New Use Case to Make THOUSANDS with AI

Summary

The video script details a successful method of monetizing public domain books using AI. The creator has made $8,000 from publishing such content, averaging $150-$200 monthly without marketing. They've revisited this strategy by using AI to transcribe and translate old French texts into modern English, making them more accessible. The process involves OCR for text transcription and AI tools like Novel Crafter for translation. The creator also demonstrates creating a modern prose version of 'The Fairy Queen' for easier comprehension, highlighting the potential for educational and commercial value in making literature more accessible.

Takeaways

• 📈 The speaker has made $8,000 from publishing public domain content over time, averaging $150-$200 per month without marketing.
• ⏱️ It took approximately 100 hours of work to earn the $8,000, equating to an hourly rate higher than the speaker's previous jobs.
• 📚 The speaker's sales have been consistent since starting in July 2019, even after stopping the creation of new content in 2021.
• 🖥️ AI is being used to transcribe and translate old French texts that are only available as PDF scans, making them more accessible.
• 📖 The speaker desires to make an Arthurian fantasy text more widely available by using AI to overcome language barriers.
• 🔍 The only existing English version of the text is expensive and not available in digital formats, motivating the use of AI for a more accessible translation.
• 🔧 AI tools like Claude and NovelCrafter are utilized to transcribe text from images and translate old French into modern English.
• 📝 The process involves creating specific prompts for AI to accurately transcribe and translate text while ignoring footnotes and marginalia.
• 🌐 The speaker has published the French version of the text as an ebook, providing a new digital format that didn't previously exist.
• 📈 The speaker is optimistic that the modern English translations, made with AI, will be profitable and more accessible to a wider audience.
• 🎨 The potential to create children's books by simplifying the language of old texts to a first-grade reading level is discussed, showcasing the versatility of AI in literature.

Q & A

What is the main topic of the video script?

The main topic of the video script is utilizing AI to make money by publishing public domain books in new and innovative ways.

How much money has the speaker made from publishing public domain content?

The speaker has made $8,000 from publishing public domain content.

What is the estimated hourly rate the speaker earned from the public domain content?

The estimated hourly rate is approximately $85 to $84.85, considering the total earnings and the time spent.

Why did the speaker stop creating public domain content?

The speaker stopped creating public domain content due to other commitments, such as jobs at Kindlepreneur and starting a YouTube channel.

What is the language of the public domain text the speaker wants to make more available?

The public domain text the speaker wants to make more available is in Old French.

What is the issue with the existing English translation of the Old French text?

The existing English translation of the Old French text is copyrighted, expensive, and not available in an ebook format.

How does the speaker plan to use AI to transcribe and translate the Old French text?

The speaker plans to use AI to transcribe the text from PDF scans and then translate it into Modern English, creating a new, publicly available version.

What is the name of the tool the speaker uses for transcription?

The speaker uses a tool called Claude for transcription.

What is Novel Crafter and how does it fit into the speaker's process?

Novel Crafter is a tool used by the speaker to translate text and create modern prose editions of old texts.

What is the purpose of creating a modern prose edition of an old text?

The purpose is to make the text more accessible and understandable to contemporary readers, particularly those who might struggle with the language of the original.

How does the speaker envision taking this project to the next level?

The speaker envisions creating children's books and educational materials by distilling old texts into simpler language and possibly adding AI-generated art.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Monetizing Public Domain Books with AI

The speaker discusses their successful experience in monetizing public domain content, specifically books, using AI. They have earned $8,000 over time, averaging $150-$200 per month without any marketing efforts. This was achieved by investing about 100 hours of work, which equates to a rate higher than their previous jobs. The speaker plans to continue this work enhanced by AI capabilities, which will allow them to transcribe and translate old texts, such as a French Arthurian text, into more accessible formats. The process involves using AI to create clean transcriptions from PDF scans and then translating them into modern English, making them more publicly available and potentially profitable.

