What Claude actually did when I shipped a 305-page book this week
β EDIT (4 May): Amazon terminated my KDP account on Saturday. Book is now at https://payhip.com/b/VpTj3 β see [this post](link to your new update) for the story. I shipped a 305-page book this week. "Rewiring Corporate Finance", a blueprint for what the finance function becomes when AI moves from pilot to load-bearing. 12 chapters, 9 custom diagrams, EU AI Act compliance map and a 12-month execution plan for CFOs When I say I used Claude, people assume it wrote the book. It didnβt. I have over 15 years inside finance at Philips and Vodafone.The seat and the judgment are mine. What Claude actually did was this: 1. Pressure-tested the thinking: Every chapter had a thesis. I made Claude argue against it before I wrote.Some ideas held. Others didnβt. 2. Cut the corporate voice: Anything that sounded like a consulting deck got flagged.The writing is tighter because of that. 3. Handled the messy production layer: Cover math. Spine width. EPUB. KDP formatting. Claude wrote the Python to turn the draft into something uploadable.Thatβs where most people get stuck. 4. Turned ideas into diagrams : I described the systems. It generated clean visuals I could actually use. What it didnβt do: The experience.The opinions.The calls on what goes agent-first vs stays human. If youβve ever thought about writing a book: This is way more doable now than it was even a year ago. If you want, I can break down exactly how I went from idea to published. Just DM me. And if youβre building AI skills on top of your current finance role: Comment on this post and Iβll send you the PDF of Chapter 9. It covers: - the four literacies (finance, data, AI, programming) - the hybrid finance-developer profile - why the junior pipeline is going to change