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Prepare a focused interview and review the resulting draft for accuracy, voice, and clear example labels.
You already explain your best ideas to clients, colleagues, and audiences. Join Mike Giannulis, founder of Dictate, for practical 10- to 15-minute episodes on turning that spoken expertise into a published book through conversations with an AI interviewer. Each episode gives experts, coaches, and business owners one clear step to capture their ideas, shape their message, and move their book forward.
Episodes of this show are narrated by an AI-generated voice.
A little preparation can give your book interview a clearer purpose. Bring one topic, an example you can share, and a question worth exploring.
Welcome to Talk Your Book Into Existence with Mike Giannulis, founder of Dictate. Learn how to turn the ideas you already share out loud into a published book, one conversation at a time. Today, you will leave with one practical step you can use on your own book.
A quick note before we begin: this episode is narrated by an AI-generated voice.
Why Talking Alone Doesn't Give You a Book.
A broad interview question can produce a broad answer. You might describe a framework, remember an example, and then return to an earlier point. That recording may contain useful material, but it can take work to identify the thread a reader needs. Preparing a focus gives the conversation somewhere to begin.
Thinking aloud is useful for exploration. Capturing material for a chapter adds another task: making the meaning, examples, and limits clear enough to review afterward. You can do both in the same conversation, without expecting every answer to arrive in finished order.
Here's the thing: neither the talking nor the AI on the other end of the conversation automatically turns your ideas into a better book. Talking is the raw material. But raw material isn't a manuscript. The gap between what you said and what the reader needs to hear is where the real work happens.
So let's slow down and look at what that gap actually looks like.
Imagine a hypothetical exchange about project handoffs. The interviewer asks what a clear handoff means. The author answers: the next person knows the task, the deadline, and the unresolved questions. A useful follow-up asks for an example. An abstract reply might simply repeat that communication matters. A more concrete, explicitly invented example could describe two colleagues discovering that they have different deadlines in mind, then recording the agreed date and next action. The added detail shows what the author means; it does not prove that every delay comes from a communication problem.
The interviewer can then ask what a reader could do in a similar situation, and when the suggestion would need adjusting. That moves the conversation toward application without assuming one example supplies a complete chapter or a universal solution.
Definition, example, and next step form a useful preparation checklist. You may also need evidence, objections, or a discussion of exceptions. The checklist is a starting point for questions, not a formula that guarantees every answer will be useful.
In my book, I describe discovery, content extraction, and dynamic follow-up as layers of the interview process. Discovery establishes direction. More focused questions develop material, and follow-up explores what an answer reveals. Preparing a few points helps, while leaving room for questions you did not anticipate.
So before your next recorded session, do this one thing. Pick the single idea you're planning to talk about. Write down, in plain language, what you mean by it. Then write down one example you can appropriately share, clearly identified as real or hypothetical. Then write down what someone should do differently because of that idea. You don't have to have polished answers. You just have to have thought about all three before the recording starts.
That's the prep. Not a script. Not an outline. Three honest answers to three basic questions. The interviewer can take it from there.
If you want to work through this process in more detail, my book, Talk Your Book Into Existence, is at startdictate.com/talk-your-book. The link is also in the episode notes.
Set Up the Interview So It Captures What You Actually Know.
When interviewing yourself, a topic can be too broad to explore usefully in one sitting, or too narrow to reveal its context. Try giving the session a specific question. If the answer is brief, follow up with why, an example, or a limit rather than assuming there is nothing more to say.
The aim is to give the conversation a manageable job while allowing useful discoveries along the way.
Bring a topic, an example you can appropriately share, and a question or misunderstanding you want to address. These are prompts to keep nearby, not a performance script.
Let's talk about the topic first. Not your whole book. Not your whole methodology. One slice of one idea you're planning to cover in one chapter. Choose a scope you can explore meaningfully in the available time. "How I help clients set fees" is better than "my consulting framework." "The first thing I do when a client is stuck" is better than "how I coach." If the topic is still too large, select one decision or step within it.
For the example, decide what you can share before recording. Some details may be necessary to understand the situation; others may be private or irrelevant. Do not assume that a compelling story belongs in the book simply because it illustrates the point well. Choose another example if you cannot share the relevant details appropriately.
Changing a name does not necessarily make a real situation anonymous. If you lack permission or remain unsure, avoid those details. A clearly labeled hypothetical can illustrate an idea without claiming that a real event occurred. Keep a note identifying which examples are documented events, composites, or entirely invented, so those distinctions survive later drafting.