05:02

🖋️ Transcribing and Translating Old French Texts

The speaker outlines their process for transcribing and translating old French texts into modern, readable formats using AI. They describe using a custom AI prompt to accurately transcribe text from images, excluding footnotes and marginalia, resulting in clean text outputs. The speaker then demonstrates using another AI tool, Novel Crafter, to translate these transcriptions into modern English, creating a new version of the text that is both accurate and accessible. They also mention creating a 'modern' version of the text, adapted to an eighth-grade reading level, to make it even more accessible to contemporary readers.

10:02

🎨 Creating Modern, Accessible Editions of Old Texts

The speaker shares their passion for making old texts more accessible by creating modern prose editions using AI. They give an example of translating a complex, old English poem, 'The Faerie Queene', into a simpler, more understandable version. The speaker has published this modern version on Amazon and believes that such adaptations, even of relatively recent works like Jane Austen's, can make literature more accessible to a wider audience, including teenagers. They suggest that these editions could be further simplified for even younger readers, potentially creating educational children's books that retain the essence of the original texts.

Keywords

💡Public Domain Books

Public Domain Books refer to literary works that are not under copyright and are free for the public to use. In the video, the creator discusses making money by publishing these books using AI, indicating that the content is freely available for adaptation and distribution without the need for permission from the copyright holder.

💡AI

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a branch of computer science that simulates human intelligence in machines. The video script describes using AI to transcribe and translate public domain texts, demonstrating how AI can be leveraged for content creation and repurposing of old works into new formats.

💡Transcription

Transcription is the process of converting spoken language into written form. In the context of the video, transcription involves turning images of old French text into digital text using AI, which is a crucial step for making the content editable and readable.

💡Translation

Translation is the process of rendering text from one language into another. The video mentions using AI to translate old French texts into modern English, making them accessible to a broader audience. This is an example of how AI can bridge language barriers.

💡OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

OCR is a technology that scans printed or handwritten text from documents and converts it into machine-encoded text. The script discusses the limitations of traditional OCR software when dealing with complex layouts like old French texts with footnotes and marginalia, suggesting that AI-based transcription offers a more accurate alternative.

💡Prompt Engineering

Prompt Engineering involves crafting specific instructions or 'prompts' for AI systems to guide their output. The video script describes creating prompts for AI to accurately transcribe and translate texts, highlighting the importance of clear and detailed prompts in achieving the desired results from AI.

💡Novel Crafter

Novel Crafter is a tool mentioned in the video used for text generation and editing. The script describes using Novel Crafter to translate paragraphs from old French to modern English, showcasing how specialized software can facilitate the adaptation of public domain texts.

💡GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer)

GPT refers to a type of AI model designed for natural language processing. The video mentions using GPT-40 for translation tasks, indicating that different AI models can be selected based on the specific requirements of the task at hand.

💡Modern English Translation

Modern English Translation refers to the conversion of older forms of English into contemporary language. The video script discusses creating a modern English version of an old text to make it more accessible, emphasizing the value of adapting historical works for modern audiences.

💡Ebook

An Ebook is a digital version of a book that can be read on electronic devices. The video talks about creating Ebook versions of public domain texts that were previously only available as PDF scans, indicating how AI can help in repackaging old content into new, more accessible formats.

💡Passion Project

A Passion Project is a venture undertaken out of enthusiasm and personal interest rather than purely for financial gain. The video creator mentions being passionate about making literature more accessible, suggesting that the motivation behind working with public domain texts is not solely profit-driven.

Highlights

Making money by publishing public domain books with AI

Success in publishing public domain content earning $8,000 without marketing

Consistent monthly earnings of $150 to $200

Time investment of 100 hours for $88,000 earnings

Continued sales increase even after stopping the creation of public domain content

AI's role in transcribing and translating old French text

Creating an ebook copy of a PDF without existing digital versions

Using AI to translate text into a sellable Modern English version

The cost and inaccessibility of existing English translations

AI transcription process using custom instructions to remove footnotes and focus on core text

Publishing the French version of the text as a new digital edition

Using Novel Crafter for AI translation with a custom prompt

Translation accuracy comparison with copyrighted English versions

Creating a modern prose version of the text for easier understanding

Publishing multiple versions: French Edition, English translation Edition, and Modern English translation

