Software for Writing a Book… in Seven Days

with Darby Rollins

Ever thought there could be a software for writing a book? Well…

When I wrote and published my first book back in 2016, I was blown away by the response. It was like INSTANT credibility. 

The simple truth is that writing a book takes so much time and it’s often overwhelming. How do you get through that? You write a book in seven days using our favorite super easy software tool, which is powered by a robot named Jarvis! (Get 10k words for free here. He will actually write the book for you!) 

I’ve reached out to my friend who literally wrote the book on writing a book with our favorite software. Darby Rollins is going to walk us through the first steps for writing a book in seven days with our favorite AI copywriting software, Jarvis!

Introduction to Darby

Darby has been a copywriter and direct response marketer for the past few years. He kicked things off as an e-commerce seller, which transitioned into an online sales agency. Coming into 2021, he has a lot of knowledge writing copy specifically to sell more products on Amazon. He wanted to package that knowledge for new and existing clients, which is when he came across the team at Jarvis (formerly known as Conversion.ai) toward the end of December (he was their first paying customer in fact). But he still needed to learn how to write copy to promote himself rather than just Amazon listings. He put his head down one weekend and cranked out a 5,000-word piece of content with Jarvis. It helped him take what he already knew and break through the writer’s block. Then Darby had bigger ambitions: to be a published author. He wanted to take his experience with copywriting and with Jarvis and combine the two, so he wrote a book called Amazon Copywriting Secrets. He started the book on Friday, and the book was in his hands by the following Wednesday. Five days later! 

This kicked off the seven-day book challenge that he runs every month. It’s an intense immersive into the awesome software for writing a book. The challenge is broken down into seven days. Day one is all about preparation, the why, your goals, your avatar. Day two is the researching, building the outline, figuring out your format. Days three through five are all about writing. Day five moves into refining and editing. Darby also encourages using tools like Grammarly to edit as you’re writing. Days six and seven are about editing and refining, putting together the cover design (which you could do in Canva if you wanted), and uploading it to Amazon KDP or The Book Patch, a self-publishing platform run by Darby’s partner Zachariah. You also want to think about your marketing strategy. Is your goal to be a New York Times bestseller, to rank highly on Amazon, or to use this book as a lead magnet? No matter what your goal is, this is important to figure out.

• • Darby gives a live presentation for how he did this, and he rallied the early adopters to do the same. 12 or 13 books were written in that first challenge because people finally got out of their heads and got their content onto paper. These books are now 24/7 marketing machines that work for those authors. 

This is what he has been up to the last five or six months. He has been working with the Jarvis.ai team to develop content templates and help people understand the tools behind Jarvis and the entire publishing process. Darby also co-wrote a book called Published with Jarvis about this process. He also used Jarvis to write 90% of his book about side hustles, Funny or Fundable? 

In case you don’t know, Jarvis is an AI copywriting assistant that I love and won’t shut up about. In fact, I love him so much that we are now hosting a monthly content creation dance party, where we all get together and crank out our content for the next month with the assistance of Jarvis. Check that out here! 

Tip #1: Beginning with the End in Mind

That’s really where Darby starts people off during these seven-day challenges. The entire process is outlined in his book, so it’s not required to join the challenge live. Very specifically, you want to start with the end in mind. This is much easier on the nonfiction side because you tend to solve a problem for your audience with these types of books. Being super clear about where your audience is and what problem they are facing so you can then walk them through the process of how to fix that problem step by step, chapter by chapter is so key. This gives you a clear road map of how you are guiding your customer along their journey. 

What are you trying to offer your customer? Do you want them to sign up for a coaching program? Download some resources? Sign up for a consultation with you? Whatever it might be, you want to gain that goodwill and trust from your readers so they understand that you are the solution they have been looking for for this particular problem. If you do a good job of establishing your credibility with that book, then you’re set. Make sure that end in mind is simple enough that the book writing process isn’t a gargantuan task for you. 

For us, the full transformation we provide for our community is to turn your message into a movement. There are little moments along the way to help get our community to that point. So you may have a journey that requires multiple books. Instead of tackling a massive multi-step problem in one book, you can distill each step down into one book. That will help simplify the journey for you and allow you to actually write the books. You can also build a team around you to help you write these books. Leverage your time and network so that you are doing what you’re most effective at while still producing the books you want out in the world.

I joined Darby in this seven-day challenge in June. When I joined, I said, “I do not have time to do this challenge right now because I have so much going on. But I want this information now, so I can fully participate in the future.” I am planning on fully participating in Darby’s next challenge, which you can check out here. I love the idea of taking the structure Darby has and doing your own mini-retreat, going to a hotel over the weekend to write.

Tip #2: Be the Guide on the Journey

A quote Darby has come across that resonates with him is, “If you know you need to chop down a tree, you spend four hours sharpening your ax, and the next two hours chopping down the tree.” What they have learned from running this challenge multiple times is it is all about the preparation, the mindset, and understanding how the process will unfold before you actually begin the process. If you read the book, the first day is all preparation. The second day is outlining and researching. But you could also do those parts before you even start day one of the challenge to help you get in the right headspace. They provide worksheets and templates that you follow within the challenge inside of the book as well so you can do it on your own. 

