I’ve had a hand in hundreds of books.

Most of them other people’s. I own a vanity publishing company, so I’ve walked numerous titles through layout, cover, proof, and publish for authors who wanted their name on a spine (which is a real thing to want, and I’m not going to be precious about it). My own name is on quite a few.

So I know what a manuscript costs. I know the stretch that never makes the launch post, where you’re not writing so much as pushing a boulder uphill and calling it craft.

When I say this one was different, understand I’m not saying it as a guy who just discovered books exist.

The book is Before the Deep Broke. Dark fantasy, mythological fiction, a little cosmic horror if we’re being honest about it. The Flood, told from outside the ark. The ones who didn’t get on.

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It’s the first one I’ve done working with AI.

What that means

AI did the bulk of it. I guided, proofed, and oversaw.

I want to be precise there, because the internet is loud and fairly imprecise about this in both directions. I didn’t type one prompt and walk away with a novel. I also didn’t hand-write the thing and let a tool clean up my commas.

I ran it. It wrote. I read every page, pushed back, sent it again, cut what didn’t land and kept what did.

I also put it in front of select beta readers before it went anywhere, and I’d recommend that whatever your process looks like. AI will happily hand you something that reads fine and lands flat, and by then you’re too close to it to tell the difference. Actual humans catch that.

Different job than writing. Not an easier one (different muscles entirely)… you go from author to director, and directing eats your afternoons in its own special way.

Here’s what I’m not going to tell you

I’m not going to tell you it’s making money.

I published it. That’s the whole update. No sales screenshot. No “I made $X my first week.”

I don’t have numbers because there hasn’t been time to have any, and I haven’t started marketing it either.

A lot of people would write this post anyway and just imply the rest. I’m not doing that. You already know what an early launch looks like, which is mostly silence and refreshing a dashboard like an idiot.

Ask me in 90 to 120 days. I’ll tell you either way. I’m actually creating this as a 12-part connected series, so I’m pushing the initial marketing down the road until the second is on the shelf (anticipation already built in is the hope).

Important Note

When you upload, Amazon asks whether AI was involved.

Answer honestly. I did. (Takes two seconds, and it is not the place to get clever.)

I’ve got a publishing business and accounts I’m not willing to gamble on a lie (and lying in general is not my thing), and you shouldn’t be either. Whatever you think of the policy, getting caught lying to the platform you sell on is a worse problem than any answer you could have given it.

The part that matters

There are a lot of ways to make money online. Considerably more than the guys selling you one blueprint would like you to know about.

I sell PLR for a living. I publish other people’s books, and now I publish my own a different way. None of it replaced anything. It stacked.

That’s what I’d want you to take from this, and it isn’t “go write a novel with AI.” It’s find a door and walk through it, then keep the door.

I didn’t pick right the first time either. I picked, found out what that door cost me, and picked again. That’s the whole method.

So what now

I’ve got a book out with my name on it, made in a way I couldn’t have made it a couple of years back. That’s interesting to me, and I’ve been at this long enough that not much is anymore.

If it does something, I’ll come back with what worked. If it flops, same deal, and that’s probably the more useful article.

There’s a fair amount I picked up along the way that I’d have wanted to know going in. Whether that turns into a series depends on whether it’s worth your time, and I’ll be straight with you about that.

For now, it’s published. That’s the win.

Want to see how it turned out? Before the Deep Broke is up on Amazon.

Go publish something.