First Book ai Reviews

Writing a whole 200 page book based on the description, a self-written chapter, a 8X3 TOC and some anecdotes is not the most professional approach. There should be other book reerences, author notes and memos on specific sections, any specific inputs by each chapter. It is such a great platform, but these simple fixes need to be incorporated so that the initial draft can be consumable. Otherwise it is a lot of generalities and takes more work to edit than writing ground up.

I recently used firstbook.ai to create 10 test books, and I'm generally satisfied with the work. Some books were nearly publication-ready after one try, while others needed more refinement. Here are my observations:

What I Appreciate:

Quick Turnaround: Some books were almost ready to publish after the first attempt.
User-Friendly: The interface is intuitive and easy to use.

Suggestions for Improvement:

Chapter Customization: Allow users to choose the number of chapters and subchapters.
Sub Sub Chapters: Add the option for more detailed content structures.
Chapter Length: Shorten the subchapter lengths for better readability.
Essential Sections: Include options for disclaimers, publisher info, ISBN, etc.
Let us choose between som templates for the books format. It would do the job getting them ready to publish easier.
Overall, while there are areas needing improvement, I understand the limitations and see great potential in firstbook.ai. I'm eager to see what future updates bring and am happy to support their growth.

Let me begin by stating my expectations: As a creative fiction writer, I was experimenting with First Book AI simply to get my "creative juices flowing," so to speak, in preparation for a non-fiction project. I had no expectation whatsoever of producing a fully functional book with First Book, nor was that even my goal—all I wanted was an idea of how to outline and structure my general topic. I don't believe my expectations could have been meaningfully lower.

And yet.

Unfortunately, despite having you provide:

1. A rough outline (it generates a rough skeleton, albeit not a good one, for you to edit)
2. Instructions for the tone.
3. Clarity on the audience.
4. A title.
5. A goal.
6. An introductory chapter to help it "write like you" (that it doesn't actually use in the finished project).
7. A series of real-life anecdotes to incorporate (that it ALSO doesn't use; yes, I checked).

… It appears to take nothing, whatsoever, into account, at least in any way I could identify. The writing style bore no resemblance to anything more than generic ChatGPT dross, recognizable from a mile away, spewing out a deluge of lengthy, rambling paragraphs that somehow remain devoid of all substance. Even though I *provided* relevant anecdotes from my own life, as requested, every third or fourth paragraph begins with "I recall…" (almost always with that exact phrase), followed by a bizarre hallucination that has happened to precisely nobody. More insultingly, at least with a combination of Ctrl+F and skimming, not one of the myriad "memories" it output were mine.

There was never any conclusion or point raised; no real attempt to follow the outline; no research (just the rare unsourced statistic that I *highly* doubt is more than a hallucination) or actionable advice. Attempting to read even a chapter was an exhausting feat that more closely resembled a mental hamster wheel than anything substantive.

I cannot recommend First Book for any purpose. Again: rock-bottom expectations that the product fell short of even still, and by no small distance. Alas, I took too long to attempt a generation to qualify for a refund, which is a shame, as there was zero value gained from literally any aspect of it.

Edit to reply to the team: I would recommend reading my first paragraph more carefully. I WAS using it for non-fiction.

First Book ai is, first and foremost, a solid product. It does exactly what it promises: it generates either blueprints or complete books based on a handful of questions, an outline of 8 chapters (each with 3 subheadings), your own introduction, and a set title. One mandatory step is adding anecdotes—something I personally don’t find appealing.

The system is quite strict during the outline review. For example, if you use bullet points within subchapters, it flags this as an error.

Why only 4 tacos?

To be honest, I talked myself into liking the system. The claim is: “First Book ai is an AI ghostwriter that can convert your ideas into a business book ready to share in less than 24 hours.” But this raises the question: what exactly is a “business book”? In my opinion, this is more about self-help or guide literature, not a true specialist book.

Let’s talk facts. What’s the difference between a blueprint and a complete book?

Blueprint: A document of about 24 pages. Each chapter includes a blueprint section and guidelines, plus a section with phrasing suggestions to help you write your own content.

Complete Book: A document of about 160 pages. Creating such a lengthy, logically consistent document is impressive.

However, for my needs, the system still falls short. If you want to write a book with more substance than the interchangeable self-help guides on Amazon Kindle, you’ll need more.

A truly robust book requires reliable sources, citations, illustrations, footnotes, an index, a table of contents, etc. That’s much more work than what’s promised in 24 hours.

Ultimately, this LTD is on AppSumo to mature and improve, so constructive criticism is important.

My suggestions for improvement:

There should be an optimization loop in the process, allowing feedback for each of the 24 subchapters and—crucially—the ability to add sources and references.

Instead of anecdotes (sorry, but in Germany we tend to laugh at this very American style of padding everything with more or less invented “experiences”), I’d prefer a section that asks for thesis, background, and conclusion.

The entire generation process should be more parameterized and customizable.

I’m now trying to turn the draft into a real book. I exported the draft as a Word file and imported it into Scrivener, using Zotero as my reference manager. Scrivener’s advantage is that it can split the Word document into chapters and subchapters, making it easy to work through the manuscript step by step.

I’m still unsure if I’ll keep First Book ai (I bought Tier 4). If I were a regular customer at full price, I’d probably be disappointed—especially if you’re already familiar with AI tools. Comparable results can be achieved with OpenAI, Perplexity, or Claude—not in one step, but through your own iterative process.

Finally, I ran the generated text through several AI detectors; as expected, all of them clearly identified it as AI-generated.

Conclusion:

First Book ai is a promising tool for quickly creating business book drafts or blueprints, but it’s not yet suitable for producing truly in-depth, reference-quality books. I hope the team continues to develop the platform and addresses these points in future updates.

I purchased First Book on April 18 and submitted the information on my first book that same day. The draft that was returned about two hours later was brilliant. I was amazed at the crispness of the writing and how on-point the content was. It took me three days to proof, make edits, and format the document. Today, April 21, the book was submitted to Amazon to publish in both paperback and Kindle formats. Talk about speed to market!

UPDATE: On April 24, my book became available in Amazon as a Kindle book and in paperback. And in case you are wondering, the book had a very specific niche aimed at a subset of physician practices and focus on how to grow practice volume. First Book was a perfect solution for this type of book.