38 - Celebrating One Year of Brave New Bookshelf with Danica and Steph

In this special one-year anniversary episode of Brave New Bookshelf, hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite reflect on their journey exploring the intersection of AI and authorship. They discuss the rapid evolution of AI in the publishing industry and share personal insights into how these tools have transformed their writing workflows. With over 30,000 listens to date, Steph and Danica celebrate the impact of their podcast in providing valuable resources and discussions for authors navigating the dynamic world of AI. Join them as they look forward to another year of groundbreaking conversations and innovative developments in publishing. Visit our website https://bravenewbookshelf.com to view the full episode notes, links and apps mentioned in the episode, and the full transcript.

[00:00:00] Welcome to Brave New Bookshelf, a podcast that explores the fascinating intersection of AI and authorship. Join hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite as they dive into thought provoking discussions, debunk myths, and highlight the transformative role of AI in the publishing industry.

**Steph Pajonas:** Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Brave New Bookshelf. I'm Steph Pajonas CTO of the Future Fiction Academy, where we teach authors how to use AI in any part of their business. We're doing a little bit of a duo show today. Me and my lovely co-host Danica. Danica, what's going on? 

**Danica Favorite:** Hello. I'm excited. Are we just gonna like, come out and.

Say, 

**Steph Pajonas:** yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead and tell people. 

**Danica Favorite:** As we were looking at our different episodes and what we've done and what we have planning, we realized that we are at the one year anniversary of Brave New Bookshelf. Oh my God. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. I do have.

**Steph Pajonas:** Is that a little [00:01:00] champagne bottle?

**Danica Favorite:** It's a little champagne bottle of Jelly Bellies. I was like, oh. As I was thinking about that, I'm like, oh yeah, we shoulda had like champagne bottle popping or something. And I didn't think that far ahead, but I do have my little jelly belly bubbly. For those of you who are listening and not watching on YouTube, first of all, go watch it on YouTube.

**Steph Pajonas:** Mm-hmm. 

**Danica Favorite:** So yeah, it's our one year anniversary. Actually, it'll be exactly one year of the day after this episode airs, but I feel like that's close enough.

**Steph Pajonas:** Close enough. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. So happy anniversary to us. Happy anniversary to all of you. Thank you. For joining us on this fun little adventure. I think, when we started it, we were kind of like, yeah, we have this idea. We don't know how it's gonna work. And here we are a year later, so yay us.

**Steph Pajonas:** I can't believe it because we chatted about it when we were in New Orleans the first time, right? We were like, do you wanna do a podcast? Let's do a podcast. And we're like, yeah, yeah, let's do a podcast. And then, [00:02:00] then we actually pulled it off, which I find to be completely amazing. Especially since you and I are, we're both busy people, right? We both got a lot of. A lot of stuff going on between work and family and writing and all that good stuff. So I think it's just pretty amazing that we've come as far as we have and now we're at a year.

I can't believe it. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, we're at a year, which I think is awesome. To be fair we forgot to do like the whole intro about ourselves and we are and all that stuff. But to be fair, the podcast is sponsored by FFA. Future Fiction Academy, which Steph is the CTO of. And I am the community manager at Publish Drive.

And so part of this came about because my boss at Publish Drive was like, Hey, we need to have some kind of industry expert podcast that would be really cool for us to do. And I'm like, Hmm, I don't know what we could talk about. I don't know what to do. I feel like there's a lot of great industry podcasts out there.

And then when Steph and I were talking and [00:03:00] we're like, wait, what industry podcast that the industry needs is an AI podcast about publishing. There are a million AI podcasts out there. That was always our goal, was talking about AI and publishing because that, obviously is a huge passion for staff and the Future Fiction Academy, and that's a huge passion of mine.

And yeah, so here we are. We said we were gonna do it, we did it. And I know when we start talking about it, we're like, we don't know what's gonna happen, and the last stats you had, we've got over 30,000 listens of the podcast, which is fantastic. And I hope that we continue and we keep getting more because this is all really good information.

And I think obviously you and I knew a lot of this information when we first started because we were out seeking it out actively and trying to learn the stuff actively, but. We were running into so many people with these same questions over and over, [00:04:00] and we wanted this to become a resource.

I'm really proud of the fact that we've accomplished that. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I agree. I look at What we've accomplished so far. It's been a lot of interviews. We've been talking to a lot of industry experts. We've been talking to people who have been doing this for a pretty long time, both as an author and then as an AI user.

AI has been around for like three years now or so, when it really started being a part of our industry and the ramp up was very slow at first, and then all of a sudden just really shot up, right? Mm-hmm. Really shot up. All of a sudden there were a million tools out there and a million different ways of doing things, and a lot of people had questions.

