38:36] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. What, what sort of features can we expect from BookMagic in future? 

[00:38:43] Lucy MaCarraher: So the next big things we're doing on BookMagic are we are going to have an affiliate scheme so that anybody who works with entrepreneurs or potential authors can be part of that and, and, you know, get a return on Getting people into writing their books on book magic.

[00:39:02] Lucy MaCarraher: And then next year we are going to make it an end to end process so that you can not only write your book on book magic, but it will take you through the self-publishing and go through to, you know, your, your manuscript can get edited roughly edited probably and and, and type set and cover design and, and go up on KDP all through.

[00:39:24] Lucy MaCarraher: all through the BookMagic app. So it will be, you know, write and publish your book with BookMagic, which will be, which is exciting. 

[00:39:32] Teddy Smith: Really exciting. Yeah. Looking forward to seeing that when it comes through. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been great chatting to you. I think it's, it's absolutely fascinating talking about AI and seeing what's happening with this.

[00:39:42] Teddy Smith: And for a lot of people who may be a bit nervous about writing their book, I think it could be a really good option for them to get their book written a bit faster and with a bit of help. So people want to get in contact view. Bookmagic. ai is the website for Bookmagic. Is there any other ways you Yes, that's right, 

[00:39:58] Lucy MaCarraher: yes.

[00:39:58] Lucy MaCarraher: And honestly, I should say that you can start the process for free. You can do the whole values exercise and the positioning without having to pay a subscription. It's only when you start, if you decide that you then want to go forward and get into the planning and writing that you pay a monthly subscription, which you can stop any time.

[00:40:15] Lucy MaCarraher: So I think it's a, I think it's good value. 

[00:40:18] Teddy Smith: Good. Yeah, no, it is good value. I think as well. Well, thanks so much for joining us. If people want to contact you as well is what's your website or your social media? 

[00:40:26] Lucy MaCarraher: So the, that's the book magic app website, it is just bookmagic. ai, but also rethinkpress.

[00:40:32] Lucy MaCarraher: com. If you want to have a chat about publishing or about having you know, sort of in person as opposed to AI coaching or, or, or writing support with your book. 

[00:40:44] Teddy Smith: We'll put links to all those things in the show notes for this episode. Well, thank you very much for joining me. So just before we go, I've got one last question and that is what book do you recommend everyone should be reading?

[00:40:55] Lucy MaCarraher: Okay. So the book I think everyone should be reading is the authority gap by Marianne Seacart. I've forgotten exactly what the subtitle is, but it's something about why women have less. authority than men and what to do about it. And that's one of my big issues at the moment. So I think, I think everybody, not, and certainly not just women, but men should read that book and you know, understand what's going on there.

[00:41:19] Teddy Smith: Yeah. It's a great book. It's a good recommendation. Well, thanks so much for joining us. It's been great chatting to you and we will speak again soon. 

[00:41:26] Lucy MaCarraher: Thank you so much, Teddy. Thank you. 

[00:41:29] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing performance podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring.

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