The potential for creating children's books from ancient texts

The excitement for increased accessibility to literature and reading through AI

The passion for making literature more accessible beyond monetary gains

Transcripts

this has got to be one of my favorite

use cases for using AI that I found in a

long time so let me dive into how you

can make a lot of money publishing

public domain books with AI in ways that

have never been done

[Music]

before all right so I've actually had

some success in publishing public domain

content before in the past as you can

see here over the you know since I

started doing it I've made $8,000 which

might not seem like a whole lot to a lot

of people but it makes me consistent

about $150 to $200 every single month

and that's without any marketing

whatsoever and I estimate that the

amount of time that it took me to make

this $88,000 was about 100 hours so

that's you know about $85 8485 an hour

which is more than my last two jobs paid

me and that's because I was able to just

create this thing and set it and forget

it and I've been making consistent sales

ever since then and that number is only

going to continue to go up as it just

sits there so as you can see from this

graph I started making these this public

domain content back here in July of 2019

so a little while ago about 5 years ago

and I continued to make it public domain

content up here until about end of 2021

so you can see this rise here is from

all of that public domain content that I

put up and then I stopped but even

though I stopped you can see I've made

consistent sales over the next couple of

years since then even though I haven't

made any more public domain contents and

the reason I stopped was for a number of

reasons mostly just because I had other

things going on with my other jobs at

Kindle preneur and then eventually I

started this Channel and that took a lot

of my time but I am going to be starting

to do public domain content again

because of AI and what it is allowing me

to do now so let me dive in and show you

exactly what I'm doing and I am actively

doing this and showing you the exact

prompts that I'm going to be using and

that I am using for this use case now to

give you a little bit of background here

to make a very long story short there is

a particular public domain text that I

have wanted to make available for a long

time am an aruan fantasy writer and so

there's this artherion text that I

really wanted to make more available but

it's been difficult to do because the

only public domain version of it is in

French and not just regular French we're

talking old French like imagine the

Canterbury Tales but in French right

that's kind of what this text is

Additionally the only versions of the

French text that I could find are PDFs

and there's not actually any publicly

available text that I can just copy and

paste of this French text the only

English version of it is a more Modern

English translation and because of that

it is copyrighted and it can't be used

it can't be spread publicly for that

reason and so I thought what if I could

get AI to not only transcribe the French

text from these PDFs so I can make an

ebook copy of the PDF in a way that

doesn't exist before but I could also

use AI to translate that text into

something that I could sell a more

Modern English translation and make it

more publicly available because to get

the English translation that currently

exists this cost like $400 because it's

done through some obscure academic

publisher and they really don't pay any

attention to it there's no ebook version

of it so you have to get the actual text

in fact I have it right here there's

actually about 10 volumes but here's one

of them that we're going to be looking

at today it's called the story of Merlin

and this single volume cost me about 50

60 bucks and there's 10 of these so they

are quite expensive to get and so I

created this project here in Claude as

you can see here it's a very simple

project all I have is

this custom instructions here which says

you will be given an image containing

text your task is to accurately

transcribe the text from this image keep

the following in mind when transcribing

and then I give it a couple of extra

instructions and that's all it is and so

all I have to do is so I have my folder

here with the scans of this PDF so to

give you an idea of what this looks like

it looks like this there's this French

text there's all of these footnotes here

there's these notes in the margins here

this one doesn't have as many but

sometimes will have a lot of footnotes

here at the bottom so it's really

crowded you've got you know these line

markers here in the text and so if you

use like a traditional OCR scanner

software it would bring in all of that

and there would probably be errors like

crazy all over the place so it'd be very

messy so I created this prompt that

would ask it to remove all of that and

just focus on the core text so all I

have to do is take this image plop it

into here and then hit go and

immediately it starts transcribing the

text here and and this is the original

French old French text that we're

transcribing here and it is a little

tedious to kind of take all of these

images and run it through this process

but it's way easier than I would have

been able to do before and it's easier

than paying somebody to transcribe it

especially because I would need someone

to be at least somewhat familiar with

old French to be able to transcribe it

