Fabio Cerpelloni

Every day I come across posts featuring AI prompts that are supposed to make your AI-generated writing sound human. To me, that is a bunch of bomboloni. If you want to avoid sounding like an AI in your writing, here's what I suggest.

Don't use AI in your writing.

Learn to recognise fluff by yourself.

Learn to tell an authentic story that resonates and stand out by imperfectly using your voice.

Play around with words, do the hard thinking that will make you become a better writer, and let people know there's a human behind your brand, your CV, your mission statement.

AI-generated texts smell of dead fish on any blog and make the internet stink. 🤢

AI-generated images stink, too.

We can't connect with those lifeless illustrations.

What would Van Gogh think of them?

On Instagram, I came across a post I'll never forget. It was by a photographer. He wrote something along the lines of, "This is not AI; these are pictures of Vietnam I took with my Canon."

Trillions of likes and comments.

His photos were so full of life, personality, and art.

Art.

Those who make art will never "get left behind."

1 week ago | [YT] | 16

Fabio Cerpelloni

In last week’s poll on Substack, most of my readers expressed an interest in how to write the introduction of their tiny book, so here we go. In this post, you’ll find:

- What the introduction is and what to include in it

- A PDF with 3 examples of effective introductions

- Differences between the introduction, prologue, preface, and foreword

Read for free on Substack - open.substack.com/pub/fabiocerpelloni/p/how-to-wri…

2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 5

Fabio Cerpelloni

My weekly Substack newsletter has changed. Future emails and posts will be for aspiring tiny authors only, writers who want to publish a tiny nonfiction book in order to serve a small group of people.

Are you one of them? :)

Let’s break down the definition of “tiny author” so you can decide whether It'd make sense for you to sign up.


*A tiny author is a writer…*
You’re a writer if you write because you love doing it.

You’re not just someone in love with the idea of being a writer.

You do the verb, too.


*…who publishes…*
You’re not aspiring to write only in your diary.

You want to publish your writing.

You want to share it regardless of how much money or recognition you’ll get in return.


*…a short book…*
How short? 20 pages? 7,000 words?

Rough range: 10,000—20,000 words — small enough to get started, but long enough to serve your reader.


*…to serve…*
This is broad.

We can serve by teaching a skill, sharing knowledge, leading, informing, guiding, entertaining — there are as many ways to serve a reader as there are grains of sand on a Sicilian beach.

Done with integrity, serving brings joy to both the reader and the writer.


*…a small group of people.*
How small? The actual number doesn’t matter. What does is that this group of people is specific.


Examples of specific groups of people:

- Your family
- Language learners
- Small business owners
- Teenagers
- Parents
- People who want to start Yoga
- Cat lovers

Of all the 8 billion people in the world, you feel you can serve a particular group.


*Nonfiction only?*
Tiny authors can publish fiction or nonfiction books.

My newsletter will be about nonfiction.

And by that I mean writing:

- Personal stories
- Educational books
- Short autobiographies
- Collections of thoughts
- Essays
- Manifestos

Self-publishing nonfiction books is what I have direct experience in, what I like to learn more about, and also what I want to continue doing moving forward. (I’m in the process of ideating and collecting stories for my third tiny book.)

Sooo…

Do you feel there’s a tiny nonfiction book in you waiting to be written?

Then I think you’ll like my newsletter, which is now called "Tiny Authors". I promise you’ll be in good company!

Sign up here - fabiocerpelloni.substack.com/

Thanks for your interest!

-- Fabio

3 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 10

Fabio Cerpelloni

The other day, my Taekwondo teacher said to one of the students, "Don't do it fast! Do it well!"

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 8

Fabio Cerpelloni

We often associate writing a book with the physical act of typing or putting pen to paper.

But writing a book also involves thinking and ideating.

When typing or handwriting for one hour straight isn’t possible, never forget that every day you always have 5 minutes of dead time (shower time, commuting time, waiting in line, and so on) that you can spend thinking about ideas to include in your draft.

Those 5 minutes, too, count as writing.

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 16

Fabio Cerpelloni

I started 2025 with a book by Seth Godin, an author who’s never failed to inspire me.

The book I read was "This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans."

This is a collection of thoughts on doing generous marketing, making change, seeing patterns, and believing in your work.

It’s not a book about writing, but I found 3 quotes that writers might like.

Keep reading for free on Better Writers (my weekly Substack) - open.substack.com/pub/fabiocerpelloni/p/3-inspirin…

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 9

Fabio Cerpelloni

You can write to think or you can write to present your thinking. Read for free on Better Writers, my weekly Substack - open.substack.com/pub/fabiocerpelloni/p/two-ways-o…

1 month ago | [YT] | 10

Fabio Cerpelloni

This book will make you think about writing style in ways you’ve probably never considered before. See my 2-minute review on Better Writers (my Substack) if interested - open.substack.com/pub/fabiocerpelloni/p/you-might-…

2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 18

Fabio Cerpelloni

“Since you are a human being, all you have to do is truthfully let out what is in you and it will be interesting; it will be good. Will you be able to sell it? I don’t know. But that is not the thing to think of—for a long time anyway.” — Brenda Ueland in "If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit"

There’s a reason why "Tiny Book Author" opens with that quote.

I wanted to make it clear from the start that we’re not here for the money. We’re not here to make passive income.

We’re here to share a message with “our people” — the niche readership we care about — teach them something useful, and hopefully change minds.

We *must* market our work, and sales might come as a result of word-of-mouth and respectful book marketing.

However, “Will anyone buy it?” isn’t the right question.

There are harder ones we need to answer:

- Who is our reader?

- What do they need to know?

- What’s our book for?

- Why is this important?

- How do we want to sound?

- Is this project exciting?

- How do we want the reader to feel and act?

- What’s a logical way to structure these arguments and stories?

- To what extent are we willing to “truthfully let out what is in us”?

After writing the last chapter, the next question is: Are we proud of what we’ve produced?

If we are, we’ll have done our job and we can now proudly release our work, talk about it with our niche audience, and let the world decide if we should become bestselling authors or not.

Some people will love our book; others will write nasty things about it.

But if we’re sure we took the care that the project deserved, we can always stand tall in the face of fierce criticism and no bad Amazon reviews should bother us.

Most of the people who write impolite, aggressive 1-star book reviews have never published anything anyway.

We did.

In the worst-case scenario, we’ll have zero impact on the world, but at least have something nice to display in our homes.

***

"Tiny Book Author: There’s a Tiny Book in You Waiting to Be Written" has started to pick up reviews.

If you enjoyed it and think those ideas should spread, consider adding yours. 🙏🏻

Amazon link in the comments. 👇

***

(None of my friends and family members has ever commented on these two little things in my living room. Men are attracted to the bottles of wine in the kitchen. Women look at my partner’s plants.😂)

2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 24

Fabio Cerpelloni

You too are invited.🤟🏻🤗 Find out about the details on Better Writers - open.substack.com/pub/fabiocerpelloni/p/will-you-b…

2 months ago | [YT] | 9