I Wrote Another Survival Book. This One is Different.

I hadn’t planned to write a book. In fact, I’m highly disillusioned these days with the way book publishing is going on Amazon considering how many newbies are writing in the survival space, most of whom, I assume, aren’t actually preppers.

(For what it’s worth, I wrote a second edition of my DIY survival book earlier this year, but never published it. Expect me to do so at some point. Probably. Maybe. Well, now I have to. Ugh.)

Honestly, the survival space is getting a bit ridiculous with marketers and newbies alike. Just the other day, I received an email from one of those big prepper websites asking me to write articles for them in exchange for “traffic.” Right. So, I get to do the real work for you while you profit. No thanks. I politely refused while telling them what I think of their operation. I never heard back.

Anyway, I didn’t expect to not post anything on my blog last week (9/22-9/26) without warning, so I apologize for that. But I had an idea that popped into my head and I couldn’t let it go.

You see, all of my survival books discuss how to do something related to preparedness, like how to do food storage properly or how to make a bug out bag. Granted, a few books are higher-level discussions, like my book on surviving economic collapse, but even that book gives advice on how to prepare for it.

What I realized was that none of my books did a good job of explaining the “why” of preparedness. It’s as if I was only talking to the people who already understood. But I wanted to reach the people who truly needed to “get it” too … the unprepared masses who will surely suffer. Granted, there’s a selfish aspect here because the more prepared people there are the less problematic they will be for me down the road.

So, I wrote a book about titled: “Why We Prepare: Lessons From The Past, Warnings For The Future.” It looks at nearly fifty recent examples (roughly over the past 25 years) of how disasters affected people in large and small ways.

We talk about natural disasters, economic collapse, supply chain breakdowns, social unrest, technological and infrastructure failures, war and conflict, and domestic terrorism. There’s a few other topics discussed as well, but the above topics are the bulk of it.

Now, here’s where I may lose some of you, and I totally understand, but bear with me: I used my AI overlords to speed things up drastically.

Yes, I caved, lol.

Truth be told, I have tried using AI at times to write fiction (something I’m dabbling with but still haven’t got the hang of and may never with the way things are going) but I never tried using AI with nonfiction books. There’s just something about expecting AI to understand the nuances of “how to prepare,” especially when including my personal experiences matters so much.

But, then, I’ve already been accused of using AI to write my survival books (the one-star reviews are especially irksome) because somebody skimmed the book without actually reading what I said, then just assumed it was AI-generated. Damned if you do; damned if you don’t, I guess.

Ultimately, AI was rather helpful in this specific case. I asked it to do a lot of research, and after doing my best to verify facts and figures on my own, it got most of the details right. In fact, it found plenty of scenarios and examples that I didn’t know about. It helped me organize my thoughts and gave me plenty to think about as I wrote.

Whereas most books take me months of on and off writing, I spent less than two weeks writing this one. That’s a huge timesaver! Granted, it’s a relatively short book and doesn’t include images, but I’m fairly happy with the results.

I should mention that I also asked AI to do a lot of heavy editing because I’m still horrible with grammar and whatnot, and rather than paying somebody hundreds of dollars and waiting weeks, I tried something different. Therefore, this book is likely written a bit different from my normal conversational tone.

You can purchase a copy on Amazon if you like. It’s only available on Kindle for now, but I plan on having a paperback at some point in the next month. Probably. Maybe. Ugh.

** If you want to read a copy but just can’t part with a few dollars, email me by the middle of October 2025 and I’ll send you a PDF copy. Be aware that I will be out of the office until 10/7, so please be patient. **

But I really want to know what you think. Is the book still good? Does knowing AI played a part sour the experience? Did I miss anything that should’ve been included, either overall topics or specific examples?

For what it’s worth, I’m not planning on using AI to write future books, if I write much more at all because of the way Amazon is going. And it’s not like this was written much with AI, either. But it played a significant role in the writing process, and I believe you deserved to know.

Enjoy!