My book emphasizes real examples in the content scorecard. Such examples can give the discussion concrete detail, provided they are accurate and appropriate to use. Hypotheticals have a different role: they illustrate how an idea might work. They are not evidence of a result. Make that distinction explicit instead of assuming the reader will infer it.
Prepare a question you hear often, or one that a reader might reasonably ask. You do not have to invent a contrarian position. A useful objection may reveal a genuine limit in the method. If you cannot answer it, mark it for research or a later conversation. The goal is to improve the explanation, not to win every argument.
So when you sit down before your next session, the prep looks like this. Write one sentence describing the slice of the topic you're covering. Write a few details about your example so you can explain it clearly. And write down one question or assumption you want to examine. Keep all three in front of you during the recording. Not a script. A reminder of where you're headed.
Keep those notes visible during the session. If an answer takes a useful detour, record the new point and return to the original question when appropriate. At the end, identify what you covered, what remains uncertain, and what the next conversation should address. A short review of the session can be more useful than simply recording for longer.
Review What You Said and Make It Sound Like You.
When you first read an AI-assisted draft, check both the information and the voice. A paragraph can be fluent while changing your meaning. It can also preserve the basic point but use language you would not choose. Neither issue should be hidden by a polished presentation.
The review is where you identify those differences and decide what to keep, correct, or develop. If the same problem recurs, adjust the instructions or workflow as well as the individual sentence.
Read the draft aloud at the pace you would actually speak. When you hit a sentence that makes you pause, that's your voice telling you something. Maybe the word choice is too formal for how you actually talk. Maybe the sentence is built backward from how you would build it. Maybe the point is right but the emphasis is wrong, the important word is buried at the beginning when you'd naturally land it at the end.
You're not editing for grammar here. You're editing for fit. Does this sound like the person who explains this idea to clients at lunch? That's the standard.
In my book, I emphasize voice as an important part of the work. Here, treat that as a reason to review the actual wording alongside accuracy and clarity. There is no need to assume every reader reacts in the same way or that voice can compensate for a weak explanation.
So when you read a sentence that doesn't sound like you, don't just note it. Speak your version of it out loud before you type anything. Say it the way you would say it to a colleague. Then type what you just said. That sequence, speaking before writing, keeps the revision in your voice instead of drifting into edited prose.
Review every example involving another person. Confirm what happened and whether you can share it. Label a composite explicitly as a composite, and call an invented scenario hypothetical. Saying that a situation was something like this is not enough if the reader could mistake invention for a remembered client event. Preserve those labels in the final prose.
The same applies to any quotation or attributed claim. If you reference something someone said to you, or a finding you saw somewhere, verify it before it goes to final draft. If you cannot verify the wording or attribution, leave it out or explain the point without presenting it as a quotation.
Keep sensitive client details out of the draft unless you have clear authorization to include them. That's not timidity. That's the standard your reader expects you to hold. And it's a lot easier to get right in review than to fix after publication.
After you've read for voice, done one pass for accuracy, and confirmed that any attributed material is solid, look at the whole thing one more time with a single question: does this chapter reflect how I actually think about this topic, or does it reflect how I thought about it when the interview started? Your thinking usually sharpens during the recording. The review pass is where that sharper version gets into the text.
A first draft can have gaps. Mark them, gather the missing information, and revise. Aim for prose that is accurate, clear, and representative of your thinking. A difficult review does not mean the project has failed; it shows what work remains before publication.
Before your next interview, choose one manageable topic, one example you can appropriately share, and one question or misunderstanding to explore. Label the example as real, composite, or hypothetical. After the session, compare the draft with what you meant, check claims and quotations, and revise wording that does not fit. Keep a short list of unanswered questions for the next conversation. You are preparing useful material, not performing a perfect first draft.
Take the next small step on your book today. For more guidance, find Talk Your Book Into Existence at startdictate.com/talk-your-book.
Visit startdictate dot com slash talk your book.
Next time on Talk Your Book Into Existence: Turn Recorded Ideas into a Clear Chapter Structure. Give each chapter a job so a reader can follow the argument and use what you teach. Follow the show so the next episode is ready when you are.
Thanks for listening to Talk Your Book Into Existence. Follow the show for your next practical step, and share this episode with someone who has a book in them. Your next conversation could be the start of a chapter.