with any degree of accuracy and so even

though the AI is probably not going to

get everything exactly right just like

an OCR software would it's going to be

much better than an OCR software it's

going to be much better than a human

transcriber because a human transcriber

who isn't familiar with old French text

is likely to have quite a bit of human

error in there and as you can see it

made this very clean text here this is

all French and it's not including any of

those side comments it's not including

any of the footnotes it's not including

any of the footnote references inside of

the text all because of the prompt that

I gave it so all I had to do is copy

this and I take it into a project in

attakus to B basically put it all in

here so now I've added it to everything

I've added so far I've already got

40,000 words here of this project that

I've been working on and then I can

continue with the next couple of pages

and so forth as I go along so the next

step is well first of all I can actually

just publish the French version of this

cuz like I said the only versions that

have been available of this particular

text have been like online scans of PDF

and so there are no more modern or ebook

digital versions of this text existing

anywhere and so I could just publish

this French version of the text just as

is but let's say I want to do a little

bit more than that if we were to take

let's just take these first couple of

paragraphs and copy them and then I

bring them into a tool like novel

crafter right so I've copied these first

few paragraphs into novel crafter I can

select a paragraph and I've created a

prompt that I call translate and it's a

very simple translation prompt all of

these prompts by the way will be

available to anybody who wants them they

are available inside of my free newslet

so if you send it for my newsletter

you'll get the link to my prompt library

that has all of these prompts in it all

I do is just click this button translate

and it runs the prompt that I've created

and it says in this part the story says

that the enemy was very angry with our

Lord when our Lord was in hell and cast

out Adam and Eve and as many others as

he pleased when the enemy saw this they

were afraid etc etc etc so it's giving

this big you know it's an old text right

and if I were to take the actual English

translation here the one that's

copyrighted and look at it I can see

that yeah the translation is is very

similar it's not the exact same but the

meaning is pretty much there so this

first part says in this part the story

says that the enemy was very angry when

our Lord was in hell and cast out Eve

Adam says here in this part of the story

says the devil grew very angry when

after our Lord had gone to hell and

freed Adam and Eve and as many others as

he pleased so it's very similar not

quite the same word phrasing but you can

tell that the transcription or the

translation here is accurate so all I

would do is I just you know continue on

to the next couple of paragraphs hit

translate and boom and by the way the

translation model that I'm using here is

GPT 40 seems to be a good one for this

kind of accuracy needed in Translation

right and in just a couple of seconds

there I've got that whole section all

translated and yes again this can be a

slightly tedious process if you're doing

say a whole book with this but it can be

extremely rewarding because now we have

this translation that has never been

very widely available before and now I

can make it available to people in mass

that people that could not have access

accessed it before because the English

translation was only available in

physical copies and only available if

you had like $400 to spend on it so

that's what I exactly what I did so this

is the second volume here that I'm

currently working on but I've actually

already gone through and done three

different versions of this story the

first volume that I did I transcribed it

and created this one right here which is

the French Edition then I created this

one right here which is the English

translation Edition and then I created

another one here called The Modern

English translation so what do I mean by

that well let's go back to novel crafter

and I have created another prompt if I

took this I have a prompt here that I've

called make it modern I'll show you a

little bit of what that prompt looks

like behind the scenes so we go here to

make it modern I'm using Claude 3.5

Sonet as my main model for this and the

prompt goes something like this you are

tasked with translating an ancient text

into a more modern Pros Edition that a

middle schooler could understand it

should be at an eighth grade reading

level this task aims to make the text

more accessible to contemporary readers

while preserving its core meaning and

significance follow these instructions

carefully then I say here's the text

you'll be working with and it takes the

context selection and then I give it a

few extra tips here to improve the

accuracy and um what this does is I you

know take a couple of paragraphs here

and I say make it modern and now it says

the story tells us that the enemy was

very angry when our Lord went to hell

and freed Eve Adam and many others when

the enemy saw this they were scared and

surprised they got together and asked

who is this person who can control us so

easily way more accessible to a modern

way of of reading the language is a

little simpler it's easier to understand

