Bryan Collins's Blog, page 5
March 20, 2025
The AI Revolution Is Eating Book Publishers Alive
The AI revolution is transforming publishing, leaving traditional book publishers struggling to adapt while opening new opportunities for authors who embrace technology.
The recent collapse of crowdfunding book publisher Unbound into administration has sent shockwaves through the publishing world, leaving authors in limbo and raising serious questions about the future of traditional publishing models.
Unbound, launched in 2011, offered a platform where writers could pitch book ideas direct...
Writers Make the Best Prompt Engineers
Learn why writers naturally excel at prompt engineering and how writing skills translate perfectly to crafting effective AI prompts.
Most prompt engineers are just writers in disguise.
Prompt engineering is the fancy word boffins building ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude use to describe telling AI who you are and what you want from it. But when you break it down, the process mirrors what good writers have always done.
The Engineering-Writing Connection
Amanda Askell, a philosopher who ...
AI for Writers: Where I Draw the Line Between Helpful and Harmful
A balanced perspective on integrating AI writing tools into your creative workflow without sacrificing authenticity or quality.
The Polarizing AI Debate in WritingSome writers and creators love using AI to write and create content. Others hate it. One newsletter reader even wrote in to tell me she hit the unsubscribe button because of my “blatant support of AI.”
The last time I checked, OpenAI didn’t invite me into their seed round. That said, here’s my take:
AI isn’t going anyw...
March 19, 2025
I Cracked Google’s Prompt Engineering Playbook (And Here’s What I Found)
Learn how Google’s four-part prompt engineering framework can drastically improve your AI outputs across different platforms.
Last weekend, I dove deep into Google’s comprehensive guide to prompt engineering so you wouldn’t have to. What I discovered was eye-opening: a good prompt isn’t just a single question or instruction—it requires four distinct components working together.
According to Google’s own documentation, when using Gemini (or any AI tool), your prompts should include a person...
How I Built a $5,000 Web App in Just 2 Hours (Without Writing a Single Line of Code)
Learn how creators can build valuable web applications without coding skills using AI-powered tools and save thousands of dollars in development costs.
Content creators who ignore AI will be left behind.
Sure, you can create without AI, but it dramatically cuts how long it takes to turn an idea into a finished product. And you can save a lot of money along the way.
The Hidden Cost of Not Knowing How to Code
For years, I’ve had a painful relationship with coding. I can write a...
The Substack Growth Hack That’s Generating More Subscribers Than My Lead Magnets
Discover how spending just 5 minutes on Substack notes can dramatically outperform traditional lead magnets and accelerate your email list growth.
Last month, I discovered something that genuinely surprised me. A simple Substack note that took me just 5 minutes to create outperformed lead magnets I’d spent days developing. This wasn’t a fluke – it’s a pattern I’ve observed among successful Substack creators who understand something most content creators don’t.
The Hidden Power of Subst...March 18, 2025
The Star Trek Approach to Using AI (That Actually Works)
Learn how voice prompts can revolutionize your AI interactions and save you hours of typing elaborate text prompts.
Have you ever spent hours crafting the perfect prompt for ChatGPT, only to get mediocre results? There’s a simpler approach that might surprise you with its effectiveness.
Voice Is the New Text: Why Speaking Beats Typing
Tell the AI what you’re trying to accomplish, where you’re struggling, and how it can help.If you’re laboriously typing out extensive GPT prompts,...
The AI Tool That Crashed the Stock Market: DeepSeek’s Sudden Impact
Exploring how DeepSeek, a powerful new AI model from China, caused market turmoil and how it compares to established AI platforms like ChatGPT.
DeepSeek made headlines recently, but not for reasons anyone expected. This new AI tool actually wiped a trillion dollars off the US stock market. Strangely enough, it took nearly a week for markets to react to DeepSeek’s launch, despite the platform going live on the 22nd.
According to its website, “DeepSeek-R1 is now live and open source, rivalin...
15 Essential Tools That Transformed My Content Creation Process
15 Essential Tools That Transformed My Content Creation Process
Discover the powerful content creation tools that can elevate your online presence and streamline your workflow.
Creating content online has never been more accessible than it is today. With the right set of tools, anyone can produce professional-quality content without needing extensive technical expertise or expensive equipment.
As someone who lives and breathes content creation, I’ve experimented with countless tools ove...
The Best Content Creation Toolkit
Discover the best content creation toolkit that transformed my content creation process and can help you create better content online.
Creating content online has never been easier thanks to the array of powerful tools available today. As someone who’s spent years refining my content creation process, I’ve discovered that having the right tools can dramatically improve your output quality and efficiency.
The Essential Content Creation Toolkit
Tools like SEMRush or AHREFS have become...
