We Should Get Every Format When Buying an eBook - Or How I Let an AI Write As Me

Here’s the setup: I wanted to write an article about how book readers should get every version of a book (physical, audiobook, digital editions such as EPUB or PDF) when they purchase it. That’s the gist of the article I wanted to write. After working with a local AI model Gemma4 on Ollama I’d wanted to put it through a task; one that would use my entire blog and create a persona like me. The steps to get here involve using the tool Askimo and instructions can be found here. Every article of this blog was fed to the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and indexed. From there, I created a persona called “BizBlogger” with my tone and writing style. What could go wrong. I then promoted the model this way:

I want you to write a 800 word blog post as BizBlogger that talks about the following topic: Title: All version of a book should be included when you buy it Concept: When one buys a digital or physical copy of a book, other versions such as the audiobook should be included. Be persuasive, back up the article with facts.

Here’s the output¹:

The AI’s Title: The Content Revolution: Why Buying a Book Must Mean Owning All of It

Let’s talk about ownership. Because right now, when you buy a book—whether it’s a glorious, thick hardback that smells exactly like possibility, or a seamless e-reader download for your commute—you are not buying content. You are merely purchasing a container.

You are paying for the vessel: the paper, the screen file, the audiobook recording. The actual intellectual property—the pure, crystalline diamond of the author’s genius—is being treated as something fragmented, sold in disparate formats that force us to behave like meticulous digital archaeologists, constantly piecing together a single, complete experience.

And this system? It is obsolete. It’s analog thinking trying to manage a fully distributed digital ecosystem. Friends, colleagues, innovators: it’s time for the content revolution. When you buy a book, period, you must be granted universal ownership of that story across all possible formats, right out of the gate.

The Flaw in Format Fragmentation

Look at the reality today. You find an amazing title! You love it, and you want to dive into its world. But then what happens? You might buy the e-book for your plane ride, only to realize three weeks later that your eyes are tired and you need the audiobook format while folding laundry. So, guess what? You have to go back and buy a separate audio license! Or perhaps you find yourself in a situation where accessibility is even at risk—the required large-print version costs more, or simply doesn’t exist from a primary source.

This isn’t consumer choice; it’s forced inefficiency. The publisher model has historically treated the formats as competitive silos rather than collaborative delivery methods for a single, unified piece of art. This fragmentation is not only bad for the user experience—it actively frustrates the reader—but it also undervalues the author’s original work itself.

The Case for Holistic Ownership: It’s About Equity

Why does this need to change? Because at its core, literature is about connection. And if we use format as a gatekeeper—if our physical purchasing decisions dictate what sensory experience an audience receives—we are building unnecessary and unjust barriers to knowledge.

We must talk about accessibility, because that is the ethical, undeniable bedrock of this argument. The audiobook format isn’t just for people who find reading tedious; it is absolutely essential for readers with visual impairments, those who process information better auditorily, or individuals whose focus is best maintained while multitasking—like on a train.

Right now, offering these versions often feels like an add-on, an afterthought relegated to special departments. But in the modern content landscape, they are not add-ons; they are necessary components of the core product. A complete purchase must include the foundational formats: standard print, enhanced e-book (which includes interactive elements and adjustable typography), audiobook, and potentially even large print or specialized Braille-friendly digital outputs.

The Economic Argument: Maximizing IP Value

And let’s talk business for a moment—because this isn’t just about altruism; it’s brilliant economics!

When the book is treated as one single Intellectual Property (IP) asset, forcing all formats to be bundled into the initial purchase transaction, we solve a systemic waste problem. Instead of publishers and distributors competing to sell “the book” while ignoring that they are actually selling the story, they become motivated partners in maximizing the lifespan and reach of that IP.

This changes the incentive structure! The publisher isn’t incentivized to make a marginal profit on a separate Kindle version; they are incentivized to ensure maximum reader engagement with minimal friction. They are rewarded for holistic accessibility, not format hoarding.