Do I use ChatGPT to help me edit my book? What is this Claude thing I've never heard of? What are these other tools? And so many people had questions and it was just tough to answer the same thing over and over and over again. 

So one of our goals with this podcast was to give people a base of knowledge [00:05:00] about AI and publishing at the very least.

Just to like know what was out there, know what was going on, know what people were using by interviewing people and hearing their processes and what they were using . Sometimes you don't know what you don't know, and as soon as you hear somebody say something like, oh, I use AI to help me process my transcripts and give me a first draft of a nonfiction book that I'm working on, you're like, oh! I didn't know that that was a thing, that I could do that. 

And then that becomes the basis for a new idea, for a new part of your business. And that is what we keep hoping to foster. Every single time that we talk to somebody new or we bring up something new on this podcast. For me, it really touches a part of my soul that loves to help people and, and to help them learn and to educate.

So I love the fact that we've managed to do something with this podcast that has really helped authors. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, and I agree because I think I have that same passion. I think that's why we're friends, that's why we do this [00:06:00] together, is I want to educate people and I want to help people, and there is so much misinformation out there.

And also things change really fast. I remember when we first started, literally like this is 90% of why I started exploring AI for my writing is I wanted a tool that could build me a story Bible of my different books. You Remember this, you're smiling and laughing because, this was what I wanted to do.

Because I had this series of books. They were not connected, but I needed story bibles and information about them so I could figure out how to connect them. And back then, back when we started, such a tool did not exist. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Right. 

**Danica Favorite:** You couldn't do it. And we kept playing with it. And I've tried all of these different manual methods of doing it.

Now there are multiple tools, multiple ways that if I plug my books in, I can get those story bibles. The [00:07:00] irony of all of that is now I don't have time to do that.

So I'll eventually get there. I really, I can't wait you guys. We'll have another celebration episode when I do it simply because this has been such a bugaboo of mine, and that's what I love about the podcast and what we're doing here is that for everyone that's got their personal bugaboo, their challenge of something in the publishing industry that is their pain point, you can now find an AI solution for it. 

I don't think there's anything that AI can't solve in the publishing industry. You guys cannot see my desk looks like a bomb went off on it because I went to New Orleans and then I was gone the weekend after that, and then I was gone last weekend.

So literally, I just unpack stuff and just dump it on my desk. I need to clean that up. Unfortunately, as the meme says, AI cannot yet do that for me. 

I'm hopeful someday they will come and AI will just look at my desk and say, here, boop, magically put everything where [00:08:00] it belongs. It's coming. I have full faith.

A year ago, the things that were wishful thinking for us are now possible. We just had last week, Monica Leonelle talking about translations.

A year ago we would've laughed and said, that's not possible. 

Or we would've said it's like three to five years out we would've, that's, I think would've been our answer. No, it was not. Three to five years out. It was a year out. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yes, Everything just keeps coming so quickly. I just listened to the Hard Fork Podcast this morning where they were talking about the forecasting of AI into the future. General intelligence, et cetera, et cetera.

And they're talking like it's gonna be 20 26, 20 27, and that is really close guys. Yeah, that is really close. Even if it were delayed by like a few years, that is still very close. When I was a kid and I was reading science fiction books 'cause I was was reading a lot of them as a kid, I thought that I wouldn't see these kinds of things in my lifetime.

Yeah. Just. I just didn't, [00:09:00] and now here we are, we're on the precipice of things happening. And now that we have a lot of these tools that are centered around language and understanding language that can help us also with our business, I just don't see any way to move forward without these tools in my life.

**Danica Favorite:** Right, right. And like even simple things. I know earlier you were talking about how AI really just came onto the scene just a few years ago. The thing is, it's been here. All the time. We just became more aware of it then. And the reason I'm thinking about that is, I have been dictating my books for years. I think about seven years. 

Even back then, those were those early language models that were being used to help transcribe my dictation. And back then it was terrible in terms of the cleanup and how many of you remember like how to train your dragon and those classes to train Dragon Dictation to understand how you speak.

And [00:10:00] now I don't have to do any of that. I just speak into my phone. It gives me something that is 90% there and then I can pop that 90% into Chat GPT and get it darn near close to a hundred. I'm still not at a hundred, and there's still some things that I have to fight with it over.

But what used to be this really long process for me of hours and hours of transcription cleanup. Or very expensive to send to someone else to clean up. Now it's just like, boom. And I think that we're really living in exciting times. And that's why I want to continue educating people about AI. Being there at the forefront of this, and we're not even at the forefront. Even though we are, we aren't because every day we're like, oh my gosh, wait, this has been around forever?

Okay, let's learn about this. But I wanna be here and in the space because it's so cool. And all the things that we thought couldn't be done now are possible. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I'm super excited about the future for us because of the fact [00:11:00] that we now have so many options. We now have so many ways that we can move forward with these tools. 

