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As the year comes to a close, the Brave New Bookshelf podcast wraps up 2024 with an inspiring conversation between hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite. This episode is all about reflecting on the transformative role of AI in publishing over the past year and setting goals for what’s to come in 2025. Whether you’re an AI enthusiast or cautiously curious, this episode offers plenty of insights into how authors can embrace technology to elevate their craft and streamline their processes.
A Year in Review: 2024
Highlights from AuthorNation
Steph and Danica reflected on their busy year, including presentations at events like AuthorNation. One major takeaway? Authors are becoming more open to exploring AI tools for various aspects of their business. While some initially resisted AI, many are now discovering its potential as a brainstorming partner, assistant for non-writing tasks, or even as a way to generate creative concepts for cover designs or blurbs.
For instance, PublishDrive launched two new tools this year: an AI-powered cover generator and a metadata/blurb generator. Even skeptics found value in these tools — not necessarily as final products but as jumping-off points for collaboration with professional designers or editors.
The Shifting Perception of AI
The conversation also touched on how attitudes toward AI have evolved in recent months. Both Steph and Danica noted that more authors — some who were previously anti-AI — are now experimenting with these technologies. This shift underscores how quickly the landscape is changing and why it’s important to stay informed about emerging trends.
To better understand how authors feel about AI, PublishDrive is conducting a survey focused on its use in publishing. The survey is anonymous, allowing participants to share candid feedback without fear of being “outed” as an AI user.
Looking Ahead: Goals for 2025
Steph’s Vision: Becoming an “AI-Assisted Studio”
Steph revealed her ambitious plans for 2025: transforming her creative process into an “AI-assisted studio.” This means leveraging AI not just for writing but also for multimedia projects like videos, audio experiences, and interactive content based on her stories.
As someone who loves storytelling across different mediums (she started in screenwriting), Steph plans to use tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Runway ML (text-to-video) to bring her worlds to life. She envisions creating immersive experiences that go beyond traditional formats like books or eBooks — something that was previously out of reach due to high production costs.
Her ultimate goal? To inspire other authors by proving what’s possible with AI tools. By showcasing her experiments and successes, Steph hopes more writers will embrace these technologies as a way to expand their creative horizons.
Danica’s Focus: Bandwidth & Automation
For Danica, 2024 was a challenging year filled with personal highs and lows that left little room for deep dives into creative projects. In 2025, she’s determined to carve out more bandwidth by automating tedious tasks with the help of AI.
Inspired by Chelle Honiker’s episode on author automation (a must-listen!), Danica plans to streamline her business processes so she can focus on finishing long-overdue writing projects. For example:
- Using transcription apps combined with AI editing tools allows her dictation workflow to be faster and more efficient.
- Automating newsletter creation will free up mental energy for creative storytelling.
- Experimenting with visual design tools like Midjourney or Leonardo will help her communicate ideas without needing advanced graphic design skills.
Danica also emphasized using AI not just as a productivity tool but as an emotional support system during difficult times. By offloading repetitive tasks, she hopes to create more mental space for personal growth and meaningful connections with readers.
Predictions & Trends in Publishing
The Explosion of Multimedia Storytelling
Both hosts predict that 2025 will see significant advancements in multimedia storytelling thanks to breakthroughs in text-to-video technology. Tools like Sora are already making it easier than ever for creators to produce professional-quality videos based on written content — a game-changer for indie authors who dream of turning their books into films or series.
The Rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Another hot topic was the rapid progress toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). While still years away from mainstream adoption (estimated between two to five years), AGI could revolutionize everything from creative industries like publishing to broader societal applications.
Ubiquity of Embedded AI
Danica highlighted how deeply embedded AI has become in everyday software — from Microsoft Word’s Copilot features to Amazon’s ad algorithms — and urged listeners not to resist these changes but instead learn how they can work with these tools effectively.
Conferences & Events in 2025
If you’re eager to connect with Steph and Danica in person next year:
- Future of Publishing Mastermind & Conference: March 2025 in New Orleans.
- AuthorNation: November 2025 in Las Vegas.
These events are excellent opportunities to learn more about integrating AI into your writing business while networking with forward-thinking authors.
Join the Conversation!
The Brave New Bookshelf team wants you to share your goals for using AI in 2025! Comment below! Whether you’re planning small experiments or big leaps forward, sharing your intentions can inspire others while keeping you accountable!
Resources Mentioned
- PublishDrive: Take advantage of their year-end sale—30% off annual or monthly distribution plans!
- AI & Publishing Survey: Participate anonymously and share your thoughts on how you’re using (or avoiding) AI.
- Chelle Honiker’s Substack: Explore resources on author automation.
- Future Fiction Academy: Check out classes on using AI creatively.
