← Back to the librarycbook reader

Make Book

Make a book for the cbook reader, with an AI assistant, in about fifteen minutes.

See an example first

Not sure what this makes? Read one. Vibe-Coded Worlds: How LLMs Are Rewriting Video Game Creation and Modding was made in the free version of Gemini by following the steps on this page, then opened in this reader. Open it to add it to your library in this browser (about 0.5 MB), read it, and try highlights and notes on it.

Open the example book It stays on your device. Like any book an AI makes, check the facts that matter to you.

Why make books

I have always loved searching: following a question wherever it leads, through topics old and new. What I have never loved is the sifting. Collecting useful information from many sites, one page at a time, is still tedious, and endless scrolling does not make it better.

I would like to see the Internet grow beyond search and scroll. Picture it as one vast, open dataset, where a view of it is something people curate: you gather what matters to you, shape it into a book, and keep it. Then it stays alive: it updates dynamically through your day-to-day conversations with an LLM, so a question you ask today can become a new section of your book tomorrow. Views made by people, for people, that others can read, learn from and build on, and that put the world's information to work far more effectively.

This reader is a first step. It works online and offline. It lets me collect books I have made or found and read them on a phone, a tablet or a browser in a clean, pleasing layout. It gives me a place to take notes, track my thoughts, and learn or simply enjoy a new topic whenever I like. Today a book is updated by asking the assistant for a new edition, and the reader carries my notes across to it. I would like that to become effortless.

Below is a basic guide to help you make your own ebooks too, using an LLM. I use Claude Pro, but the free ones may work if you just want to try it out. Make one. I hope it proves helpful to your pursuits.

How to make a book

You do not need special software. You need an AI assistant that can read a file you attach and give you a file back, and the guide below. The AI does the research, the writing and the building. You decide what the book is, and you check it.

  1. Download the authoring guide. Download the guide (.md)
    Version 1.5. It is a plain text file written for the AI, not for you. You do not need to read it.
  2. Open Gemini at gemini.google.com (or your preferred LLM; mine is Claude Pro). A free Google account is enough for Gemini. Start a new chat and tap the + button (or your assistant's attach button) to attach the guide file.
  3. Copy the prompt below, replace the part in square brackets with your idea, paste it into the chat and send it.
  4. Answer its questions. It will ask what the book is about, who it is for, how long, the tone and the sources. To keep it quick, you can reply: "Please infer the answers from my prompt, and use [your name] as the author and copyright." It will say what it assumed. It will then show you an outline. Approve it or ask for changes. Then it writes.
  5. Download the file it gives you. Look in your own chat for a file card called "Your EPUB file is ready" and tap the small download arrow on it. (A shared link of the chat will not let you download the file.) It ends in .epub. If it only gives you text, say: "Please build the EPUB file now, as section 6 of the guide says."
  6. Open it here. Go back to the library, tap Add books and choose the file. It stays on your device.

The prompt

I have attached the cbook authoring guide. Please follow it to help me make a book as an EPUB file.

My idea for the book: [write one or two sentences here: the topic, and who it is for]

Work in the order the guide gives. Tell me in plain words what you are doing at each step, and keep your messages short.

1. First ask me what you need to know: the topic and what the reader should get from it, who the readers are, how long it should be, the tone, the sources to use or avoid, any pictures I may use, and my name and rights line. Wait for my answers.
2. Then give me a chapter outline and wait until I approve it.
3. Then research and write the chapters. Use real sources and give links. Say plainly what comes from memory and was not checked. Do not copy text or pictures that belong to other people.
4. Then build the EPUB file as the guide describes, and give me a download link. Tell me the identifier, what you are least sure of, and what I should check before I share it.

Good to know

Which assistants. The author makes books with Claude Pro, and checked that the free version of Gemini accepts a Markdown file like this guide and can give back an EPUB file. The same steps may work with any major AI assistant that can take an attached file and create a file for you to download. Free plans of the others have not been tested here. If yours cannot make a file, it can still write the chapters, and the guide tells it what to do.
Searching. Some assistants can search the web and some cannot. If yours says it cannot, give it links or notes to use, or expect a book written from memory that you must check. The guide asks it to say plainly which it did.
AI makes mistakes. A book it writes can contain wrong facts, invented sources or broken links, and it will sound sure. The guide tells it to use real sources and to say what is from memory, but you still need to click the links and check what matters before you share the book.
Privacy. What you type and attach goes to the assistant's company, under their rules. The cbook reader never receives your book or your notes: books stay on your device.
Rights. Make books from your own ideas and from facts. Do not ask it to copy someone else's book or pictures. The guide asks the AI to stay on the right side of this, but you are the publisher.
Making the book better later. Ask the AI to tell you the book's identifier when it finishes, and keep it. To make a new edition, attach the guide again, give it the identifier and the old text, and say what to change. Your notes and marks then carry across to the new edition in the reader.

Another way: turn a PDF into a book

Have a PDF you would rather read on your phone, such as an old report, a manual or notes? An AI assistant can retype it as a book, with the same words, set so the text flows to any screen and the drawings stay where they belong. This is a reading edition: it is not a summary. It works best on short documents of a few dozen pages.

Rights first. Do this with a PDF of your own work, a work in the public domain, one with a licence that allows it, or a PDF you own and want to read privately. A PDF of someone else's work is usually all rights reserved, so keep the copy private, and ask the owner before you share it or put it on a website. The guide makes the AI keep the original copyright line in the book.
  1. Download both guides. Download the PDF guide (.md) and the authoring guide above.
    Version 1.0 of the PDF guide. The AI needs both: the authoring guide has the tools that build the book file.
  2. Start a new chat in Gemini or your preferred LLM (see above). Tap + and attach three files: the authoring guide, the PDF guide and your PDF.
  3. Copy the prompt below, fill in the square brackets, paste it and send.
  4. Answer its questions about which pages and whether to change anything. For a faithful copy, say: "Please infer the answers from my prompt." Approve the outline it shows you.
  5. Download the EPUB from your own chat, as above, and open it with Add books in the library.
  6. Check it against your PDF. The AI reads or retypes the pages, so numbers and names can be wrong. It will give you a list of readings it was unsure of. Check those first, then a few pages of your own choosing.

The PDF prompt

I have attached two guides (the cbook authoring guide and the guide for turning a PDF into a cbook book) and a PDF. Please follow them to make a reading edition of the PDF as an EPUB file.

About the PDF: [write what it is and whose it is, for example "my own notes" or "a 1963 report I own, for my private reading"]
My name, for the rights line: [your name]

Work in the order the guides give. Tell me in plain words what you are doing at each step, and keep your messages short.

1. Ask me about the rights and what I want to do with the book. Then look at the PDF and tell me what kind it is (text, scan, or mixed) and what will be hard.
2. Ask me your questions: which pages, and whether to keep the words exactly or do a light copy edit. Wait for my answers.
3. Show me an outline of the chapters and wait until I approve it.
4. Then transcribe the PDF faithfully: the author's words, numbers and drawings. Do not summarise, and do not add anything I did not ask for.
5. Build the EPUB file and give me a download link. Give me the identifier, the list of readings you were not sure of with the page numbers, and what I should check against the PDF.
Good to know about PDFs. A scanned page has no text in it, so the AI has to read the picture, and it can misread a number. Tables become lists. Charts and large drawings are kept as pictures. A long PDF may need to be done in parts, because an assistant can only hold so much in one chat: ask for a few chapters at a time. A password-locked PDF will not work, and the guide tells the AI not to try to get around the lock. The PDF guide has been tried on a short scan and on test files, but not on every kind of PDF or in every assistant.

← Back to the library