You can probably find ways to make your process so much easier and so much more fulfilling because of the fact that you get some time back by automating and giving as much to the AI tools as you can. At least that's how I'm seeing it right now. 

**Danica Favorite:** You just talked about getting time back and I just said I don't have time, but you know what, I have time for now.

I have a social life. Ooh. Right. Like I was sitting there thinking I'm gonna write every day. And I'll tell you what, I've had coffee with friends this week and I've done like things that I couldn't do this before. And now honestly, I have to get back to that work social balance 'cause I think I'm too heavy on the social side, but. Wow, I have time for this. 

And One of the things I was thinking as you were talking, and this is something we didn't talk about beforehand, so I apologize in [00:12:00] advance, but I think you'll like it is.

We always ask our guests like, what does your workflow with AI look like? And you and I talk a lot about our workflow in the podcast. 

So number one, I wanna hear about your current workflow, but I'm also interested to see how over this past year, how has your workflow changed? 

**Steph Pajonas:** Oh my. That's a loaded question.

I'm sure that whatever I'm about to say next is gonna get me canceled in a lot of places. I, 

**Danica Favorite:** but here's the thing, like you said, oh, I know this is gonna get me canceled in a lot of places, but I remember when we launched this podcast, you and I were like, holy crap, we are about to blow up our careers because of all the hate we're gonna get for this.

Did that happen? Nope. No. And in the whole year that we've been doing this, you and I, like today, before we were talking, you said, oh I had to delete and block [00:13:00] one person who was making mean comments. So in the past year. We've had one person. Yeah. You know what, go ahead and say the thing that you think is gonna make you get canceled, because I don't think so.

I'm, I'm, but we, we staked our personal and professional reputations on that a year ago. It hasn't happened, so I have faith in you say it. Okay. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Okay. So like a year ago I was basically having conversations with the AI usually, Claude, there's probably Claude around this time where I would go back and forth with it, pantsing my way through a book. I would say, okay, like, my character is doing this, that, or the other thing. Gimme 500 words. It would give me 500 words. I'd edit them, give it back to the AI. Move on to the next part of the story, and I would just do that over and over again until I had a whole book. Right?

Now I've moved on to a lot of automation. I've been working with a tool called N8N. It's a terrible [00:14:00] name for a piece of software. I don't know why they named it that, but whatever. It's very similar to Make and Zapier. So it is a workflow automation tool and I currently have a workflow set up where I work with AI to come up with a story dossier of what I want the book to be about.

So this includes things like a hook and pitch for the book. It includes setting information, character information, and a rough outline of what I want to happen in the book. And I work with the AI on all of that. I make decisions about the characters and what they're doing and who they are and their motivations through the stories and anything else. I direct the AI on what I want and all that kind of stuff. 

So my story dossier is pretty big. It's usually a few pages long, Google Document pages long. And then I get that done.

And then I give it to my workflow. My workflow , it's [00:15:00] in two steps. The first step is it writes the first chapter of the book. So it takes the file from Google Drive, it runs it through a bunch of prompts, gives me my chapter. I usually choose Gemini. I love Gemini. I'm a big fan of Gemini. It's very funny. 

I get my first chapter back and I edit it. I go through it. I look at everything. I decide if I wanna keep things or get rid of things, delete adverbs, punch up dialogue. Make sure that all of my information is correct, and then I hand it off to my second workflow that writes the rest of the book. So it's takes the first chapter, uses it like a style reference.

And o1 does all the planning for the chapter, and then Gemini does the actual writing of the chapter, and then it works in a loop and it keeps going until all the chapters are written. And then it sends me an email and says my book is ready. [00:16:00] 

So it's very close to the whole push a button and get a book thing, right?

Which is the thing everybody has been fearful of since AI really hit the scene. Nobody wanted that. Or maybe some people did. So I certainly was just like, help me with these first drafts because I freaking hate writing the first draft. I love to edit, love to edit all of my drafts. 

So once I get that first draft that Gemini has written, then I sit down with it and I have, a cup of tea and I get out my. iPad or whatever, and I start making my editorial notes through it. And I go through and I edit the whole book with editorial notes. I put them all in brackets, and then once all my editorial notes are in there, I send it off to another workflow that executes all of my editorial notes. 

And then the book is pretty much done. I do another read through to make sure that nothing gets screwed up. I just edited a book yesterday with this method and [00:17:00] realized that a character was in two places at the same time. I was like, Nope, that can't happen, so I will delete you from this scene and reassign all of your stuff that you did in this scene to this other character who was there.

And I also found a character that who was on two planets at one time, and I was like, Nope, you can't be in two planets at one time. Sorry, you're supposed to be in one place only. 

So I fix those things because sometimes the AI screws those things up and that's what the human in the loop is for. That's what I'm there for.

