@Conrad Deas For some reason I'm thinking oatmeal instead of coffee here...

They had a free option, so I had to test it. And then I let ChatGPT read the 30k words it cranked out in about an hour (because I actually took the time to think about the book when I filled out the forms for this thing... the actual 15 chapters came out in about 15 minutes.) Book Review by ChatGPT: I took the first pass, and the good news is: you did not waste your time filling out the forms. The less-good news is: you did not receive a 30,000-word book. You received a 176-page AI-shaped quarry. There is material worth mining, but I would not think of this as a manuscript that needs editing so much as a generated source document that needs to be stripped for parts. The strongest thing it did is understand the broad architecture you gave it. The early chapters track your intended progression reasonably well: brainstorming, organizing messy ideas, disposable/test drafts, reader feedback, developmental editing, line-level work, and later broader questions about voice, control, collaboration, ethics, and the future of AI-assisted writing. That alone may justify the experiment because you now have a rough book-shaped scaffold rather than a blank page. It also picked up several ideas that actually belong in your book. The distinction between established ideas and open possibilities is there. The disposable-draft concept is there. The need to evaluate AI suggestions instead of accepting them blindly is there. The developmental-editing material repeatedly says the writer has to retain creative control. Those are all useful raw materials. But there are three large problems. First: Clara. Oh, Clara. For reasons known only to KDPBot and whatever minor deity governs filler text, it has embedded a continuing fictional story about a writer named Clara throughout the nonfiction book. Clara writes about Lirael. Then sometimes Elara. Later apparently Elena. Clara drinks tea, meets mentors in cafés, skateboards with her younger brother, gazes at sunsets, receives texts, learns life lessons, and repeatedly discovers that creativity is a journey.

@Lara Knutzen Expertise doesn’t prevent AI slop. Expertise lets you recognize it. --- Of course, I can rewrite the book myself, and expect to at some point. But if I have to substantially rewrite the generated book, then that’s not really “a book in minutes” as advertised. That’s a rough draft in minutes, followed by the usual work of writing a book. And I spent some genuine time on the outline and brief part, which is the only part that is actually working on this one. So the biggest plus is that the cute app made me sit down and organize my thoughts.

I'm still dreaming of 10-20! 200 is awesome. Congratulations!

@Angel Conway I used to knit and crochet. It was very relaxing. Just your premise has me wondering if I should revive the hobby.

@Lara Knutzen I do, but it's not much help once you get to the editing stage, at least it doesn't seem to help much for me at that point.

Cats... because they are very self-sufficient. I like dogs, but don't have the time or patience to manage one of my own.