📚Announcement: News on She Writes AI Everywhere 'Book2'

Pivoting on how we publish 'book2' and future volumes to better meet the needs of our readers (and our team of volunteers); call for beta readers (ARC ebooks)

Hi folks! Hope you are having a great summer/winter wherever you are. We’re excited to share the latest news on ‘Book2’ in our collaborative She Writes AI Everywhere book series!

Where We Stand | What We’re Doing | How We’ll Do It | Audiobooks | What’s Next

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Where We Stand

32 writers representing 18 countries have written 30 chapters for our next volume(s) of AI Everywhere (see details on our book website). The chapters are currently in editing and layout, and we think you’re going to love them.

However: 30 chapters is a LOT. The book is estimated to be around 500 pages. That’s a lot to ask volunteer beta readers to review and provide feedback on. And it could be overwhelming for a reader who’s newly curious about AI or global women’s perspectives.

Volume 1’s 24 chapters came in at 432 pages with references. We did group the 24 chapters of Volume 1 into sections to try to help readers zoom in on the topics that interested them most. It still doesn’t seem ideal, though: at 1.6 pounds in weight, it’s a bit heavy to toss into a reading bag. Bigger books are also more expensive for buyers, and more complex and time-consuming for our volunteer production team to wrangle.

What We’re Doing

We’re going to try publishing this ‘book2’ cohort of 30 chapters as three volumes instead of one. Each will have a distinct subtitle under the title “AI Everywhere, Volume *”.

• ‘Volume 2’ will hold chapters that fit best in the Business section.

• ‘Volume 3’ will hold chapters that fit best in the How To section. (Generally, these are more technical and have stated prerequisites.)

• ‘Volume 4’ will hold chapters relating to Home and Society & Ethics.

• Chapters on Learning will be included in all three volumes — because learning spans everything we do with AI everywhere.

Downsides: This will require 9 ISBNs instead of 3 (ebook, paperback, and hardcover editions for each volume), and 3x the volunteer work for the coordinator and publisher to push the 9 editions to distributors.

Upsides: The individual books will be much smaller (9-11 chapters each, and safely in the range of 150-200 pages). The print editions will be lighter and more affordable for readers with specific interests. And the ebooks and print editions will be simpler and quicker for our volunteer production team to put together.

If this 3-volume approach works out well, we’ll handle our third book collaboration the same way in 2027. Chapter proposals for book3 are closed and we are reviewing 35+ topics, with a similar distribution across themes as book2. So we’re anticipating three volumes (Vol. 5, 6, 7) with 10-15 chapters each. Stay tuned for announcements!

How We’ll Do It

We’ll use donated funds to make a bulk purchase of Bowker ISBNs. This will reduce per-ISBN costs for ‘book2’ and ‘book3’ to be widely available (not just on Amazon). And we will explore offering multi-volume bundle options to support people who want to read and learn it all, because we know you are out there too. 😊

Some compromises will make this 3x effort more feasible. One big concern has been cover designs. Professional cover designs are expensive, and asking a volunteer to come up with distinct cover designs for each volume (and another variant for the audiobook) would be a lot. We want the volumes in the series to look like they belong to the series, so we need some commonality anyway.

Our current (fallback) plan is to leverage the beautiful cover design from Volume 1 (created by one of our talented anonymous volunteers) in multiple simple, reusable color-themed layouts. This will allow each volume’s covers to be distinct without requiring major design effort for each one. We might still go a different direction, though. Look for a future ‘cover reveal’ announcement this summer. (And if you have design expertise and ideas, please get in touch - volunteer, DM, or comment here!)

Real covers for AI Everywhere, Vol. 2, 3, and 4 will be revealed at a later date. Click for chapter details.

🎙️Audiobook Plans

We haven’t yet decided whether each small volume in the book2 collaboration will have its own audiobook, or if we will publish one combined audiobook. Like for book1, each book2 chapter author can decide if they want to narrate their own chapter. We may engage other human narrators for the remaining chapters; if not, the audiobook(s) may be ‘abridged’ (a subset of the 30 chapters).

We might use a different base cover design for the audiobooks in the series. We’ll work that out before we release the Volume 1 audiobook (planned later in July). Stay tuned.

👋🏼What’s Next

Community members can help to support our mission of amplifying women’s writing on AI. All volunteers and donors will be publicly recognized on the book page. We have two current volunteer opportunities:

1. ARC (beta) reader

Early proofs will be made available to volunteer readers during July 2026. In return for receiving a free ARC (Advance Review Copy) ebook, we ask that readers publish an honest and timely review of the book. Learn more and volunteer as a beta reader.

You’ll be able to choose which of the three sub-volumes you want to review (of course, you’re welcome to review more than one if you like.) Reviewers will be thanked and acknowledged on the book web page, and will receive a full free ebook copy of the final book(s) after the reviews and books are published.

Feel free to share the volunteer link with anyone you know who would bring a fair and distinct perspective (especially global) on our books!

2. Book production

If you have skills in editing, marketing, design, or launch support, we need you! Learn more and sign up.

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🧧 As you may have seen in our earlier announcement, to help cover book-related costs (ISBNs, proof copies, etc.) as well as other community services, we are now accepting donations via paid subscriptions. We can also now accept one-time tips through Stripe (‘digital ink’). All donation sizes are welcome and help keep these book opportunities free for all authors! Read more here.

One-time donation of digital ink to supply our community (via Stripe)

Thanks as always for your support in every form. We appreciate it all. Hearts, shares, restacks, and comments are all awesome!

Questions, comments, or ideas? You’re welcome to reply to this email, DM, restack, or join our Subscriber Chat - whatever works best for you!