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How to Write a Prompt for AI

Learn how to write a prompt for AI and put an end to prompt paralysis! Read this entire page.

Yep. All. Of. It. (Please).

I promise it's worth it!

Stumped female trying to create a prompt
Created with MidJourney

We all need to learn how to write prompts properly in order to use AI without the frustration!

You need to know how to write a prompt for AI that generates REAL results for your post.

The old term, "Garbage in, garbage out" (GIGO) applies here. Feed the prompt with good instruction and get good results in return.

Read more about GIGO further down the page!

We all Evolve...
Stepping back in time

For years I struggled with what keywords to use and I tried all sorts of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) platforms - but honestly? I didn't like paying $60/month for an outside SEO service.

Call me cheap.

The downside of not paying attention to keywords bit me in the butt. My first website, Easy Food Dehydrating, ranked on page one of Google SERPs, in spot #2 back in 2012, for a couple of years too! It was a new site and it was doing well.

I was supposed to use Brainstorm It! inside of SBI! to find topical keywords that are up-to-date. You know, the highly searched for, low demand keywords. (Yes, that's ALL included inside of SBI!).

But I didn't do that - and the reasons why I didn't still escape me and have me sitting here shaking my head at my laziness and ignorance.

Due to me not using Brainstorm It!, what happened next was so sad.

I Took My Eye Off the Ball

It's so easy to think you've exhausted every idea and topic you can think of when you're all gung-ho about creating pages for your new (or old) website. It keeps you up at night - wondering what to write about next.

Man gazing into a huge crystal ball
Created with Midjourney

You visit Google, Amazon.com - taking note of Amazon's best sellers, and what's ranking on Google's SERPs.

And then you're sick of it. You feel like you're spinning plates and getting nowhere. Burn out is the result.

Have you been there? I have, too many times to count. Yet I keep on trying. Why? Because I won't give up!

And that's when "SOS" kicks in. Yes, that "shiny object syndrome." SOS also kicked me in the butt.

Instead of creating pages for a website that ranked high (Easy Food Dehydrating), I morphed into creating about 20 other websites. Yes, twenty. At least.

I didn't create them to stuff 'em with ads (I hate those kind of sites). I created them because I love creating websites with SBI!

OK, eighteen of them perished. I put them to sleep, permanently.

Kinda sorta - a few I couldn't let go of which are now on HostGator - solely for the cost factor and ability to have more than one site on the same hosting account.

How to Write a Prompt for AI with
Jasper and ChatGPT... Not!

Fast-forward to early 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. It had pretty much all of us housebound. That led to getting "a flat bum" from sitting in this darned office chair for 18 hours a day.

But the good thing that came out of that was this: I stumbled across "Jasper" in August of 2022, Jasper was formerly known as Jarvis. And I was hooked!

AI was fascinating. "The things it could do," if you knew what to do with it.

What has all that got to do with how to write a prompt for AI? Everything!

Again, stay with me.

Jasper opened my eyes to the virtual reality of having webpages magically created by... (screeching halt). Wait a minute. That didn't happen (right away).

What did happen: I discovered I was a "poopy prompter." I had no idea how to write a prompt for AI. I googled for help and was inundated with points of view from a plethora of people (who also didn't know what they were doing as it turned out).

Folks flocked to ChatGPT in November of 2022 leaving me stranded at times. I couldn't log in. Too many users. Thankfully(?), OpenAI decided to charge for their service (no surprise) and I gladly paid $20 a month just to gain access to it.

Side Note:

Because I didn't know what I was doing inside of Jasper, despite their excellent training videos, I high-tailed it over to ChatGPT (the new Shiny Object) hoping I'd learn how to write a prompt for AI.

"Hallucinations" vs. "Confabbed"

One thing to keep in mind is that the AI-generating models out there tend to "make things up," in an effort to "fill in the blanks."

The "Large Language Models" decided to call it "hallucinating." Ken Evoy, (the owner of SBI!), says it's more like "confabbed" content. Confabbed makes stuff up (potentially false stuff) to "fill in the blanks." Hallucination is seeing things that aren't there. 

Why bring this up?

For the websites that host my fiction books, I thought it would be neat to use ChatGPT and Jasper to create short stories...

In my mind, whatever ChatGPT and Jasper came up with, it didn't matter if it was factual or not - in other words: "hallucinated/confabbed" or "factual."  It can bring back both... and that didn't matter, fiction-wise. It made it all the more interesting to read!

However, when writing non-fiction, it DOES matter. A lot.

Fiction is... fiction! So I then set out to write "Amazon Kindle Vella" short stories using the ChatGPT/Jasper combo (which would then be uploaded after their first month was over to the Amazon KDP platform as regular books).

In the beginning, it worked. Well. But everything peters out when your enthusiasm for a project peters out, right?

Right.

But did I learn from that? No. Read on.

The Adventures of Winston and Big-Bo

So, I then got to work creating two full-color books for kiddies, "The Adventures of Winston and Big-Bo" with the aid of Jasper. Together we concocted stories (adventures) of an unlikely duo - a male pottery pug dog and his side-kick, Big-Bo, a female pink fuzzy dog toy.