and this is really really important so I

actually created another text using this

method and this text is called the fairy

queen now I am a big fan of this ancient

text called the fairy queen I've

actually written a whole fiction series

that was Loosely based on it emphasis on

loosely there if you're a Edmond Spencer

purist but this is an ancient epic poem

that was written around the same time

that Shakespeare lived Edmund Spencer

the author was a contemporary of

Shakespeare and he wrote this epic poem

that I think is a criminally underrated

poem because it is so epic and story is

awesome however it's a little weird and

the pros or I should say the The Poetry

of it because it's an epic poem is dense

it's very difficult to understand so

I'll give you an example here this is

the first verse in the first Kanto a

gentle Knight was pricking on the plane

you clad and mighty arms and Silver

Shield where an old dents of deep wounds

did Remain the cruel marks of many a

bloodied field yet arms till that time

did he never wield his angry Steed to

chide his forming foaming bit as much

dis dising see I can't even say it to

the curb to yield full Jolly night he

seemed and fair did sit as one for

nightly gusts gists see some of these

words are even hard to figure out and

fierce encounters fit so the spellings

are a little bit different because of

the the ancient time that this was

created ancient by ancient I mean like

Shakespearean time Renaissance time and

it's kind of difficult to understand

what we just read right you have to

really be paying attention and you can't

just read it and enjoy it right it's

great poetry right it's this like epic

high type of poetry but I created this

modern version of it here which goes

something like this a kind Knight was

riding across the plane he wore strong

armor and carried a silver Shield The

Shield had old marks from Deep wounds

showing he had been in many bloody

battles however he had never actually

used weapons before his angry horse was

chewing on its metal bit not wanting to

be controlled the Knight looked cheerful

and sat well on his horse he seemed

ready for jousting tournaments and

fierce fights so the this is a much more

understandable version of that verse

right now of course you lose the Poetry

you lose all of that but when it comes

to actually comprehending the text which

is what I care about in this particular

situation it's so much easier and I did

this with ai ai was able to do this

automatically and very very well and so

I have now published this version of the

fairy queen book one this modern

translation where basically all I have

is I have a summary that I wrote myself

I have the original text here and then I

have the mod translation here and I just

kind of go through each Kanto that way

with those three things and I was able

to publish that and it's currently

available on Amazon so I'm really

excited for this particular use case

especially not just translating old

public domain texts into Modern English

but also translating Old English texts

into a modern Pros version of English

that is more understandable to us I

think even book that are relatively not

that old like Jane Austin works and

stuff like that could benefit from a

modern Pros Edition to just make it more

accessible to teenagers and other people

who might have a little bit of

difficulty with the language and I say

teenagers but like people like myself as

well I find these kind of modern

editions to be really helpful to

understand the Core Essence of the

storytelling in these books now I've

only just published some of these and

I've got more that I've got coming so I

don't have any proof yet that they are

making money but since I've seen proof

that I can make money with public domain

without any of these kind of

modifications without anything special

added to that I'm pretty confident that

by adding this additional value it's

going to be even better and you can take

this to the next level as well you know

I asked it to make a modern Pros Edition

for someone who's at the eighth grade

reading level well what if we made

something for like a first grade reading

level right you could make a whole

children's book just by taking chapters

of an ancient text and Distilling it

down into language that a child could

understand you could even take some AI

generated art and add some art in there

and create a story book with some

pictures that people can look at as as

well as really legible text that still

follows the flow of the original text in

a way that could be very educational for

young people and I just I get really

excited about that sort of accessibility

to literature and reading and all of

these things it's one of those things

that I'm most passionate about in my

life because you know I make so much

more money just from this YouTube

channel alone than from the public

domain stuff that I showed off earlier

but it's definitely one of those things

that I'm super passionate about and I

know that if I put just a little bit

more work into it it can make money but

it's really not about the money for me

so I hope this has been an interesting

video if you want to know more

particularly about novel crafter which I

was showing earlier and how to

incorporate these prompts into novel

crafter I would go check out my full

course on novel crafter that I created a

little while ago which goes through

everything you need to know about the

software and so go check that out and I

will see you in the next video