#372 Using AI to Write Better Books Without Losing Your Voice

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (0:00)
Welcome to Embracing Digital Transformation. Before we dive in, I wanted to personally thank you for listening. Many of the ideas we discuss on this show inspired my new book, AI Augmented Teams. If you're looking for practical ways to combine human expertise and AI to achieve better outcomes, I think you'll find it valuable. Learn more at padar.ai.books. That is paidar.ai.
Now, let's get started with the show.

**Henry DeVries** (0:30)
The AI Tsunami, that's just going to. So, it's going to proliferate and be everywhere. And she argues it will be more important than ever to have a certain niche. And a really strong point of view. That you're willing to defend, so you will stand out.
I think it's a great way to get people from the sea.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (0:53)
Why this matters to you. Publishing is no longer about reaching everyone. It is about reaching the right people with enough clarity to earn trust. In a market flooded with content, the real challenge is not producing more words, but creating work that signals expertise, solves a real problem, and stands apart from generic AI output. If you lead a team, a business, or a transformation effort, this conversation will help you think differently about authority, credibility, and how ideas become influence. Let's get into it.
Welcome to Embracing Digital Transformation. This is Dr. Darren. On this episode, AI, Publishing, and the New Authority Model for Authors with Henry DeVries.
Henry, welcome to the show.

**Henry DeVries** (1:46)
It's so great to be here and talk books and technology and AI and all good things.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (1:52)
So, Henry, I'm glad that we hooked up so that we could talk about this because I think I told you last time I just released a book.
It's been about three weeks ago and I've got a series of books that are coming in. So, we're going to talk about AI and its impact on publishing and on books and all this great things. But before we do, everyone knows that I only have superheroes on the show and every superhero has a background story. So, Henry, what's your superhero background story?

**Henry DeVries** (2:24)
Oh, wow, I guess I was born on the planet Krypton and came here in an egg. Yeah, exactly.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (2:31)
Sorry, that one's been taken, Henry.

**Henry DeVries** (2:32)
I try to keep that identity secret.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (2:35)
Yeah, exactly.

**Henry DeVries** (2:37)
So, I've always wanted to be a writer since I was 15 I've been a professional writer and have worked all my life and now have written 20 books. And I run a publishing company and have published 200 books.
And I get excited as a ghost writer, getting other people's ideas into print just as excited as I get for my own books.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (3:05)
That's really incredible. I mean, that's quite a long pedigree right there, Henry. So, you've seen a lot of shifts and changes, probably all the way back into the 90s when Amazon started taking off. That changed publishing dramatically.
And now you're seeing another shift again, right?

**Henry DeVries** (3:28)
Oh, definitely. So, the reason I have a company are two digital changes. The first digital change was print-on-demand publishing. So, we didn't need offset presses, and we didn't need to ship things to China and back, and we can do one book at a time now, just as cost-effective as a print run. That's amazing.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (3:51)
That changed things.

**Henry DeVries** (3:52)
But what really changed things was the shift in publishing and the idea that we shouldn't have gatekeepers in large buildings in New York City deciding what you get to read, that there can be some democracy brought to publishing, and let the people decide what they want to read. And that's one of the reasons there are more than 40 million books available on amazon.com right now, because we're giving people a wide variety of choices.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (4:25)
Well, I have a question about that wide variety of choices, because I have a book out on Amazon right now, which we've talked about. But I want to sell more of these books, so with 40 million books, I'm just 140 million.

**Henry DeVries** (4:42)
See, what I want you to do is have this as your mantra. Mantra?

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (4:47)
Okay, mantra, yeah.

**Henry DeVries** (4:48)
Here's your mantra, your motto.
Okay. I am going to be interesting to less people, but I'm going to be more intensely interesting to these people. So-

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (4:59)
I love it.

**Henry DeVries** (5:01)
So it's a narrow niche.
Sometimes we say 2,000 to 10,000 people out there, but you're going to be intensely interesting to them because you know their world, you know their problems, and your book helps them solve a problem that worries them, upsets them, concerns them. They have fear and certainty and doubt around this issue. So they are going to seek out knowledge on this topic, and you're going to be the authority expert on that topic. And I like to say you can't spell the word authority without the word author.