And to be honest? I was blown away by it all. Sadly, no one else was blown away by it and were not buying the books. Lesson learned.

Adventures of Winston & Big-Bo, books 1 and 2

Winston & Big-Bo paperback book 1

eBook version for book 1

Winston & Big-Bo paperback book 2

eBook version for book 2

What lesson was that? We all need to stop writing about stuff that only "we" want to write about. How many times have I been told that I must "write to market?"  Not enough, apparently.

I needed a two-by-four to hit me across my noggin. Stop. Writing. Stuff. That. Nobody. Wants. To. Read. (Period end).

In early February of 2023, I felt "lost." Plan A didn't work, and neither did Plan B:

Plan A = wing it, Plan B = ChatGPT/Jasper it.

Plan C is materializing. And I can't wait to tell you all about it... and yes, everything you do from this point on is still focused on how to write a prompt for AI.

That's why I'm doing this page... I knew I had to.

My Website Host, SBI! Worked its Magic:
I Now Know How to Write a Prompt for AI!

I want to tell you what ALSO caught my attention back then, AI-wise.

A lovely gal named Katharyne Shelton, and her partner, Isaac Gonzales, came out with a new addition to their portfolio of products, a new course called "iMAGINE."

Being a lover of book-building (is there such a thing? - well, there is now. Just trying to be alliterative)... I loved learning about how to use the amazing AI image-generating app known as "Midjourney."

When I first joined Midjourney I was as frustrated as all get out because you need to use Discord to use the Midjourney Bot (inside Discord).

After I learned a trick regarding creating your own folder in Discord and accessing Midjourney's bot, (I learned how through a simple search on YouTube), I was a happy camper with both Discord and Midjourney! To think that I'd almost given up on Midjourney makes me cringe as I sit here typing this.

Still, frustration kept creeping in - prompt-wise.

I realized that I was also a poopy-Midjourney-prompter... that is, until I discovered the course called "iMAGINE with Katharyne." Look, I've been using one of their other apps called Tangent Templates for years.

I use Tangent Templates each and every time I release a book on Amazon KDP because of Tangent Template's 100%-accurate book cover template/overlays that work 100% of the time inside of Canva... (sorry - I admit I'm straying a little bit here!)

Back to prompting: Katharyne's course taught me ALL about IMAGE prompting inside of Midjourney so you'll get back images that you want, read: images you can actually use.

With my newly-found talent of proper Midjourney prompting, (through doing the "iMAGINE" course), I decided to make the coloring books you see above.

The full-color covers were made in Midjourney; the text was added to the covers inside of Canva.

The black and white image interiors (created via Midjourney with prompts learned from iMAGINE on how to create B+W images), were then treated to a fast and easy grey-scale removal process by a special tool right inside of iMAGINE called Tangent Crystal. No messin' around with Photoshop. Yesss!

You can certainly apply the course materials to any and all Midjourney images (and books) you're trying to create.

The course is focused on making black and white coloring book pages, for sure, but the "how-to" course contents works for color images - and covers too!

I used Katharyne's Tangent Designer app right inside of Tangent Templates which made it a breeze to create these coloring books.

Sorry, I Don't Mean to Keep You in Suspense...

You're reading this because you want to become a better prompter. Again, it's all about learning how to write a prompt for AI that AI can actually use.

I was accepted into the Beta Testing group for SBI!'s new release, called "Tai."

This is where you need to pay attention, as I'm getting to the crux of the matter.

It's All About "Tai"

"Tai" is "Transformative AI" and it consists of four areas:

1. Tai Guide which is mind-blowing. It provides the groundwork for creating prompts that will blow your mind.
2. Next, PBI! (Prompt-Build-It!) which is a fully guided prompt-building wizard.
3. Followed by Boxchain where you experience the content page-creating AI process.
4. Lastly, the area called Tai Freestyle which you use for any and all other activities, such as titles, meta descriptions, outlines, etc. Anything!

Life Before "Tai"

Forgive me while I recite/relive my poor-prompting life prior to "Tai" and let's see if you identify with my pain.

With ChatGPT, I had no idea how to write a prompt for AI. I didn't know where to start.

Prompts such as, "Write a page about dehydrated corn" for my food-dehydrating website brought back dismal results with about 600 words scraped from my own (food-dehydrating) website!

Don't forget, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Jasper, Claude, et al - all scrape data from existing websites - and what it brings back isn't current (yet). Last time I heard, they've scraped data up to 2021. However, Gemini (Bard) is far more recent because it's "Google-owned" and has access to data that lags maybe only a month or two!

Anyway, I did enjoy the "back and forth" aspect of ChatGPT - that's why they called it chat, right?

But I still didn't KNOW what ChatGPT was wanting me to "ask it" - prompt-wise. Yes, I was desperate to learn how to write a prompt for AI.

GIGO

The old saying, "Garbage in, Garbage out," couldn't be truer. You only get out what you put in. Enter an aimless prompt, and you'll get back random, unusable stuff...

Back to the present day!