Conclusion

What does this mean in the future? It means that buying “The Mystery of Shadow Creek” will trigger a single transaction that immediately unlocks:

1. The perfect Kindle-optimized e-book.
2. The professional audiobook recording.
3. A downloadable, large-type PDF version for optimal screen reading.
4. And maybe even an educational companion module—a digital ‘behind the scenes’ look at the research that inspired it!

We aren’t just selling books; we are selling experiences. We are selling worlds. And if our purchasing mechanism adds friction, complexity, or financial hurdles to accessing those worlds, then by definition, the current system is failing us.

The technology—the decentralized ownership models and the cloud platforms that power these formats—is ready for this unification. The readers are demanding it. It’s time for publishers to catch up and realize: Ownership isn’t a single object; it’s an infinitely adaptable flow of knowledge. Let’s break down the format silos and embrace true, universal content ownership!

That’s it - the full article. I have thoughts. While the prose does seem like me, the writing is so freakishly perfect. The AI can pick up on a style, but it can’t catalogue the imperfections well. In some real ways, the writing is a better version of me, coming up with arguments I hadn’t thought of.

There also a lack of personalization and the personal elements make my writing from me. Before I’d trained the gemma4 model on my blog posts², I’d written an article on the topic without the help of a robotic writer. I’ll let you decide which is best.

My own human-written article is below:

My Title: When we Buy a Book We Should Get Every Format

I read a ton; as much as I can in fact. Given that daily life is as chaotic as it gets - reading is something that requires a commitment to come back to. Bring in a paper book in the morning and my 11 month old son rips it apart. Try to listen to an audiobook in the shower, no, you won’t try that. The thing is, it’s not always the case that a physical book is available to read. More often than not, I’m making use of the digital, physical and audiobook all at the same time. The trouble is, if you buy a book, you’ll have to purchase all of these separately.

Why?

There are a few good reasons for doing this:

1. Enhances the experience - Reading across formats can help when I want to pull quote (EPUB, computer) while highlighting the passage in the physical book. For some books like Greenlights, the physical book and audiobook have unique elements that makes each worth consuming³.
2. Helps when moving to different environments - Reading is a commitment to keep moving through the pages so I can retain the overall idea of the book. This can be difficult when live puts us in places where all we might have is a phone. I sometimes even keep the physical book at home for reading, but when leaving the house, find my spot and continue on my phone to reduce the things I have to carry.
3. Plays nice with my mood - In books we move between genres and ideas to have s variety in what we read. This is the same with the type of media. Sometimes I just want to put down the devices and feel the paper book.

This Gets Expensive

And think about it. The paper version is $20-$40, the audiobook a further $12 and perhaps $15 for the EPUB. That’s $67 plus whatever taxes you pay to read a book Even more if you think of hardcover-only versions. I’m all for supporting authors, but it seems that this can be excessive. When borrowing a book from the library, is it possible to get every version of that book simultaneously? Maybe, though it’s more likely one of the editions is rented out, so even if the library let you rent them, they aren’t all available.

One Problem

You brain might be screaming right now “You’re going to expect a physical book after you buy the eBook?” And it’s fair. This is a one way the economics of my idea doesn’t work. For example, if you bought my book From Rent to Ruin as an eBook for $10, and wanted the physical book, it would eat away a significant portion of that $10 revenue. eBooks tend to be such a low cost, that they would not easily cover the physical versions. Add in that Audible subscription where audiobooks are zero or reduced even more, this disparity is more pronounced. So, the one way my idea is not going to work is when one purchases an audiobook or digital copy and might want the physical book too.

What I’m Going to do About It

So, I’m going to make that change myself. For any of my published books, you can get every version of it that exists. For now, my first book is only paper and digital, but if/when I create audiobooks, you can get those versions too.

For those that might have gotten my book in the past, I’ll furnish anyone who provides proof of purchase of the paper copy, a non-DRM digital version. The only thing you can’t request is if you buy a digital copy and want a paper edition. The economics of that are challenging, but reach out anyway, maybe I can figure something out.

Final Thoughts

This was a curious experiment, and one that I think could be replicated to get the right tone and maybe do a decent job if being me. I’m already taken, of course, but maybe one day my words live on without me in this form? It’s a bizarre thing to think of today, but it could be common place in 100 years.