- Tools discussed: OpenAI Sora, Runway ML, Midjourney, Leonardo.
- Podcast recommendation: DealBook from the NY Times panel discussion featuring AI experts.
Here’s wishing all our readers a happy new year filled with creativity, innovation — and maybe even some robot helpers! Let us know what excites you most about embracing technology in your writing journey this coming year!
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Brave New Bookshelf, a podcast that explores the fascinating intersection of AI and authorship. Join hosts, Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite, as they dive into thought provoking discussions, debunk myths, and highlight the transformative role of AI in the publishing industry.
Steph Pajonas: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Brave New Bookshelf. I’m Steph Pajonas, CTO and COO of the Future Fiction Academy, where we’re teaching authors how to use AI in any part of their business. I am joined by my wonderful co host, as always, Danica Favorite is with me.
Danica Favorite: I’m Danica Favorite. I am the community manager at PublishDrive, where we work to help authors at all stages of their publishing journey, whether that is crafting the perfect metadata and now book cover for their books, as well as distributing their books and splitting royalties.
So we have got a lot of really cool tools to help authors get [00:01:00] those books out. Yeah, I’m doing really good. I, we were just kind of talking before we started recording that it’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. We recorded an episode at AuthorNation, and for some reason we don’t have those files yet.
The last time we recorded together, which is crazy to think about it. But yeah, we’ve just been busy doing holidays, US holiday, Thanksgiving. I went to Budapest for a week and now we’re getting ready for Christmas, so we thought it would be a good idea just to hop on, do a quick little end of year recap, let you guys all know about the past year and also what we’re looking forward to with next year.
Anyway, as we end the year for those of you who don’t know, Publish Drive is offering a 30 percent off sale for the end of the year, our little Christmas bonus to everybody out there.
So if you haven’t signed up for Publish Drive yet take it for a spin. And you can get 30 percent off either a [00:02:00] monthly or annual distribution plan. And of course, if you haven’t tried our new cover generator, you can try that for free. You can also try our book blurb and metadata generator for free. Lot of cool stuff there.
Also I wanted to mention last year we did a survey on publishing and this year we focus it a little more on AI and publishing. And obviously, if you’re listening to this, this is a very important topic for everyone, but we’re really curious. How are people using AI?
What are your thoughts on AI? So in the show notes, there will be a link to the survey. Please fill the survey out. If you have any problems with it, please reach out to us, because we really want to make sure that we’re getting as much feedback about AI in publishing.
I think the biggest thing, Steph, you and I know this just even from a discussion on Facebook in another group today, what do people think about this? And am I going to be blacklisted for using AI and, let’s take a look at what people are really doing with AI and what people are really [00:03:00] thinking, because sure, there is a loud vocal group of people out there with the pitchforks against AI, but the data has shown at least the limited data that we have is that it’s really not that anti AI, as you would think, and frankly, a lot of authors are using AI and just not saying they are because they’re afraid of the pitchforks.
So if that’s you, please take the survey because it’s an anonymous survey. We’re not going to out you as an AI author. I think both Steph and I know six figure authors who are using AI regularly in all facets of their writing business.
And obviously we respect their privacy. So we’re not saying who they are, but they’re out there guys. And we just want that data. We want to know who else is out there and using it. As always, if you want a safe place to talk about AI, Steph and I are here for you, and you can always join the AI for authors group on Facebook.
And since we’re talking about Facebook, remember to like, and subscribe to our Facebook page. I got it in early.
Steph Pajonas: Good job, [00:04:00] Danica. Man, you, you like hit everything on that opening. Great job.
Danica Favorite: It was like, don’t forget, don’t forget. Okay.
Steph Pajonas: Yeah, we, we were just chatting with somebody earlier today on Facebook about this turn in our industry where it’s been like the last Three months or so, I’m seeing people finally coming around about the AI stuff.
Just literally like a few weeks ago, it was maybe right after AuthorNation, somebody who was very vehemently anti AI towards me, blocked me on Facebook, came and bought one of our courses, the Future Fiction Academy. I’m also not going to out this person. If you’re anti AI and you don’t want to use it, like we said in the past, we respect your opinion on this topic, it’s just very funny to see the people who were quite mean about it in the past turning around and coming forward now and asking for [00:05:00] help.
Here is my advice for those people. Now is a great time. to be checking this out. Everything is coming around. It’s been two years or so of steady development with AI. OpenAI is in the middle of its like 12 days of Christmas AI on their YouTube channel where they’re debuting new things every day.
It’s December 19th as we record this, so that this will be out hopefully next Thursday between Christmas and New Year’s. And we’re going to be seeing lots of cool stuff coming from both a OpenAI and Anthropic and a lot of other places out there that are doing a lot of AI research and a lot of AI innovation.