I'm now using "Tai." As I said, I'm a beta tester for Tai, and so far I am totally blown away by its power and the results it yields!

Here's an 'unprompted' (pun intended) testimonial I wrote last night and sent to the SBI! team:

"I just have to say this: PromptBuildIt! is exactly what I've been searching- and yearning for. The other SEO apps out there don't really "guide you" with what you actually need to 'say' inside a prompt.

With PBI! by SBI! I'm not lost anymore. I know exactly what I need to put in a prompt and have my prompt produce excellent results. Thanks go out to Ken Evoy and his worker-elves."

If you ever see that testimonial in SBI!'s marketing materials in the near future, you'll know where it came from!

The Six "B"s...

The Six "B"s are:

1. Be Calm
2. Be Focused
3. Be Specific
4. Be Clear
5. Be Short
6. Be Simple

The "Tai Guide" walks you through the six "B"s, and the six "P"s. Be prepared to spend at least a day or two reading the Tai Guide. It is enlightening, to say the least. It spelled everything out for me.

Ken Evoy (owner of Solo-Build-It!) makes everything crystal clear.

This is what I'd been searching for!

Female typing her prompt on a laptop
Created with Midjourney

I no longer create "wishy-washy" prompts.
They are now laser-focused.

The even better news? 

Use "Tai" in conjunction with SBI! or as a standalone product with your WordPress site(s).

I could go on and on and on about how good the guide is.

• It explains the "why" and "what" - and "how to say it."
• It omits ALL the guesswork.
• It guides you step-by-step so you cannot accidentally forget a step.

And the Six "P"s ...

"Tai" focuses on the Six "P"s:

1. Purpose
2. Profile
3. Page Length
4. Personality
5. Preconditions
6. Pertinent Connections, Keywords, and Sentiments.

After reading the "Tai Guide," you WILL be well on your way to crafting prompts like a pro. And the longer, more detailed the prompt is - based on the six "P"s - the better.

I had it the other way around... I used short ineffective prompts because that's what we're all used to doing when searching for stuff on Google (and Amazon!).

A well-crafted prompt using "Tai" and Prompt Build It! will turn your thinking around and get your pages found.

How Original is Your Work?

--> Originality.ai to the Rescue.

I use "Tai" in conjunction with Originality.ai - touted to be the best, most accurate scanner for your newly created content.

Use this tool to Detect AI, and Check Plagiarism and Readability in this very easy-to-use app.

• Just want to run an "AI detection" scan? You can do that.
• Just want to run a "Check Plagiarism and Readability" scan? You can do that too.

Doing scans individually saves on credits. When you're ready to publish your page, I use both "Detect AI" and "Check Plagiarism and Readability" in one pass - then make any changes,. I can then hit "publish" on my site.

Prior to running each scan (which is super quick, BTW), they tell you how many credits each scan will use.

Scan by the Paragraph or Whole Page

You can run scans paragraph by paragraph. The minimum amount of words needed to scan is 100, so make sure to add enough content to scan inside the box.

Or run a full page. I do that when I'm in my draft page-creating mode, I "preview" my page, and then copy the content from the preview page that I want to have Originality.ai scan.

When I paste in my copied content, it 'omits' the images (that were copied along with the text) and just leaves the words in it - to scan. Smart!

You purchase credits monthly for Originality.ai (that is an affiliate link and should you pay to use it, I may earn a small commission - thanks!)

Your credits renew on your sign-up date, not the first day of the month - I like that!

When you first join, you receive 50 free credits.

I've scanned a ton of stuff in the first few days and barely used my monthly-purchased allotment of 2000 credits (all for a measly $14.95 a month!)

That's a bargain price to pay for peace of mind. Protect yourself from AI-detected content AND accidental plagiarism.

Join Me in "Tai" Land!

If you wish to learn more about SBI! (with Tai!), please visit here.

For WordPress users, SB! (with Tai!) is available here.

Be among the first to use SBI's amazing "Tai." Yes - it really is "that good."

Use "Tai" if you want to know how to write a prompt for AI.

By using "Tai," I created four well-researched pages in four days. (Not four days in a row!)

In the pre-"Tai" days, those four pages would have taken me four weeks to create (that is, if I didn't lose interest while writing them...)

With "Tai," you can get a page done in a day (or less). Seriously, who doesn't want that kind of output?

I can't wait to see the smile on your face when your light bulb moment occurs, and your new PBI!-built prompts produce pages and pages of content that actually yield results and GETS your content FOUND in Google.

See ya! Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.

Susan Gast created this website to showcase her puzzle books and other fiction and non-fiction books she's written and produced since 2012. Read Susan's story here.

Since 1980, Susan's involvement in publishing - in one form or another - led her to create "reviews" of products related to the publishing industry. She realized it was time to explain how she created all those books and got them to market.

Since 2010, Susan has also owned and operated Easy Food Dehydrating where she is featured on the Mother Earth News blog, and on Solo Build It (SBI). Read her first SBI interview and her second SBI interview.

The sites mentioned are hosted by the amazing team at Solo Build It!

Do you want to send Susan a quick message? Visit her contact page here.

She'd love to hear from you!

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