The big focus they stress at the beginning of the challenge is going through exercises to understand your why, understand your customer avatar, and begin with the end in mind. What are your goals for this book? What do your sales look like in the first week, month, and year? Is this book designed to convert a few people into clients, or is it supposed to be read by millions of people? These goals will help you get through those roadblocks that you will inevitably hit while doing this challenge. 

You need to understand your spine, your outline. Your outline is your map to your book. Darby was watching Muppet Treasure Island the other day, which is his favorite Muppet movie for sure. Dead men tell no tales! If you don’t tell your story, who will? Books have been the greatest piece of marketing material for centuries because humans consume knowledge through story. You are giving your readers a treasure map to get to where they need to go. So if you come into your challenge with an outline, where you have done the hard work of thinking about it, once you turn Jarvis on, that is the accelerant needed to rock and roll your way into a finished book. 

One of Darby’s members the other day said, “You need to transition your position from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side.” You are walking beside your readers on this journey, so your book shouldn’t be only about you. If a book is just about how great you are, readers will lose interest. The entire focus of this book should be guiding your readers along this treasure map, using the book as a step-by-step approach to finding that treasure, solving that problem. 

Tip #3: Jarvis Doesn’t Replace the Human

Jarvis does not replace the human; it is the ultimate AI tool to leverage in your business. So no, copywriters are not doomed forever. Of course, thinking AI will take over the world is an easy misconception to have before you are thoroughly introduced to this space. What Darby has learned from being in the Jarvis community is it’s all about the application of the tool. Using AI is all about getting the first draft done. You are leveraging technology to help speed through the heavier part of the process. You can be more of an editor-in-chief directing the show instead of doing all of the work. If you don’t understand persuasion at its most basic form, then you won’t be able to utilize Jarvis to its highest degree anyway. The human aspect is crucial to conversion. 

I now do like writing even though it’s something I struggled with in the past. Writing is a huge part of what we do, be it helping our community with video or organic social. Using Jarvis has helped me and other people become better copywriters on their own because it allows folks to learn what works and what doesn’t work. We also have our own human experience and know the human beings that make up our communities better than any tool or software, so you will add your own human elements into the experience better and faster than said tools. It also allows you to be more creative because Jarvis alleviates the heavy lifting of getting stuff out there, so you can think more about the nuances and angles once the basics have been completed. Jarvis will also sometimes say funny or random things that will inspire new ideas in my brain. 

Tip #4: Your Book is a Machine That Builds Machines

Your book is your content map for everything. It’s a machine that builds machines. Once the book is done and you get the systems, automations, and publishing set up, the book is then working for you 24/7. Because you do the work to complete the book in a strategic way, that can all be repurposed on other platforms. What I love about this concept is if you take the time to get the book outlined, you can then chop the book into all these other pieces that will allow you to be omnipresent online. 

Something the Jarvis team is continuing to explore is webinars, speeches. The book is the outline for all of that, too; it can be repurposed for more than just social media. It might be a little different in the context of how you deliver a speech or webinar.  

We have these four C’s as a pillar in our community where if I am on a podcast or anything like that, I know that I can always come back to them, and I have an outline for what I’m going to talk about. That being said, we also have the Quesadilla of Awesome, which remains a staple in our community for keeping conversations on track. With these pillars in mind, I know I can show up more confidently speak more clearly because it’s already something you’ve dialed in. Your book can serve the same purpose for you in that it can be that pillar. 

Tip #5: Speed Matters, But Preparation is Key

Speed matters, but preparation is key; don’t try to cut down a tree with a dull axe. I learned from an Alexander technique coach that she learned from a Navy SEAL that “slow is smooth, but smooth is fast.” This comes back to being purposeful and intentional about what this book looks like. Take the 50 books you might have in your head right now, and narrow those ideas down to one. This is the process of how you learned this stuff, the stories you are going to use in each chapter, the subsections of each chapter, what the introduction will be, and what the call to action in the conclusion will be. Being slow and steady in figuring out all of that material will allow you to focus on writing. And now with Jarvis, you can basically throw writer’s block out the window. Jarvis will prompt you and inspire you with new ideas. 

Don’t start there too early. Darby spent hours more of his time editing back stuff that if he had thought through the outline more, he wouldn’t have written that information he ended up cutting anyway. Be more intentional with each step of the process. Thinking through every aspect of the process will make the actual production so much easier. 

When I wanted to write a children’s book recently, I was connected to a children’s book author. I thought I was going to have to come up with a brand new story. I sent her my first book and told her what we were doing. She said there was a children’s book idea in what we had already created. So we have a children’s book coming out in the next few months that she illustrated. The book is called Finding My Awesome, allowing kids to discover the magic of who they are. 

Contact Darby

• Darby on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter

• Jarvis Underground  

• Side Hustle 

Additional Resources

• Follow us! Facebook, Instagram

• BeLive (sponsor)
  • Use code MOLLY for 30% off!
• 10,000 free words on Jarvis! 
• Check out our content creation dance party! 
• Amazon Copywriting Secrets by Darby Rollins
• Published with Jarvis by Darby Rollins & Zachariah Stratford
• Funny or Fundable? by Darby Rollins
• Performance Power by Molly Mahoney
• Grammarly
• Canva
• Amazon KDP
• The Book Patch