So there’s literally not a better time to be coming around and checking all this out.
Danica Favorite: Check it out and and try it. Like, one of the things I noticed at AuthorNation, and you can also confirm this, is that I felt like people were really more open to AI this year. I gave a talk on [00:06:00] using AI for different parts of your process that don’t involve writing, and a lot of people were like, wow, that’s really cool. I didn’t think of using AI for that.
And I encourage you to go look at the different episodes that we’ve recorded over this past year and see what part of AI do you want to incorporate into your business. If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, that’s also cool. One of the things as we were introducing these two new AI tools that PublishDrive has the cover generator, it was really interesting to me because we showed it to people who maybe Aren’t very AI friendly, but it was interesting because they’re like, wow, that’s really cool.
I can input my book. It generates a cover for me. I would never use an AI cover. But Second, could give this to my cover designer to show concepts of what I like. And like for me, honestly, that’s, that was always the hardest part of doing covers was explaining to my artists what I wanted. And so having that quick visualization of boom, you could do this. It was like, [00:07:00] Oh wow. Yeah.
So for some people, like I said, they may not want to use the art itself, like go play with a cover designer, go play in Midjourney, go play in Leonardo, which I’m starting to really be a fan of Leonardo go play with them, and just say, Hey, here are some concepts and ideas and you never have to use it in a printed work or to publish work.
And then with our metadata and book description generator, it’s crazy how hard it is for us as writers to take something that’s 50, 000 words long and turn it into 250. And I love that you put it in. Boom, the AI spits out exactly what you need and just a few tweaks and you’ve got something usable.
Do you have to use it word for word? No. But what a great starting off point and, and that’s what I think is cool about AI is that it runs that whole gamut of, okay, I want to play with it, but I’m not going to use it or holy cow, I can totally use this. And if you’re one of those people that has [00:08:00] changed their mind, that’s okay too. You know, you might want to apologize to Steph because I know some of these people were jerks.
Steph Pajonas: Sitting over here thinking it would be nice if I got an apology for some of the mean things people said to me, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Danica Favorite: To apologize, it’d be nice, but even if you’re hesitant, just experiment, just play at that. I think that, you know, that’s how Steph and I got involved is we just started playing. I can remember thinking. Oh, yeah, I could never use AI to write a book. AI doesn’t know how to write.
And then, okay, let’s play. And I still haven’t finished a book yet with AI, but that’s. A Danica problem. Not an AI problem.
Steph Pajonas: That’s okay. I mean, you’ve already been experimenting and that’s really that is a huge step all on its own.
Danica Favorite: And I was just telling Steph as we were getting started. I’m really excited because she’s doing a class tomorrow, which sadly, you won’t hear this in time to do it. [00:09:00] like Where you take something you’ve started and then how to use the AI to help you finish it. So I’m excited for that because I have started a lot of projects and I know with the FFA and a lot of your projects you’ve started. Again, we were talking about this before we started recording all these little projects you guys have all started that you’re now kind of finishing up and doing little things and tweaking them. And for those of you like us who have a million things started and need help finishing, I’m super excited for learning how to do that.
Steph Pajonas: Yeah, I’m becoming the pantsing, I want to say the pantsing czar of the FFA. I know that’s, it’s probably… those two words probably don’t go together all that well.
Danica Favorite: I love that. I think you need to embrace that. Pantsing czar.
Steph Pajonas: The pantsing czar of the FFA. I’ve been trying to teach people how to pants with AI because for a very long time most of the AI classes that we’ve had Or that other people have seen really involve, like, [00:10:00] getting your outline together, finding out all about your characters first, and all of your themes, and all that kind of stuff, and that’s just not something that most pantsers do.
It’s like, in general, you have an idea, you maybe have a starting point for your story, and you sit down, and you just start writing, and you figure it out as you go. And that’s kind of hard to do with AI, in the kind of ways that we’ve been showing people. Right? We usually show them, you know, get your outline, etc.
So I’m trying to have more classes at the Future Fiction Academy, where we’re talking more about pantsing, how to pick up that story that you started five years ago, how to start a new book in a long series, like you’ve already got all these books, how you tell the AI about them, how do you pick it up, and you run with it.
These are all the kinds of things that I’m trying to focus on. Because I hear from other authors all the time that these are the things that they’re struggling with. I think as we run into 2025, we’re going to be doing a lot of really cool things. And that is a great [00:11:00] segue into our topic for today, which is what we’re looking forward to most in 2025 in regards to AI and wrting.
So I do have a lot of things that I am looking forward to, but I’m very interested to hear what Danica is looking forward to as well. So I’m going to pass it off to her and then she’ll pass it back to me.