I'm there to make sure that nothing untoward happens. And yeah, then it's, then it moves on to like copy edits and whatnot. So hit ProWritingAid or Autocrit or whatever I'm using and fix up any grammatical errors and then it's done. 

So one of the beautiful things about this is that I can get a novella done in about a week. Which is great. I'm doing a lot of those for the press that we're working on right now, and I'm also working on it for myself, for my own books as well, because knowing my stories and knowing how they [00:18:00] are put together, I can use this workflow very well. 

So that is currently what I'm doing with AI. It is a little bit scandalous because people don't wanna hear that you can have AI write the draft. It is actually pretty good at it now, especially if you know what you're doing with prompting, which luckily I do. And so yeah, that is what I'm doing right now. 

**Danica Favorite:** I'm gonna tell you the real reason I'm scandalized is that, first of all, like I give you all the props for the N8N stuff.

I'm mostly scandalized that you haven't taught me how to do this yet. That's my scandal. Look right there. I think the other point too is you're like I can do this because I know how to prompt. You can also do this because you know how to write. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Mm-hmm. 

**Danica Favorite:** The flood of garbage books that are gonna take away from authors and authorship and their creativity.

Number one, it hasn't happened. Number two, it's not going to happen because unless you know how to write a book, unless you know how to be an author, and we say this all the time on the podcast, [00:19:00] but it's true. The reason that you can do this is that you are an author in your own right.

You understand storytelling. You know how to tell a good story, you know how to write well, and that is always going to be the key to putting out a good AI book. 

The other thing I wanna ask you because you mentioned like some of the FFA stuff and the press, which is cool. How has FFA evolved? How has the Future Fiction Academy evolved in the past year? What can people look forward to from that and how can that help them with their writing? 

**Steph Pajonas:** As you can see, some of my skills are rather advanced. There are not a lot of people out there who are doing the same kind of stuff that I'm doing.

And that mostly stems from the fact that authors themselves are just now learning about AI. They're still just realizing that there's something out there besides ChatGPT, that there are other tools out there. I'm far out ahead in the field, and that [00:20:00] kind of puts me at both an advantage and a disadvantage. And the advantage being that I am able to work on some of these tools and understand them before I teach them to people who are receptive to that.

Because being receptive to it is Is where we come upon the most road bumps in this scenario. So the disadvantage is the fact that sometimes I'm too far out in front and I don't know what people want. So it takes a while to like figure all of that out. 

So the FFA itself, we started out with like eight live classes a week. We were jamming, we were doing lots of stuff that people had never seen before. We called it a lab to begin with. It became the mastermind. Where we're teaching people live all week long. Taking those live classes and then recording them and sticking them in Teachable. 

And over the past year we decided to close the mastermind to new people because we found that us and the Mastermind members, we were so far out ahead of everybody on the [00:21:00] field that it was hard to bring in new people to that because it was so advanced that it was scaring. It was scaring them away.

They would come in and see this fire hose of information and they would freak out pretty much and not do anything or leave. Okay. So we decided that it was best just to close it for the time being. And instead to concentrate on some self-contained standalone courses for people so that they could just come and they could learn things in bits where they needed it the most.

We are also working on an author accelerator, which will hopefully be up in like. May, June-ish where people who are new to this can come in and start learning from the very basic building blocks of this knowledge about AI. 

And I think that over the next couple of months we're gonna see that the stuff that we're offering is great for like all different levels of people because you'll be able to come in and learn something new with the [00:22:00] accelerator. And then if you can graduate and come and are really into this, we can let you into the Mastermind too, because it's just, it's like a funnel that goes from one thing to the next.

So it's definitely come a long way. We're definitely doing new and interesting things, and between me, Elizabeth and Stacey and Joe, we're always coming up with ways that we can leverage the stuff that we've learned so far, or the systems that we've already built to come up with other tools for people as well.

So I think you're gonna see a lot from us in the coming year. 

**Danica Favorite:** That's awesome. Mm-hmm. I'm excited. I'm excited. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I'm excited too. I wanna hear about what has been going on for you and how your writing has been going as well, because I know that for you, you've been in and out of several stories over the last couple of months and the last year.

And I know you've had also big life changes that have led to some things. So let's talk about you and what you've been doing. 

**Danica Favorite:** First of [00:23:00] all, yeah, the life changes have been huge and the truth is, is that I have not had the mental capacity to do anything with my writing and to write, which is super hard because I want to write, and we talked about you getting into AI writing because of the brain fog from Covid. I am a lucky person in that I have never had Covid, knock on wood. But what I do have, and Steph and I were talking about this previously, is I'm in perimenopause. Which I just got to see a specialist about this and she was like, yeah, the brain fog is normal and no one talks about that.

