I'm Cowriting a Book with AI – This is My Process

By Dan Sanchez · Episode published

Writing a book with AI works best when the human supplies the thinking, structure, and editorial judgment while the model helps turn raw material into a usable draft.

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Let AI help write the book without becoming the author

Cowriting with AI starts with a boundary: the model can help produce the book, but it cannot supply the reason the book should exist. The ideas, stories, examples, and point of view have to come from the person who lived them. That is why voice dictation is such a useful first step. Talk through what you mean before asking the tool to make it elegant.

A spoken draft captures the way you actually think. It includes the rough transitions, emphases, and examples that disappear when you stare at a blank document trying to sound like an author. Once the raw material is there, AI can organize it, suggest a structure, tighten a paragraph, or identify the missing explanation.

Use a repeatable production loop

A practical loop is simple: capture the idea, shape the chapter, revise the language, then create the supporting assets. The human decides what the chapter is trying to say and which stories belong. AI can turn that material into a cleaner draft and help generate images or alternate versions. The output should still feel like the same person speaking.

That distinction matters because AI is not going to help you think. If you ask it to invent the substance, you get a competent average of what it has seen. If you give it your argument and experience, you can ask for help making the idea clearer. The tool becomes an editor and production partner instead of a replacement for judgment.

I think of the best result as “it’s still me but just more coherent.” That is the standard to use when reviewing a passage. Does it preserve the claim I was making? Does it sound like something I would say? Did the rewrite add a false certainty or remove the useful tension? If the answer is wrong, revise the instructions or return to the raw recording.

Protect the author’s point of view

A book assembled this way should not be a pile of generated chapters. It needs a throughline, a reader, and a reason for each section. Keep a running outline so the tool knows where the current chapter fits. Save the source recordings and working drafts so you can trace a polished paragraph back to the original thought.

The workflow is valuable because it lowers the cost of getting ideas out. It does not eliminate the work of deciding what matters. Use AI for the parts that slow you down, but keep ownership of the thesis, the examples, and the final edit. That is how a faster book remains your book.