One of the biggest mistakes you can make when writing a book with AI is approaching it too quickly. You have an idea for a chapter, you open your AI tool, type a short prompt, and within seconds you have something that looks remarkably like a finished chapter. It has a title, an introduction, several paragraphs, subheadings, and a conclusion. At first glance, it looks professional and well structured. You might even feel that you have made considerable progress. But there is a problem: although the text looks like a chapter, it may not contain enough of your actual knowledge, thinking, and expertise.

The Problem with Content That Only Looks Good on the Surface

AI is exceptionally good at producing content that looks convincing. It can organize information, create fluent paragraphs, develop transitions, and give your ideas a polished appearance. With only a sentence or two of instructions, it can generate something that resembles a proper nonfiction chapter. The language flows, the structure makes sense, and everything appears to be in the right place.

However, when you read the result more carefully, you may notice that something is missing. The chapter feels a little generic, the explanations lack depth, and the ideas don't really say anything distinctive. It might cover the subject, but it doesn't necessarily communicate what you know about it, what you have learned through experience, or what you genuinely think about it. There is a difference between a text that looks like a chapter and a chapter that contains valuable knowledge. Readers might not always be able to explain what is missing, but they can often sense when a piece of writing lacks substance. It simply doesn't have enough meat on the bone.

Your Expertise Needs to Come Before AI

This is why I believe you should spend time thinking about your chapter before asking AI to write it. You need to understand what you want to communicate, what position you want to take, which arguments you want to make, which experiences you want to share, and what you want your readers to take away from the chapter. You also need to consider what knowledge you already have about the subject, including the ideas and insights that might not yet be clearly organized in your mind.

AI cannot automatically know all of this. It can work with the information you provide, but if you approach it without having thought through your subject, you are giving it very little to work with. It will naturally fill the gaps with general information and familiar ways of explaining things. The result may be perfectly readable, but it will not necessarily reflect your individual expertise or perspective. And that is precisely what you want to avoid when writing an expert book.

Think First, Then Use AI as Your Writing Partner

The most valuable approach is to get your own knowledge out before you start generating text. Give yourself the opportunity to explore the subject, collect your thoughts, identify your key messages, and decide what belongs in the chapter. You don't need to have beautifully written paragraphs at this stage. In fact, you don't need to write the chapter at all. What matters is that you have thought about the content and understand what you want to say.

Once you have done this preparation, AI becomes a much more useful writing partner. Instead of asking it to invent a chapter from a vague instruction, you can give it your own ideas, arguments, examples, experiences, and explanations. You can tell it what the chapter needs to achieve, which points it must cover, and how the different ideas should fit together. This gives AI a much stronger foundation and allows it to help you develop your material without taking over the thinking that makes your book valuable.

Use the Workbooks to Get Your Knowledge Out

This is exactly why I have created three workbooks for you, each designed around a different type of chapter you might include in your expert book. Rather than approaching AI immediately, I recommend completing the relevant workbook first. The exercises will help you explore your subject, organize your thoughts, and identify the knowledge you want to share with your readers. You can work through the questions in your own words, using rough notes and unfinished thoughts. The purpose is not to produce polished writing, but to make your expertise visible and give it a clear structure.

For a story chapter, the Story Workbook will help you identify the starting situation, the events that set the story in motion, the challenges and turning points, the outcome, and the lesson you want readers to take away. For an argument chapter, the Argument Workbook will help you clarify your position, develop your central claim, identify the reasons supporting it, consider opposing views, and explain why your perspective matters. For a step-by-step chapter, the Step-by-Step Guide Workbook will help you break your knowledge into a logical sequence of actions, supported by examples, practical advice, and explanations that readers can follow.

Give AI Something Worth Working With

Once you have completed the appropriate workbook, you will have something much more valuable than a vague chapter idea: you will have a clear blueprint based on your own knowledge and thinking. You can then use the AI writing brief generated by the workbook to guide your AI tool. Instead of asking AI to write about a broad subject and hoping for something useful, you are giving it the substance, direction, and structure it needs to help you develop your chapter.

Remember that AI is a tool to support your writing, not a replacement for your expertise. The value of your book comes from what you know, what you believe, what you have experienced, and the way you help your readers understand and apply that knowledge. AI can help you organize, express, and develop those ideas, but the thinking needs to come from you first.

So before you open your AI tool and ask it to write a chapter, take the time to think. Work through the appropriate workbook, get your knowledge out, and give your ideas the attention they deserve. The better you understand what you want to say, the more valuable AI becomes as your writing partner.