Taking on Map Creation, Publication Permissions, and AI Editing! Notes on Publishing "A Couple's Cycling Trip on the Shimanami Kaido"
Hello. I'm Peetan.
I published a new book last month!
It is a record of my three-day, two-night cycling trip from Onomichi in Hiroshima Prefecture to Imabari in Ehime Prefecture this spring.
I focused on summarizing things that beginners should know.
"I want to go to the Shimanami Kaido someday, but I'm a little nervous!"
I hope it gets read by people who are thinking that.
I'll share some of the new things I challenged myself with for this publication.
New Kindle Challenge!
Regarding maps in travelogues
Since you cannot include Google Maps in published works, I drew the maps myself.
Maps are copyrighted works, aren't they? I suppose that's obvious... When writing a travelogue, you really want to include maps. It's difficult.
Regarding publication permission for the shops I visited
I contacted them via email. Most of the shops were favorable, and some even offered, "Go ahead! We can even provide promotional photos for you!!"
Only one shop replied, "Please do not include us, as there is a risk of incorrect information being written, and we do not have the time to check the text or photos."
There were also shops that could only be contacted by phone, and I was incredibly nervous about making those calls! I'm glad I was able to speak with the managers.
It was tough because I had to start by explaining what an e-book was.
I asked AI for help with both the email request templates and the scripts for when I made the phone calls.
Regarding proofreading
At first, I asked ChatGPT-4 for proofreading and editing, but there were too many kanji, repetitive expressions, and redundant phrasing, so I felt this wasn't the kind of writing I wanted people to read, and my pen (or AI?) stopped.
However, I found Perplexity.AI, which allows you to use Claude 3 Opus, and thanks to that, production moved along rapidly. Thank goodness for AI! Or rather, for this book, I had Claude 3 Opus proofread and structure all the text I had input via voice.
Actually, this book had all of its voice-input text proofread and structured by Claude 3 Opus.
Please try reading it to see if the text in my book has any unnatural phrasing,"This looks like it could be used for Kindle writing!"and if you think so, please try incorporating it.
It depends on the person, but I am the type who thinks"if it makes what I want to convey easier to understand,"then it is better to utilize AI.
In fact, I'm grateful that it pointed out parts I was lacking in. I asked a friend to proofread this one as well, but compared to my first work where I didn't use AI, the number of points needing correction decreased significantly. Didn't the first work have over 100 comments on it...?
Summary
I didn't originally intend to publish this, so I was just aimlessly touring the Shimanami Kaido, which meant I had few photos and struggled with the process.
Also, since it was cloudy or rainy until it cleared up on the final day, I couldn't take good photos, so I was able to download and use a cover photo from a free stock image site.
I created a new author page since I used a different account from my children's education-related one.
The one with a star at the end (Piitan☆) is my new pen name. It's confusing.
You can also read it on Kindle Unlimited! Please feel free to download it if you'd like.