Yeah, that is actually what you're going through is incredibly normal. Of course, you don't have the capacity to do all of these things and, she's got some solutions for that. But it was really interesting because I do have the brain fog from that. Also, I just went through a very acrimonious divorce and that took all of my mental energy and just sapped me of my strength and [00:24:00] the brain fog and the ability to think through things.

And then of course, more recently, which I will be very careful in how I say this, but there's also the political situation in our country, which is very taxing, very mentally draining and for those of you who are feeling that and don't understand why, I promise you that's what it is, is it takes so much energy to deal with all of these things that feel really hard, and for some people feel very hopeless, and all of that takes a huge toll on your creativity.

On your ability to write and be creative and make your words make sense. For me, I had that triple whammy going on I couldn't write and I haven't been writing. So AI was a great way for me to start playing with stories and playing with ideas and at least keep my writing skill up.

I have not really been writing except for bits and pieces here, but I got to do stuff with AI and it made me feel better about myself. It made [00:25:00] me feel like I can't do the thing I want to do, but let me play with AI that at least is keeping those skills up. I've talked a lot about, in the different episodes about the importance of our skills as writers and critical thinking to be able to analyze what the AI is coming up with.

I haven't really reached any of those goals. I did finish my first AI assisted book, which was fantastic. It still needs a lot of work, so someday it will come out. It really has helped me as I've honed who I am as a writer, because you don't go through this kind of life change that I've been through without significant changes to who you are as a person.

And part of that for me has been just dialing down on my values and what's important to me and what I have felt like over the past year or so with my writing is that it's been flat. It is missing something and I haven't been able to figure out what it was. When Steph and I were in New Orleans and we were talking I thought of a really cool story idea that I started working on. We actually [00:26:00] sat and wrote together, I wrote my first chapter of this new book.

I'm now at three chapters, by the way. I know celebration! But after I wrote that first chapter, I realized there's still something missing. What is it? As I did some more inner work and did some stuff with myself, what I realized was that there were still those pieces of me that were healing that I needed to work on.

This, the spirituality piece is huge for me. I am a very spiritual person. I need that piece in my books. And I was leaving it out. Mm-hmm. So I actually took what I wrote and I put it in a Chat GPT. I used O one because that's the reasoning model, and I said, Hey, this is what I have. This is what's missing. What do you think?

Chat gave me this really amazing analysis of what was wrong, what I needed to do, where it needed to go and fixed it. And it was so great because I finally felt like, aha. I [00:27:00] found myself as a writer again. Part of that again, was my skill as a writer, but also saying to the AI, this is what I think, this is what's going on, what do you think?

And having a dialogue, because I know from talking to you about your process, it isn't just about putting something in it, spits something out and then putting it up for sale. It, it's that ongoing dialogue and even that process of getting that dossier built of what goes in the story. It's not just here, give me an idea. It's, here's an idea, here's what it's based on. Here's the knowledge, here's all of these things, all these pieces that you're putting in.

It's like baking a cake. I haven't heard the, terminology from the FFA in a while, but they used to talk about like the bakers and the gardeners and all this.

But you have to, as the writer, put in all the ingredients that you think are important and make a good story, and then you bake your cake. It's not just, Hey, Chat GPT, gimme a cake. It's here Chat GPT. Here's all the ingredients. Give me a cake, and it's been a really helpful tool for finding [00:28:00] myself as a writer, because I really did lose myself, I love that it became my conversational partner in being able to do that.

So that's where my writing has been. 

**Steph Pajonas:** That's amazing. I love the fact that you've managed to find yourself again, and it wasn't because Chat GPT or anything told you what was missing you. You had a feeling on a gut level, right. That you knew something was wrong and missing and you took the time to figure out what that was.

Right, right. There's only so much we can do with these tools, right. They're just, they're just text generation tools. They're not 

**Danica Favorite:** Right. They're, they're just a tool and as much as they're great at replicating what appears to be emotion, they are not emotional beings. 

**Steph Pajonas:** No. 

**Danica Favorite:** They are not sentient. They don't have a heart, they don't have a soul, and you still have to put that into your work or is gonna fall flat.

It [00:29:00] isn't going to resonate. And that for me was the big lesson. I had to do the work on myself for myself before I could get usable results from the AI. That's where I want to encourage writers who are afraid that the AI is taking over for them.

The piece that AI is never gonna be able to replace is that piece of who you are and what your heart is. And that to me is something you have to always carry with you that spark of who you are in your writing, that's what is touching reader's lives. 

**Steph Pajonas:** The human part of the equation is so important.

Even as I discussed and went over my process with my book machine that I have, the human is in the loop in every one of those steps. Like I am part of the process of creating the story dossier. I'm the one who's deciding who those characters are, where they're going, what's happening in their lives, et cetera.

