by Penny Sansevieri

We hear a lot about AI and the issues content creators are facing with duplicate content issues, AI generated books, and now with Amazon’s Virtual Voice – the space is filling up quickly. But, while copyright issues are concerning, AI can be a helpful tool if used to help enhance what you’re already doing. 

Let’s dig into six ways that sites like ChatGPT can help you increase your promotional efforts! 

Helping to Craft Better Book Descriptions

Writing book descriptions is tough, especially if you’re going it alone. One thing I love to do is pop a somewhat lackluster book description in ChatGPT and ask for a rewrite, because I’m always surprised what the system does. Often, it sparks new ideas and while I generally don’t recommend using the rewrite verbatim, with a few solid edits you can absolutely make it your own. In some cases, it may even inspire a complete rewrite. ChatGPT can sort of be a second brain, if you use it correctly. 

Social Media Content Creation

Sometimes coming up with new social media content is hard – this is where an AI can help to spark some new ideas, or new direction. In some cases the system may also be able to recommend hashtags, but you’ll want to always check these to make sure they’re truly viable options. But dropping a request into an AI and asking it to create a series of engaging social media posts is a fun way to brainstorm some new ideas, for sure! 

You’ll want to kick this off by describing your book (and upcoming launch if your book isn’t out yet) and ask it to generate a series of social media posts, including countdowns, quotes, and interesting trivia related to the book.

Social Media Posting Calendar and Ideas

Sometimes coming up with a social media posting plan is hard, and I absolutely get it. Put your objectives into the AI, let the system know if this is a book that’s already live or whether you’re planning a book launch. Be sure to describe your book and your readership and ask the system to generate 30 days (or more) of posting ideas along with pacing of these posts!

Optimizing Book Titles and Subtitles

While I’m a huge fan of digging into the Amazon algorithm to help determine subtitles, and even book titles (mostly for non-fiction) – it’s also fun to experiment with this in AI, too. And especially if you’re struggling to come up with a book title. Punch in a description, or plot into an AI and see what it comes up with. The fun part about title and subtitle generation is that you can keep asking for more ideas. Start by asking for five and then go from there. But be sure to check these recommendations against the Amazon system to not only check it for the optimization value, but to make sure that you aren’t duplicating a title! 

Creating Better/Unique Images for Their Book Covers

Cover design is important and I’m a huge fan of using a book cover designer, but sometimes it’s hard to come up with ideas and, ideally, you want to give your book cover person as much direction as you can. One thing I suggest is finding other/similar books on Amazon that you can share with your designer in terms of covers you like. But if you’re a fiction author this can be tricky just in terms of cover models. We’ve seen so many covers with the same model, and this is particularly true in romance. But with sites like Leonardo.AI, you can ask the AI to create a model for you – I’ve had a few of my authors do this and it’s pretty amazing what the AI can generate in terms of characters for the covers. 

Get Help for your Elevator Pitches 

This is something that authors so often struggle with, but if you have a really solid book description an AI tool may be able to help you with crafting an elevator pitch. Just plug in your book description and ask the AI to reduce it to a two-sentence blurb and see what it produces. Again you can ask it to keep churning these out till you have something you feel you can work with, and in the majority of cases you probably won’t want to use these verbatim, but they can certainly help give you a solid direction.

Use AI Responsibly

AI can be a fun tool if it’s used responsibly. Using a tool like ChatGPT to help inspire new ideas, or perhaps guide you to a better path with your book description, social media content, or even help you with some creative cover ideas!

One thing to be careful of though is that ChatGPT doesn’t weigh heavily on one side or the other so you’ll definitely want to edit through any suggestions that the AI gives you and make them yours, give them your “voice” – your readers and fans will appreciate it! 

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About Penny

Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a bestselling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. She is an Adjunct Professor teaching Self-Publishing for NYU. She was named one of the top influencers of 2019 by New York Metropolitan Magazine.

Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most innovative Amazon visibility campaigns as well offering national media pitching, online book marketing, author events, and other strategies designed to build the author/book visibility.

She is the author of 18 books, including How to Sell Your Books by the Truckload on Amazon, Revise and Re-Release Your Book, 5-Minute Book Marketing for Authors, and From Book to Bestseller. She also hosts the top ranking podcast Book Marketing Tips and Author Success.

AME has had dozens of books on top bestseller lists, including those of the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal.

To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, visit www.amarketingexpert.com. 

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Images purchased from DepositPhotos.