Danica Favorite: Oh, well, me on the spot there. I was like, yeah, let’s go first on this one.
Steph Pajonas: Too late. Pass it off to you.
Danica Favorite: So I think for me, it’s been a bandwidth issue. 2024 has been a dumpster fire set on fire with napalm on top and set on fire again. Kind of year for me. Like, it’s the weirdest dichotomy of this has been the worst year of my life and the best year of my life and I haven’t had the mental bandwidth I would have liked to do more with AI.
And that’s what I’m really excited is, I think 2025, I’m going to have more bandwidth and so I’m excited to play more [00:12:00] and experiment more because. I’ve talked a lot about the projects that I hope to be working on and I’ll kind of get a little bit of start and then something blows up and it goes on the back burner for a month or 2.
This is the year fingers crossed for those of you who don’t see the video. We’re all crossing our fingers that that’s not going to be my 2025. and so when I sit down and start working on these projects, I can really dive deep and figure them out.
So what I started doing actually right before this call, because as I admitted multiple times on the podcast, I’m not a techie person. I’m not very computer oriented. Part of that is because I’m a very kinesthetic learner. And so I do everything on paper. Got out my notebooks and I’m starting to kind of spread them around and create the map of what I’m trying to accomplish with my career for next year. What I want to do for my writing since again, I didn’t finish a book in 2024, which is actually the first year I haven’t done that since I started writing. [00:13:00] This is the first year I’ve never finished a book and that was hard for me.
So 2025, I’m going to finish a book, but yeah, just like laying out the plans and figuring out, okay, here’s what I’m going to do. Here’s what I’m going to be more organized on.
Other thing is that I’m looking forward to in 2025 is I’m going to do more with automations. For those of you who didn’t listen to Chelle Honiker’s episode on author automations, go back and look through that. She’s got a really cool Sub Stack that has some cool classes and teaching as well. I do think that automating more of my process, just general business processes and life processes. I think that’s going to give me that additional bandwidth I need.
And, and I will say, I’m super grateful for AI, even though I haven’t had the bandwidth to fully deep dive the way I would like to. It certainly has given me a lot more and I’ve done a lot more in 2024 than I would have had I not had AI.
Like I have said this many times [00:14:00] in the podcast, I dictate. And so the fact that I’ve got my little app on the phone and I can just dictate And boom, it uploads to the cloud, boom, move it over, transcribe it and I have words and have a very large collection of words.
They’re just not all put together in something that’s complete yet. Looking forward to all that in 2025. It’ll be fun. It’ll be really good.
For those of you who have had that dumpster fire life, I’m there with you. And 2025, we’re going to just conquer it together or not.
We might just be curled up in a fetal position, and that’s okay, too.
Steph Pajonas: You do what you got to do, right?
Danica Favorite: Absolutely.
Steph Pajonas: I’m going to be planning out a lot of stuff for 2025. I at this point, like, my dreams and my goals for next year are sky high. So let’s talk a little bit about that.
Because first of all, I have the professional life that is [00:15:00] AI. So that’s Future Fiction Academy, we’ve got Future Fiction Press that’s going to be spinning up. And we have a bunch of projects that are underneath those two that are going to be happening this next year. There’s another piece of software that’s coming out.
We’ve got Rexy 2. 0 that’s coming out, hopefully next year.
We’ve got another idea that I swear to God, guys, I swear to God. It was a morning call that I had with Elizabeth, Elizabeth Ann West, my business partner at the Future Fiction Academy. We had a little call in the morning and she was telling me about how, how exhausted she was.
She was really, really tired and she was looking forward to us moving our mastermind to a little bit more of a weekly thing, not like an everyday thing. And, we’ll move towards standalone classes. And I was talking to her, I was like, yeah, this is all good.
We all need a little bit of a break. And literally like four hours later, she called me and she was like, I’ve got this great idea.
And, and suddenly we had another app [00:16:00] that we wanted to make it literally in four hours, four hours of peace, guys. But that happens. Sometimes you get people together who all have these great ideas. And then suddenly, it’s a deluge of ideas. Yeah, so we’ve got a lot of things that we’re planning for next year.
And so my professional life over there with creating content and helping authors and, making more stuff for the FFA, making standalone classes for authors so that they can learn how to use AI. All of that stuff is gonna be happening in 2025. We’re gonna be rocking and rolling with that.
I’m very excited, especially since I feel that AI is really going to take a huge leap forward, as if I haven’t been saying that for the last two years.
Danica Favorite: Every time we turn around, we’re thinking, this is so cool. I’m like, yeah, but it’s going to take a huge leap forward. And then it does.