And I'm the one who's reading that very first chapter, [00:30:00] making decisions about the style and the tone and all of the things that are going to inform the rest of the book. And then even when the book is written and I have a first draft, I'm then a part of the editorial process. I'm then sitting down and reading it and making decisions about... this didn't work out. This needs to change these sorts of things. And just because it executes those notes doesn't mean that I wasn't part of it, it didn't do it all on its own. 

Right, right. 

**Danica Favorite:** Maybe you're the visionary behind that. Mm-hmm. Like that is the thing that I think is really cool and really important to realize about the authors who are successfully using AI is that they're the visionaries.

Mm-hmm. And that visionary piece is something we don't talk a lot about in the writing spaces. But it's so important to understand that visionary piece of Steph Pajonas in her writing, it is always gonna be the same. I can take your prompts and [00:31:00] I am not gonna get a Steph Pajonas story. 

First of all, because we have those different visions. I do wanna copy most of your prompts, but every single one of those prompts that I copy, I have to read through them and say, wait, no, this piece is Steph, and I don't like that. I don't like that piece for Danica writing. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah. 

**Danica Favorite:** And so I have to tweak this and tweak that. And so I tweak those prompts to make them me. But even if we use the same prompts word for word, and I've tested this multiple times since I started in the AI writing space, I can use that exact prompt.

And I promise you we're not gonna get the same story. 

**Steph Pajonas:** No. 

**Danica Favorite:** And that's so important to realize is that, the reason it's not gonna be the same story is that number one, the AI is gonna reason differently every time. But number two, we as the author, visionary, and you know what, maybe that's the term we need to call it.

It's the author visionary. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I like it. 

**Danica Favorite:** We as the author visionary, are making choices as the prompts are coming [00:32:00] back with their answers. We as the visionary are making choices and regardless of what the prompt is, what the story is, even if it's the exact same story, premise, Danica as an author visionary is different from Steph as an author visionary, and that's what makes Steph's story so special.

That's what makes my story so special, and that's what makes author's story so special. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I love it. Yeah. Author visionary. That is totally what we are. 

**Danica Favorite:** It is. It is. It is. Yeah. 

**Steph Pajonas:** So how are things going with Publish Drive? I know you guys have worked on a lot of amazing tools this last year too.

Yeah. And I imagine that you guys are thinking of even more. 

**Danica Favorite:** So Publish Drive. We are doing some very cool things. As a company, our team recognized fairly early on that AI is the way of the future, and if companies aren't adopting AI and coming up with their AI policies in [00:33:00] a thoughtful manner and being intentional about it, they're going to get left behind.

And so we made those decisions really deliberately from day one. Also fun fact, before AI was a thing, there were a lot of AI tools that Publish Drive had running in the background. so we really built on that. When we started talking about the podcast, I wasn't allowed to say anything. But we were developing a bunch of AI tools that are now released which killed me not to be able to say anything, but we talked about them.

And so now you can upload your manuscript to Publish Drive, and what it will do is it's gonna analyze your manuscript. It will give you a book description. It will give you the keywords, it will give you the metadata, it will help you price your book, all of those things. Now here's the thing, Steph, as an AI prompting ninja doesn't need that tool.

I probably don't, although I still love it and I'm still going to use it, which I have. I did put my book in. I used it to update the description of a [00:34:00] really old book that wasn't selling. And guess what? My sales went up because what we don't realize is that, a book that's 10 years old, the keywords and metadata and description for that aren't what appeals to readers of today.

What we did was we said, okay, one of the biggest challenges for authors, because that's what we do as a company, is we want to help authors solve their problems, make their process more efficient so that they can write more. Do the things they love. Again, this is like the whole premise behind ai, right?

Like use the AI to do the stuff you don't like to do so that you have more time for the stuff you like to do. What we did is we said, okay, cool, this whole marketing thing, this is hard for authors and we don't like it. So it does it for you. A ninja prompter can do it themselves. But guess what first of all, your first book is gonna be free on Publish Drive. 'cause we want you to try the tool like it, et cetera. But number two, after that, it's like five bucks a book. It's super cheap. You do it, it's five bucks.

And what's so great about it is that's just saved you a lot of heavy lifting. [00:35:00] Now again, the AI does give you all these descriptions, but your autonomy as an author means you can read through those descriptions. And what I teach everyone to do is you take it, it'll spit out like three descriptions.

You cobble those together to make one. And, oh, I like this from this, I like this from this. Boom. There it is. It's really a great tool for someone who doesn't wanna take the time to figure out the right prompting because we as authors are so attached to our work. We think the book is about one thing, but it's actually about something else.

We think that the most compelling part of a story is not necessarily the thing that readers are looking for, that they're buying the book for. And so this just takes all of those steps out. 

The other thing we did is part two of that is, through the same tool. We did a book cover generator because again, that's one of the pain points for authors, and I've talked about this with the AI for art stuff. I've paid thousands of dollars to book cover designers who have ghosted me.

