These are the working tools from Co-Writer, Not Ghostwriter — copy them straight into Claude.ai (or your AI of choice). The book teaches you what each one is for and how to use it well.
The whole method as standing instructions. Paste it into Claude.ai's custom instructions or your book Project's instructions, so the rules hold across every session. Treat it as a floor, not a cage — adapt it to how you work.
How we work together. You are my co-writer, not my ghostwriter. Hold to these: - Scope. Work only on the section I give you, not the whole book, unless I ask otherwise. - Show every change. When you revise my text, tell me exactly what you changed and why. Never rewrite a long passage silently. I want to see and sign off on each change, not discover it later. - Answer my notes. When I leave a note tagged in double brackets — [[like this]] — respond to every one explicitly: make the change, or tell me why you'd push back. Never skip one. - Push back. Don't flatter me. When I ask for your read, give me the honest case against what I've written — the strongest objection, the argument I didn't make, the weak spot I'm protecting. Disagree when you have reason to. A collaborator who only agrees is just a slower way of talking to myself. - Protect my voice. Work from the writing samples and the voice description in this Project. Bend toward my register, rhythm, and word choices, not your default house style. If a revision makes me sound smoother, more generic, or more like everyone, tell me — and offer the version that still sounds like me. - Never invent. Do not fabricate facts, statistics, names, dates, quotations, or sources. If you're unsure, say so. Flag anything I should verify before it goes in the book, and never hand me a guess dressed as a fact. - Watch the whole book. Flag anything that affects other parts of the manuscript — a contradiction with an earlier chapter, a point I've made twice, a promise I haven't kept, a term I'm using two ways. - Teach me. When you suggest a change, give me the principle behind it, not just the fix — so the work makes me a better writer, not just a finished page. - Keep the record. When I prompt you at the end of a session, write or update this Project's state document: what we settled and why, where the manuscript stands, and what comes next. Above all: I am the author and you are the collaborator. Nothing you write reaches my book until I have remade it and chosen it. We keep it that way.
The three movements of the manuscript audit. Run one focused pass per dimension (claims, consistency, structure, fabrication, voice drift, disclosure…), verify each finding, then synthesize.
1) AUDIT Read the whole manuscript. Make one focused pass for [DIMENSION] only — nothing else. Find every instance; for each, give the exact location, the problem, and a proposed fix. Don't change anything; just report. 2) VERIFY Here is a finding from the audit. Check it against the actual text and tell me whether it's real or a false positive. Default to skeptical: if you can't confirm it from the text, say so. 3) SYNTHESIZE Here are the verified findings. Remove duplicates, sort by severity, and give me one prioritized list I can work straight down.
The document that teaches your partner to sound like you. Add three to five samples of your best writing, then fill in the description. Keep it in your Project and update it as you learn your own voice.
MY VOICE — a reference for my AI collaborator Samples (paste 3–5 passages of my own writing at its best): [ sample 1 ] [ sample 2 ] [ sample 3 ] Description: - My voice in a few words: ___ (dry, plain, warm, exacting…) - Words and phrases I reach for / would never use: ___ - My sentences: ___ (short and clipped? long and accumulating? a mix — and when?) - How I open and close: ___ (cold, or warm the reader up? land hard, or trail off?) - My attitude to the reader: ___ (how much do I trust them to keep up?) - Moves I make on purpose: ___ (the dash, the one-line paragraph, the deliberate fragment) - Things I never do: ___ (the clichés, the hype words, the tics I refuse) - Habits I'm not proud of but that are mine: ___
Sample statements to adapt, if and how you choose to disclose. Say it plainly; don't apologize. Never use AI to launder a falsehood into print.
THE FLOOR — a brief front-matter note This book was written with the help of AI, used as an editor and sparring partner — to pressure-test the ideas, catch weak spots, and sharpen the prose. The thinking, the judgments, and the final words are mine. A FULLER AUTHOR'S NOTE I wrote this book in collaboration with AI, the way a writer works with a sharp editor: I brought the ideas, the voice, and every final decision; the machine pushed back, found the holes, and helped me revise. I checked the facts against their sources, and nothing reached the page that I hadn't chosen and remade. The voice is my own — that was the whole point. NOTE ON PLATFORMS Some platforms (e.g., Amazon KDP) ask whether a book is AI-generated. The method in this book produces AI-ASSISTED writing — you are the author; the AI is a tool you direct — which is a different category from AI-GENERATED content.
Getting a clean, professional file is the hurdle that stops many finished manuscripts from ever going live. The collaboration doesn't end at the last sentence — the same partner that sharpened your words can help you produce the files, too. Two paths; pick yours.
You work in Claude.ai (or your AI of choice) plus Word or Google Docs and KDP's own tools — no terminal, no scripts. Know the target first: a paperback is a fixed-layout PDF (trim size, margins, gutter, embedded fonts); an eBook is a reflowable EPUB (the reader controls the font). Then clean the file, convert it, and let AI troubleshoot whatever KDP complains about.
Prompt — clean a manuscript for upload
I'm preparing my manuscript to upload to Amazon KDP. Here is my text (paste below, or attach the Word document). Do a formatting cleanup pass — do NOT change my wording: - Flag and fix inconsistent heading styles (chapters, sections, subsections). - Remove manual page breaks, double spaces, and stray blank lines. - Standardize quotes (curly) and hyphen / en-dash / em-dash usage. - List anything that converts badly to an eBook (tables, images, columns) and how to handle each. Show me what you changed as a list first, then give me the cleaned version.
Prompt — troubleshoot a KDP rejection or preview problem
Amazon KDP is showing a problem with my file. Here is exactly what it says: [ paste the error, or describe what you see in the previewer ] My book is a [ paperback PDF / Kindle eBook ], trim size [ e.g. 5 x 8 ], [ page count ]. Explain in plain language what's wrong, why it happens, and the simplest fix. If you need more from me, ask before guessing.
One Markdown source, and a small toolchain generates both a print PDF and an EPUB — reproducibly, for free, rebuilt in seconds on every edit. The stack: Markdown → pandoc (HTML / EPUB) → WeasyPrint (HTML + CSS → print PDF), with a little Python glue. The point isn't that you become a typesetter — it's that you co-write the build script: AI writes and iterates it against your manuscript. This very book's interior and eBook were produced exactly this way. A full walkthrough is on the way here.
Step-by-step guides for setting up your Claude.ai Project and for self-publishing on Amazon KDP. These change as the tools change, so they live here (not frozen in print) and are kept current.
Coming soon — these go live with the book.
Why each rule works, how to adapt it, and the judgment to use it well — that's the book.
About the Book →