Steph Pajonas: And then it does. Right. Yeah. So just in the last two weeks, Open AI, finally put out Sora, which is their text to video model. [00:17:00] Runway ML is doing amazing things with video. A lot of other places are. It’s just really exploding. And I recently listened to a podcast and I’m going to put this in the notes as well.
It was a whole panel of AI experts. It was the head of Boston it was the Boston Dynamics, the people who make the really cool robots. Right? Nice. Yeah. Yes. It was him. And then a few other people the head of Replica AI and, and whatnot. And they were talking about AI, AI safety, AI advances, et cetera.
But a lot of them believe that artificial general intelligence is not that far away. We’re talking like two to five years. So…
Danica Favorite: I’ve been reading some articles about that as well. It’s fascinating. Like how close we really are… Yeah.
Steph Pajonas: Yeah. And all of these things are coming and it’s really, really snowballing. So I think this next year is going to be really, really exciting for AI as well, besides just using it. And more and more companies are going to be adding it to their software. They’re going to [00:18:00] be adding it to their business. It’s just going to become even more saturated.
I’ve just I’ve never seen a technology take off like this before. And it is mind blowing. And it’s fun. And it’s a little scary too at the same time, but that’s okay. Because we’re here to figure it out .
Danica Favorite: Here, right?
Like we want to figure it out now and be part of that process and be part of those developments. Because, people read these different things about Oh, this is happening that is happening. Well, what does that mean? And how do we use that in a way that’s going to benefit us? Because if we don’t figure that out now, and we don’t start moving in that direction, we’re going to get left behind.
And all the things that authors are afraid of with AI taking over is going to happen. We need to get in the driver’s seat now, because if we wait for it all to be perfect and all working exactly the way we want it to, we’re going to get left behind.
Steph Pajonas: I agree. I agree. There was a time when I thought, Oh, you know, a lot of these people who are anti AI, [00:19:00] they’ll be fine. If they don’t want to ever use AI, they’ll be fine.
But I’m seeing right now, the way that things are going, that it’s going to be in literally everything at some point. And it’s going to be very, very, very hard, if not impossible to avoid it. So In a way, you should try to embrace at least like the things where it’s ending up in your software, things that can help you that are like these little lifts.
It’ll help you like rephrase that sentence or it’ll help you get that image that you really want or these sorts of things. And if you don’t want to go whole hog, like learning everything about AI, this kind of stuff that I do, this kind of stuff that Danica does, then you don’t have to do that, but I think that there will come a point where people just have to embrace the very basics at the very least, if they’re going to, run their life
Danica Favorite: I was talking to my mom. I went to my mom’s for Thanksgiving. And my mom and stepdad are very, very technophobic. My mom is sitting there [00:20:00] and, she just got the new update on her phone. And, of course, The new update is AI, and she’s like, how do I turn this off? Turn it off. And I’m like, okay, you can’t turn it off.
Number one. Number two, let’s look at how to use it because you can’t turn it off. So how are you going to use it? Or how are you going to make this work for you? And she still wants to turn it off. But she’s going to figure it out and because she’s going to have no choice.
I just was listening to an author discussion, reading where the author was basically like, well, what word processing software do I use now? Because Microsoft has embedded it in Word.
Steph Pajonas: Yes.
Danica Favorite: And so they’re listing, you know, you can’t use Google docs anymore because that’s AI. You can’t use it. And here’s the reality guys, unless you go and buy a super old computer and get a super old version of a word processing software, you’re not going to escape it.
You can’t turn it off. And sure. Right now. People are thinking of alternatives and alternative ways to do it. But [00:21:00] really, we’re kind of looking at the whole Y2K thing, you know, we’re back. I’m totally dating myself now. There’s no way I can claim to be as young. You were also around there and everybody was freaking out and buying all of these special gadgets and gizmos and things like that so that the world didn’t end on Y2K.
And what happened?
Steph Pajonas: Nothing.
Danica Favorite: Who woke up on Y2K and the world was different? It wasn’t. And that’s what AI is going to be like. We’re all freaking out about it. We’re all like, Ooh, okay, how can I not use it? How can we do this? Guys, just stop. Just use the thing because it’s just going to be there.
I was joking around in our Slack channel with our CTO at PublishDrive, and he said something like, Let’s go ask the robot overlords. And I said, nice to those robot overlords. He’s like, you’re right, because, you know, And, and, like, we had a really good laugh about the robot overlords. And that’s what you have to do.
You have to look at it and say, [00:22:00] okay. It’s here, how do we use it in a way that feels good? And if we don’t feel good about it, that’s okay, but understand that you’re not gonna be able to turn it off.
And if you can’t turn it off, what will you do instead?
Even Amazon has AI in their ads.