[00:36:00] And now again, it's that same price. You get the first one free. Everything else after that, it's like five bucks. And again, it goes on credits so it's not exactly five bucks, but same concept. And you get a book cover and you can regenerate and you can tweak it and you can go in and tweak the prompts and get something that is usable and a really good cover.

And if you don't wanna use AI art for a cover, sweet, download those babies. Give them to your cover designer and say, here are some cover concepts I like. What do you think? 

What's cool about both tools is that we are linked up with Amazon and Amazon sales data. So it's based on what's selling on Amazon. It's pulling out the keywords, the metadata, the cover image ideas based on the types of things leaders are looking for and buying on Amazon. 

So that's what we've done over the past year which is super cool. And again, ninja Prompters. They don't need this tool. Some of the ninja prompters who looked at the cover design tool were like I can do that better [00:37:00] on Midjourney.

Yeah. But if you're somebody who isn't really great at that and you're like, you know what? I just want someone to do it for me. Here's an option for you. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I love this because it gives people options, You just need options sometimes. If you're new to this, maybe you just want Chat GPT and a couple of tools that you spend a little bit of money on for things like the blurb and the cover or whatnot.

And then you just do that and it works well for you and your business. We had Dana Sacco on here. And we were talking about those kinds of things, those little things you can do for your business to make it really shine. It doesn't have to be super expensive. It can just be a one-off situation every now and then.

So I like the fact that this gives people options. 

**Danica Favorite:** And that's where I'm at too, as someone who is strapped for time. I'm still terrible at doing AI covers because I just, I don't have the right vision to know what's gonna look good.

I can just say, boom, here's five bucks. Do it. [00:38:00] Actually, I don't say fi. Here's five bucks. I talk to our CTO and I say, give me more credits. 

**Steph Pajonas:** You're on the inside. It's okay. 

**Danica Favorite:** I'm on the inside. I do have a little bit of pull there, but, but I think that that is what is important, is again, picking those pieces of the business and picking the pieces of AI that you want to learn. Steph can be a ninja at all the stuff because she's got the time to learn all of this. This is literally her job that she spends 12 to 14 hours a day knee deep in the AI world, learning new AI stuff, which is why it's so great that she can put this all out to everybody else. 

I don't have 12 to 14 hours a day to do that. I still have some time because again, like this is part of what I do. Mm-hmm. But for the authors who have no time, just pick the thing that you want to learn the most about. Again, pick that pain point. Learn about that. Whatever you can take off your plate and buy back some of that time by giving it to the AI [00:39:00] or giving it to a service like Publish Drive.

That can do that for you, just real quick, for a very small fee. And I will say also just for people who are like but I don't use Publish Drive to distribute. That's okay. Our tools are standalone, so use 'em separate. You don't have to use it for everything. 

If you wanna use this for distribution. That would be awesome. I would love it. That would make my numbers go higher. And that's I think where the beauty of what FFA did in their standalone classes is they said, Hey, we know that the fire hose of everything isn't for everyone.

So here are the pieces. Pick which piece you need and take it from there. And that's the biggest thing I want authors to remember as we talk about all the things that we're doing and all the possibilities with AI. If you are not there yet, like a lot of authors are not there yet in translations, that's okay. Don't do translations. 

But last thing I will say about what Publish Drive is doing, and Steph is killing me to not tell you this. I'm just [00:40:00] saying this is a hard secret to keep. I'm not Elizabeth Ann West. I can keep secrets. We are going to make an announcement very, very soon about a new partnership that's gonna be super cool. Ooh, that is AI related Ooh.

We are listening to authors and what they need and we're trying really hard to deliver it, so I seriously cannot wait until we announce this, 'cause I think it will be very cool. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I'll be waiting on tenterhooks for it. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yes. Yes. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I'm excited. So I think that we had a really good year, our first year on this podcast.

I, I think that we have a lot to offer coming up in the next year. A lot more people that are in the queue to interview and talk to about what they're working on, what their processes are, and I think that we're going to be able to see some real movement towards more people using these tools in 2025 and 2026.

It's becoming so integrated into every single tool. I use Google Docs a lot now for a lot of [00:41:00] my drafting and stuff, and Gemini is built right into it. It's right there at the cursor. We wanna be able to help you guys who are listening, who can come and try out something new, feel confident to do those things because we've been talking about them.

Just give it a shot. Give it a shot. We're excited for you and we're excited for our business going forward. Especially seeing everybody level themselves up and do more with these tools. 

**Danica Favorite:** I totally agree, and it's also been great, just, for those of you who might be a little hesitant because you've been maybe on the fence or maybe even a little negative about AI, it's okay to change your mind.

