My Journey As A First Time Book Author Begins

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Written by

JLoberiza

I'm still here! Check me out also in https://noise.app/jloberiza

11 months ago

In community: Dream bigger(3fc3)

Topics: Book, Book writing, Learning course, Arduino lesssons, Robotics, ...

My Journey As A First Time Book Author Begins

May 27, 2023.

Wow! It's been two weeks since my last upload here!

Finally, school is out. I will now have more time to spend on writing, drawing, and mobile photography. We have about a two-month break from school. As a part-time teacher, however, that means I don't have a salary from my teaching job. We do have a two-week Robotics "summer" program. Hopefully, we would have at least 10 students who would join the program. I will then earn enough to cover my expenses for June.

Preparing For the Summer* Robotics Program

*- Technically, summer is already over here in the Philippines. However, because of the pandemic, the school calendar has moved by two months. Thus, our summer break is no longer in the summer.

While waiting for the summer program to start, I am preparing my lessons for the said program. As part of my preparation, I decided to write a program module.

My Goals For Writing

I have at least a two-pronged goal. The "book" that I am writing is primarily for the coming robotics program for the summer. I will also use it for my classes in the next school year.

Secondly, I will slightly modify it and make it available online as an ebook.

Image Source: Unsplash

Hopefully, I can sell some copies for BCH.

Imploring the Aid of ChatGPT

I already know what to teach. However, I felt that I need to "reorganize" my lessons in a more efficient manner. I decided to try asking ChatGPT to generate a 10-lesson outline based on the Arduino Basic Starter Kit.

The lessons generated were well organized. I thought it was more or less similar to what I already had in mind, but the outline that the AI-generated is a bit better.

However, some lessons in the later part include using devices that we don't have or are quite limited. I was also because my students have little background in programming and electronic circuits or none at all.

I was amazed that I can ask ChatGPT to change some of the lessons while retaining some of its original suggestions.

The other day, I realized that the concept was more focused on electronic projects using Arduino. Once again, I asked ChatGPT to modify the outline. This time, I wanted to include robotics in the introduction.

Here is a screenshot of the modified title, introduction, and the first two lessons.

The Challenge: Writing The Content

I know I generate the whole book using ChatGPT. It would be done in less than two minutes or so. However, from my experience, I find AI-generated content lacks the "connection". I mean, when I read the text I can understand the context but, it feels different. I get the same feeling whenever I read an article that was generated by an AI. Let's just say, AI-generated content lacks the "human touch", so to speak.

I tried it anyway. I asked ChatGPT to generate the content based on the topics of the Introduction. The generated text is interesting to read, and for me, it is quite easily understandable.

Then again, my target audience is those who have no or little background in electronics and programming. Moreover, they will be at least 14 years old.

Readability Check

I ran the AI-generated text through a readability checker. I used WebFx.com. It scored 14.2. Which means, it can be read by anyone at least 22 years of age.

I then checked my revised version. It scored 29.2. My version is readable by anyone who is at least 19 years of age.

I still need to simplify my text further and make it readable to younger readers. Maybe it will improve after I checked my text for grammatical errors.

Still Working on The Introductory Chapter.

I am still working on the Introductory chapter at the moment. I will finish it in the next hour.

In Closing.

I have been dreaming of publishing my book for a few years now. I had several ideas in mind back then, but lack the motivation to publish them. Plus my fear of failure again has taken its grip on me.

With this Introduction to Robotics With Arduino however, I will already have a small captured market since I will make a workbook version for my class.

I'm hoping that I could sell it as well as an ebook and reach a much broader market. Moreover, this book also gave me already content-ideas for my YouTube Channel.

This is it for now. I have to finish the Introductory part.

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