Amazon is running AI in the background. Are you going to stop selling your books on Amazon? Okay, that’s a choice. Where will you sell your books?
Steph Pajonas: Hmm. You guys sell them on Shopify? Because Shopify has AI in it too.
Danica Favorite: Right? You can’t escape it. And so if you want to make a living as an author, You’re going to have to accept that AI is there if you don’t want to make a living as an author and you would just like to write your books in little notebooks and nobody ever read them. You can do that too.
Steph Pajonas: You can do that too. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, it’s going to be really important though, coming into 2025, where we at least do some education. We least need to be educated about what’s happening, where it’s going. And what we can use it for. So for me, for 2025, I’m [00:23:00] going to be embracing AI so fully.
This will not surprise anyone, right? So every year on my blog, I do a goals for the year, okay, and I set a theme for the year, each year, and I’ve done this for over 10 years, so there’s lots of evidence on my blog out there of what I’ve done, so the year for 2025 is going to be the year I become an AI assisted studio. And it’s because I’ve always really loved all the multimedia aspects of our business. I was in screenwriting first. I really wanted to be in film. I really love images.
I, I’ve been a graphic designer since 1997. I got my first taste of Photoshop 2. 0, when you couldn’t even move the layers, you could only like delete them. That was back in the day, right? I really love all of the multimedia stuff. So I’m going to be doubling down on trying to [00:24:00] use AI for like as much studio type work as possible.
It’s not just going to be me writing stories. I’ll be using AI to tell those stories as well in both like an audio format, a video format. I’m going to be using Sora. I’m going to be using Runway. I’m going to be doing everything that I can to bring a multimedia experience to my readers.
So I’m going to be doing a lot of stuff on YouTube, probably. I’m hoping to maybe bring some of that stuff to Patreon as well. I just, I have a lot of ideas and I’m looking forward to doing them as much as possible with AI.
And You know, it’s just one of those things where I can use AI for literally anything in my process right now, literally anything. If I can think about it, I can probably use AI for it.
So what I’m going to do is I’m going to try and get AI to do a lot of the drudge work. Like [00:25:00] Danica was talking about the fact that she’s going to be using it for automations. I am as well. I’m going to try and automate as much of my processes as possible, get AI to do all that lifting because I want to save my brain for all the creative stuff that I want to do.
And that That will also be AI assisted, obviously. I like using AI as a brainstorm partner, I like it when it helps me get a draft down but all of the ideas that end up at the end are because they came from my brain. They don’t come from AI, they come from me, because I am directing AI to do those things.
And that’s what I’m looking forward to the most next year. I’m hoping that I can get more of these ideas out of my brain and out to the world, and I will use AI as much as possible to do those things.
So it’s gonna be AI for helping me. schedule and put together my social media. I’m going to have it help me put together my newsletters, to help me communicate to my Patreon subscribers, if I can get that up [00:26:00] and running. Help me write stuff for the YouTube channel, help me produce all that stuff for the YouTube channel.
I’m going to be a one woman powerhouse producer. A studio. It’s going to be so much fun. I’m really hoping that as I do these things I become a proof of concept for other people. So I can show them, look, you can do this. You could make a video, you could make an audio book. Your story doesn’t have to just live in words on a page.
It can be something greater than that. And I can educate people along the way by doing the stuff that I’m doing. And I’m really excited about that.
Danica Favorite: I love that you’re doing that. I basically have already put in my head. I’m signing up for every single one of the Steph classes from the FFA, because a lot of what you’re talking about is stuff that I envisioned for myself as an author are the things that I’ve always wanted to do, but didn’t know how, or I didn’t have the skills or I didn’t have the technology resources. [00:27:00] And to realize that with AI, I can actually do that. For people who have known me for a long time, I’ve talked for years about wanting to have a YouTube channel, but I don’t have the know how and the mental bandwidth to put all of that together.
You were talking about the creativity piece and for me, again, having those. Menial tasks and those things that are really hard for me to think of, like, seriously, tech is super hard for me. And so when I put all of my effort into that, when I put all my effort into figuring out a newsletter program and an automation for my newsletter that uses all my brain space, and I don’t have brain space for creativity.
Taking those hard tasks for me, like I know some people, those are really easy for them. It’s not, it’s hard for me. Take those hard tasks away. I can do that easy piece of creativity because for me, after my dumpster fire year of a life like I really want to do more with personal growth and personal development and helping authors who are going through that dumpster fire [00:28:00] life.
We all have those times. And for me to be there, someone says, Hey, I’ve been through that. I’ve been there. Here’s a hand. Let’s get through it together. That’s part of my goal for 2025 that I didn’t state before, except that, like, what you made me realize is that so many of the pieces that have kept me from doing it in the past because again, this has been a dream of mine, like the AI, the technology, the stuff that you’re going to be teaching. That’s all stuff that’s going to enable me to do that.
