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šŸ§‘ā€šŸŽ“ How this student is making millions with AI

here's how you can too (step-by-step guide)

GM. This is Work "After" Work, the newsletter where business insights hit harder than the Cha-Cha Slide at a school dance.

Cā€™mon yā€™all.. slide to the left!

Hereā€™s how weā€™re starting the week:

  • šŸ¤– AI written books

  • šŸ˜‚ Meme of the day

HEY AI, WRITE ME THIS BOOK

All right, who's ready for a banger?

Everybody say ā€œIā€

First, I'll hit you with the punchline: this college student started a $1 million business selling AI written books.

Did your jaw just drop? Cause mine did too.

Now, the craziest thing about all this is the product heā€™s selling isnā€™t unique. Virtually anyone can figure out how to write a book with AI (Iā€™ll show you how). Itā€™s how he markets his e-books.

I guess that famous saying, ā€œMarketing is everything.ā€ is actually true.

Whoā€™s he marketing to?
Middle aged moms - something I know this audience might be just a little better at šŸ˜‰

Hereā€™s the cliff notes version of how this all came to be:

One day, Joe Popelas (our college student) went to meet with a publishing company where they showed him they were making $2 million a month doing ā€œstupid simpleā€ stuff.

Popelas came out of the call with two thoughts:

#1 He didnā€™t realize how many books people actually bought online

#2 He was going to do the same thing but without the overhead - with AI

And thatā€™s exactly what he did. Popelas started in August of 22ā€™ and by September he had ā€œwrittenā€ 40 books.

A few days after Christmas was the big one. It was his first $1,000 a day in profit. Pretty crazy for just 4 months!

So, literally the one million dollar question is ā€œHow can I do this too?ā€

Well youā€™ve come to the right place because Iā€™m about to spill the beans like your neighborhood Karen does to the cops.

Step #1 - Turn ChatGPT into J.K. Rowling

ChatGPT is useful but only if you know how to use it. Get familiar by reading their user guides and learn how to use this tech to your advantage!

When Popelas wrote his first book it was terrible. Itā€™s not as easy as prompting ChatGPT to ā€œwrite me this bookā€... but itā€™s close! Let me explain.

You donā€™t need to write the outline or most of the content in the book. You just need the right prompts.

To get the outline of your book use Google Trends and Pinterest Trends to find strong niches (like Keto Diets or Self-Care) and input this prompt:

ā€œWrite me a book outline on Self-Care with 8 chapters. Chapters are counted with integers. Topics are bullet points under Chapter topics. Each Chapter has 3 topics.ā€

This is what it will spit out:

Then you need ChatGPT to write each chapter of your book. That prompt will look something like:

ā€œThe following is a 1,000 word book chapter named Understanding Self-Care. It will go through the following topics: defining self-care and its importance, the historical context of self-care, self-care as a holistic concept.ā€

Youā€™ll get back something along the lines of:

Youā€™ll do this for each chapter in your outline.

*Make sure to tell ChatGPT any qualifiers in the prompt such as:

  • What style you want it in. Have a specific author you want the AI to write like? Tell it!

  • How long you want the book to be

  • What tone you want the book to be in (funny, serious, genuine, all of the above)

  • How you want the reader to feel after every chapter

This part is really up to you and your creativity.

ChatGPT will soon generate images as well with DALLE-3 but for now you can use MidJourney! Popelas doesnā€™t use any pictures in his e-books but I think they are useful depending on your topic.

Step #2 Create and run ads

This is virtually Popelasā€™ only expense. The only other costs he pays for are ChatGPT 4 and a proofreader he hired online.

Popelas only uses Pinterest ads to market his books. Think about all the untapped potential out there - Facebook, TikTok, Google, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, etc.

For setting up Pinterest ads watch Tutorials on YouTube - hereā€™s a good one!

These ads bring me to the next step.

Step #3 Create a banger landing page

Those ads you created are going to direct buyers to your landing page. This is where youā€™ll sell people on why they should buy your e-book. Youā€™ll highlight everything to entice the potential buyer to buy your e-book or bundle.

Your landing page will be the source for almost all your income. If youā€™re getting a high bounce rate (70-80%) it means you have a landing page issue.

Popelas says ā€œItā€™s almost impossible to sell if you donā€™t have a landing pageā€... so itā€™s gotta look professional.

One of my friends is actually insane at web design (heā€™s a software engineer for a Fortune 100 company) and does accept some adhoc projects on the side sometimes. It obviously wonā€™t be free but lmk if youā€™re interested and I can ask.

And if youā€™re not a techy person and want to DIY - follow these steps:

  1. Buy your domain off a site like GoDaddy (if you can find a .com for cheap thatā€™s the best! If not, just use a .co)

  2. Setup a professional email - this costs $6/mo with Google

  3. Choose which website platform you want to use. Popelas uses Typedream and links to his Whop store page (so users are directed to his Typedream landing page from his ad and when they click ā€œBuyā€ it redirects them to Whop)

Alright, now youā€™ve got the steps! Here are some quick fire follow-ups from ya boy:

What about competition?
Thereā€™s a huge market for this. Popelas is only marketing on Pinterest, the 15th largest user platform with only 465 million users. Facebook has 2.9 billion.. I know where Iā€™d try this.

  • Popelas has made ~$400k in profit.

  • He posted his business on a marketplace and got an offer for $930k, which blew his mind! Now heā€™s working with an investor who is buying 40% of this book brand and is building another!

  • His profit margin is around 70-80%. The only expenses are ads, his proofreader, and software tools.

  • To create a full book it costs around $3-$5

  • Popelas doesnā€™t see the market anywhere close to saturated yet. He thinks that will happen in a few years and if you act now your brand will already have so much recognition it wonā€™t matter. This is why you have to act now if you want to do this!

More Helpful Links

Hope you enjoyed this one cause I sure did! Let me know your thoughts in the comments section of the newsletter!

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MEME OF THE DAY šŸ˜‚ 

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