You need an AI writing assistant!
Hank Quense • May 16, 2026
Yeah, you really do!
I've been using an AI assistant for almost 2 years now and I'm convinced that all writers and authors should have one also. Why? Because my writing assistant relieves me of repetitive and tedious donkey work and that leaves me more time to be creative.
Over the last two years, I've created a number of resources you can use to learn more about AI writing assistants.
- A series of ten articles that you can read for free on Medium
- The Author's AI Toolkit
- A Udemy course: the AI Sidekick
I think it's interesting to know that an AI assistant can be used across all five phases of creating a book: planning, writing, publishing, marketing and business
f you want to test your knowledge on AI writing assistants, here is free quiz you can take.
If you questions about using AI, I'm available to discuss them with you. Just reply to this email.
Recent Posts

By Hank Quense
•
June 3, 2026
Over the years I’ve seen the same pattern with new writers: tons of enthusiasm, then frustration when the story stalls, the plot won’t cooperate, or the whole publishing and marketing side feels like a maze. So I finally pulled everything I teach and coach about into a set of short, focused “Beginner’s Guide” ebooks.[ Each guide tackles one piece of the journey: Beginners Guide to Planning a Story – taking a loose idea and turning it into a workable plan: characters, plot, setting, and overall storyline. Beginner's Guide to Creating Genuine Characters : how to ensure your characters don't bore the reader. Beginners Guide to Developing a Plot – building believable plots, from inciting incident through climax, plus character and emotional arcs. Beginners Guide to Publishing a Book (and Not Getting Screwed) – a straight‑talk tour of today’s publishing options, including how to avoid the predators. Beginners Guide to Basic Book Marketing – the essentials of book marketing for first‑time authors: landing pages, blurbs, keywords, and building a simple author platform. They’re deliberately short, practical, and meant to be used. Read it in an evening and apply your new knowledge the next day. I have several more Beginner's Guides under development: on scene design, business, mind-mapping and AI assistants. There is also a free Beginner's Guide Starter Kit: it contains material from each guide including the ones under development. You can download a copy here.