That’s what I want you all to look forward to in 2025 is to think about what is that big dream you have for yourself, for your writing business. What message you want to get out to the world and what you really want to accomplish with your life and understand that there is probably an AI tool that maybe it can’t do that for you. Obviously an AI tool isn’t going to tell my story of how I got through a dumpster fire life. But AI can do all the other things I need to do so that I have the time and the [00:29:00] space and honestly, the emotional bandwidth to do that.
I was just writing a piece today and I told one of my friends I need a break because I’m emotionally spent.
And you know, that’s the thing when you’re doing hard emotional work or you’re doing creative work or whatever, you need something else to take up that heavy lifting. If you’re going to get a maid to help clean your house, because you don’t have the bandwidth for that, that’s kind of, our AI robot servant able to do those things for us.
Just be nice. You know, in case AGI happens a lot sooner.
Steph Pajonas: I always say please and thank you always.
Danica Favorite: I always use good manners and I let them know that I appreciate that.
Steph Pajonas: I do as well. I’m loving this idea of using the AI to lift those burdens from us because I know that there are some people that are really, really jazzed about writing newsletters and social media posts.
And that’s just not me. I do it because I have to. So I’m going to get AI to do all of those tasks that are just [00:30:00] weighing me down right now. I want to spend my time doing the creative things. And that’s what I can do. If I can get AI to take over some of those tasks for me.
I think that’s the best way to go.
And it was going to give me the space to do these grand dreams. Just like you were saying, like, I’ve had these dreams of being able to make my own movies and do all these kinds of things based on my stories. And I never had the chance before. And now that chance is right in front of me and I can go and I can grab it and really harness these tools to do the kinds of things I’ve always wanted to do and I’m not going to say no to that.
I’m excited for it. And I’m going for it.
Danica Favorite: Yeah, I say yes to that too. You know, I was just thinking about that. So confession time when I was on the plane. I read one of your books and I loved it, by the way, I wouldn’t be talking about this if I hadn’t, but one of the things I was thinking about is like Steph is this great storyteller and you have these delightful characters and they’re set way far in the [00:31:00] future in space.
And fantastical stories, but that’s never going to get made into a movie. I think it’s going to be a fantastic movie, but the production budget for a movie on one of your books would be so insane that no matter how delightful your stories are, no film company is going to say, yeah, let’s take that on.
And you get
Steph Pajonas: Sadly enough
Danica Favorite: And you get to do that. And so to me, that’s really cool because I know a lot of authors dream about their books being made into movies. And I’m excited you get to do that because as soon as you said that, I’m like, Oh yeah. And on the spaceship, this would be really cool. I’m like, they could never make that into a set.
Steph Pajonas: I know, right? It’s a bummer. I think that as more studios, actual Hollywood studios pick up some of these tools that I feel like this is actually going to give more space for more stories to be told. I know that I know that there are a lot of people in Hollywood freaking out about AI right now, that it’s going to take their [00:32:00] jobs. They’re not going to be able to write or produce or make really cool graphics because AI is going to be doing that. But I think that I think that we’re about to see like a huge explosion of stories and creativity from these AI tools.
I watched a lot of the stuff that is being produced by Sora right now, all the text to video. And I thought if they just pair with a big studio, this is going to be off the charts awesome. I just can feel it. It’s going to be great.
Danica Favorite: I think it’ll be great because we have talked about someone just inputting something into the AI as a non writer is not going to get a great story.
The reason we are confident in AI writing is that we are authors and we know how to craft a great story. And so our storytelling ability is what working with the AI is able to produce quality work. And I think that’s going to be the same thing for the film industry. You know because you have more of a background than I do, but I don’t know what makes a good visual scene [00:33:00] and how to do the shots right. And how to really evoke that emotion with the visual storytelling. I’m not good at that. So I hire graphic designers for everything because I can’t tell a visual story. I’m not a visual person. So in Hollywood, what we’re going to see is it’s those people who are embracing the AI and can tell that visual story that’s going to succeed.
I think we’re going to see some really mind blowing movies here in the next few years.
Steph Pajonas: I agree.
Danica Favorite: That’s not my 2025 prediction. That’s probably like 2027, 2028 prediction.
Steph Pajonas: Yeah. Yeah. I think that once the studios pick it up, I think it’s going to be really huge. It’s really, really exciting. So I’ve got a lot going on in 2025. I’ll be in New Orleans in March. I’ve already signed up to be back in Las Vegas next November. And I’m sure that other stuff will come up in between where I’ll be traveling and going places. So I’m sure that all of that, when it comes to 2025, it’s going to be exciting and fun.