And it's okay to say I've learned something different. I'm ready to move forward. We just had Monica Leonelle on as a guest and she has never been anti AI to be clear. She definitely was hesitant. There were definite hesitant pieces there of, I'm not sure I wanna use this. And, Russell Nohelty, who will be coming up as a guest in the [00:42:00] future he definitely was not pro AI.

And now it blows my mind to listen to him talk about how AI has revolutionized things for him. Those are just a couple of the examples off the top of my head that I'm allowed to share. There's so many other authors that Steph and I are just like, Hey, wait, did you see that? 

**Steph Pajonas:** it's true.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. but. It's okay to have those moments of growth and everybody gets there at a different pace. I would also say that if you're facing someone who has made a negative comment to you, just let it roll off. Like I said, we started this adventure thinking we were gonna get a lot of hate and it would ruin our careers.

And it's a year later and we are so much better off for having done this. The people who have heard our podcast and learned from us and learned from our guests, they are better off for it as well. And I'm really, really proud of what we've accomplished. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Me too. Me too. All right, so we're gonna wrap this up now, what I think would be awesome.

For our anniversary, it would be great if [00:43:00] people went and left reviews on Apple Podcasts for us. I'm laughing because I was just like, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I love a lot of the podcasts that I listen to, which are like all about like news business, AI, fiction, et cetera. And so sometimes I'll open up my app and I'll be like, oh, look at all these star reviews they have.

And then I go to ours and we don't have any yet. So I'm here to ask, to plead, that you go and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Let us know how we're doing. We would love to hear from you. Don't also forget that we have a Facebook page, and we are on YouTube as well. So come and like, and subscribe there as well.

And am I missing anything Danica? I'm sure we have another thing that I'm forgetting. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, I think right now we just are mostly focused on Facebook and YouTube and obviously the Apple podcast. I'm glad you mentioned that because literally I have a note on here. That [00:44:00] says, Steph told me to remind her to mention this thing that we're supposed to mention, but what I didn't do is say what this thing was.

It just says this thing. So I'm glad you mentioned that, really if you feel like this has been a beneficial podcast to you? Please make sure that you are liking, subscribing, sharing, watching on YouTube. We just had the Derek Slaton on talking about monetizing on YouTube and not that we ever anticipated this to be making us any money, and it's not both of us personally and our companies are putting money into this podcast. Monetization on YouTube would be super awesome and...

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah.

Maybe someday. Maybe someday. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. Like it would be cool to be able to hire someone that we're not paying for, to do like editing and things like that for us. So certainly, and we're happy to do it for free. We've been doing it for free, but, like, so don't like, feel like, oh no, they're suffering and they're gonna go off the air. No, no. But we're always gonna be here for you and we'll figure out [00:45:00] ways to make that work. 

But yeah, if you are getting something outta this, please like, share, subscribe, all of those good things. And the one thing I haven't mentioned that I usually try to mention is that if there are topics that you're like, Hey, you haven't addressed this, or we would like to learn more about this, please make sure you leave a comment or message one of us and reach out to let us know that because we really do want to put information out there that you're looking for that is gonna be a benefit to you. A lot of the guests we reach out to, we do so because someone has said, gosh, I wish we could learn more about X, Y, or Z.

And I'm like, okay, who do we know that does this? Where can we educate and how can we support each other? Because that's why we started it, and that's why we're always gonna continue it. 

**Steph Pajonas:** We're going to continue propping up people and leveling them up with all of the knowledge that we have, and we'll be doing that a lot in the coming year.

So everybody, thank you so much for listening to us for the last year and hopefully [00:46:00] for many years to come from this. Yes. We'll be of course back with the next episode with a guest and we'll be talking with them about something completely awesome and extraordinary. We already have a few that are banked up and are sitting in my Zoom and I gotta get them down and get them edited. So I'm excited to see how you guys like all of these people that are coming up. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, I'm excited too. 'cause like I said, I already teased that Russell's coming on, but we have some really cool guests coming up. Like, Steph said we have a bunch of episodes already banked that we've recorded, and I just looked at some people who have booked to record some more episodes. I remember thinking, how on earth are we gonna get enough guests for our podcast? And every time someone books, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the perfect person.

People need to hear from this person. We're getting a lot of really cool stuff and I can't wait for you guys to see what we have. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Me too. So come on by Brave new bookshelf.com. Check out the show notes from this episode and all of our past ones. We're on all of the major podcast [00:47:00] applications, and we are on YouTube.

So you can come and watch us from the beginning if you want to. There's plenty there for you. 

From both me and Danica, have a fantastic week and we'll talk to you guys again soon. Okay. Bye. 

**Danica Favorite:** Bye.

Thanks for joining us on The Brave New Bookshelf. Be sure to like and subscribe to us on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. You can also visit us at bravenewbookshelf.com. Sign up for our newsletter and get all the show notes.