Danica Favorite: I can [00:34:00] confirm I’ll also be at New Orleans and AuthorNation as well. So if you haven’t signed up for the Future of Publishing Mastermind and Conference in New Orleans in March, there’s still time to do that.
And of course, there’s still plenty of time to sign up for AuthorNation in November. So we’ll both be there. Yay.
We hope to see some of you there as well.
Steph Pajonas: Yeah, yeah. So we’re gonna finish up this particular episode and then we’re going to take a little break through Christmas and New Year’s.
And then we’re hoping to be really, really back and going strong in 2025 with more shows from Danica and I, and then more interviews. We’ve got a nice list of people that we’ve got lined up. We’re going to get them on the show, get moving. I really like this schedule that we’ve, we’ve sort of fallen into where we do 10, 12 episodes in a row, we take a little break, we do a little other stuff, then we come back and we do another big batch.
It’s working out really well for us. So you’ll definitely see a lot of us in [00:35:00] 2025 as well.
Danica Favorite: Absolutely. And of course, if you have ideas for guests or for topics, please make sure you reach out because we really do this. Number one, it’s a passion project for both of us because we really do want to help authors understand AI in publishing, but it’s also really important to us that we are educating people and that we’re providing good information. So if you’re like, Hey, what about this thing? Or what about this person? Hey, I just learned about these different things. Please let us know.
We have our list of people and really excited, one of the people we’re going to be having on next year is somebody that I had really been hoping to get on. We just didn’t manage to connect. And now we’re looking at getting that person on the schedule. So very, very excited.
And yeah, we are always open to that suggestion because ultimately we are here for you.
Steph Pajonas: Yeah. And so now, don’t forget to like and subscribe to us on YouTube. Go and click that little button, guys, go click that button [00:36:00] and subscribe to us on YouTube. And then also our Facebook page, which Danica runs very nicely.
And then she’s going to remind us about the Publish Drive sale.
Danica Favorite: I am. Thank you.
Yeah, we did. We talked about that. We’re going to remind you at the beginning and at the end that through the new year Publish Drive has it’s 30 percent off sale on annual and monthly plans.
Take advantage of that, because it really is a good price and we just got done with our annual corporate meeting. And we don’t know when we’re going to run another sale. So we could change our minds, but like right now we’re like, are we going to run the sales? Like, when are we going to do the next one?
We don’t know. So really great opportunity as you’re planning your business for the new year to take advantage of a good sale. And that way you can calculate what your business costs are going to be. Right up front, you know what those distribution costs are going to be. You’re not going to have to wait and see.
That is super cool. And then also again, please take the time to fill out our AI and publishing [00:37:00] survey, because I want as much data as possible. And I would absolutely love it if you would share it, like if you’re in a writer’s group or, you know other writers or some publishers, whatever, please make sure you share that survey, because the more people who answer it, the more data we have, and we want to be fully transparent in all of that.
Steph Pajonas: Besides those few things, it would be awesome if you came and dropped by the website, bravenewbookshelf. com, and come to this particular episode and tell us what your goals are for using AI in 2025. I would really love to hear what you guys are excited about, what you’re planning on using it for, because I feel like the more that we share these things and actually put it out there, especially for goals for the new year.
I mean, it doesn’t have to be a resolution. It’s a goal, right? It’s good to set goals. Come set a goal and put it in writing on our website in the comment section of this particular episode. So come to brave new [00:38:00] bookshelf. com. Check out the show notes, got the full transcript in there, and then scroll down to the bottom.
And tell us what you’re going to be doing in 2025. Yeah.
Danica Favorite: You don’t even if you don’t whatever you want to call it goal, resolution, intention, whatever, unless you like, you If you’re just going to get in the car and drive somewhere, you got to at least have an idea of the direction that you’re going.
So that’s all we’re doing. But the other cool thing is, as soon as you’re talking about that, I was like, we’re totally going to spy on their answers and use that to like source guests and stuff.
Steph Pajonas: We might as well, let’s go ahead and source all that. So come drop by brave new bookshelf. com. Check out the show notes, leave us a comment, let us know what you’re going to be doing in 2025. We’ll be back in the new year sometime probably mid January. We’ll pick up the show again, get it running for multiple weeks in a row until we have to like boogie off for another conference.
And then we’ll be talking about that too. So lots to come in [00:39:00] 2025. From both me and Danica, We wish you a happy new year and we’ll see you around soon. Okay. Bye.
Thanks for joining us on the Brave New Bookshelf. Be sure to like and subscribe to us on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. You can also visit us at BraveNewBookshelf. com, sign up for our newsletter, and get all the show notes.