Long-Form Content Prompts: eBooks, Whitepapers, Guides

A 30-page guide is not one prompt — it is a small project. Trying to one-shot an eBook produces a saggy, repetitive draft that nobody finishes. The professional method is "outline first, then write the outline." This tutorial gives you the prompt sequence to do exactly that without losing voice, coherence, or your sanity.

1. Introduction

Long-form content — eBooks, whitepapers, definitive guides, ultimate-this and ultimate-that — has a unique failure mode: the middle chapters get mushy. AI starts strong, drifts by chapter three, repeats itself by chapter five, and forgets the original thesis by chapter seven. The fix is structural. You break the work into stages, prompt each one separately, and never ask AI to write more than 800–1000 words at a time. This tutorial walks through the four-stage workflow that long-form writers swear by.

2. The Concept Explained

Long-form AI writing breaks into four stages: thesis, outline, chapter drafting, and continuity pass. Each stage uses a different prompt, and each stage's output feeds the next.

Think of it like building a house. The thesis is the architect's brief — what is this house for? The outline is the floorplan — how many rooms, where do they go, how do you walk through them? The chapter drafts are the rooms themselves — walls, flooring, lighting. The continuity pass is the walk-through — making sure light switches are where you expect, the kitchen flows to the dining room, no stairs go nowhere. Skip the floorplan and you end up with a beautiful kitchen attached to a closet.

3. The Problem Without This Technique

Write a 10,000-word eBook about productivity for freelancers.

4. The Solution

Use one prompt per stage. Each one is small, focused, and reusable. Here is the sequence for an eBook titled "The Calm Freelancer".

Act as a senior non-fiction book editor.

Help me articulate the thesis for a short eBook
called "The Calm Freelancer" — for solo freelancers
who feel chronically behind on work.

Return:
- A one-sentence thesis (the core promise)
- Three things this book argues that others don't
- One sentence describing the reader's life after
  finishing the book

Using the thesis below, write a chapter outline
for a 12,000-word eBook.

[paste thesis from Stage 1]

For each chapter, return:
- Chapter title (under 8 words)
- One-line chapter promise
- 4–6 bullet sub-sections
- The single most important sentence the reader
  should remember from that chapter

Aim for 7–9 chapters. Each chapter should have
a clear job in the overall argument — no filler.

[paste BRAND VOICE PROFILE from Topic 6]

Now draft Chapter 3 — "The Two-Lane Inbox".

Use this outline:
[paste the chapter outline section from Stage 2]

Constraints:
- 1,200 words
- Open with a single-sentence hook
- Use one short story or scenario halfway through
- End with a one-paragraph summary that names
  the chapter's most important sentence
- Match the rhythm in the voice profile
- Use British spellings (organise, behaviour, optimise)

Below are chapters 1 through 7 of "The Calm Freelancer".

[paste each chapter]

Audit for:
1. Repeated ideas across chapters (list with chapter numbers)
2. Tone drift (any chapter that sounds different)
3. Continuity holes (anything promised but not delivered)
4. The strongest single sentence in the book
5. Three sentences that should be rewritten or cut

Return your audit as a short numbered report.

5. Step-by-Step Breakdown

1. Lock the thesis first. A book without a thesis is a brochure. Spend a full prompt cycle here before writing anything else.
2. Outline before drafting. The outline is where structural problems are cheap to fix. Reorder, merge, cut chapters now — not after they are written.
3. Draft one chapter per prompt. Never ask for two chapters at once. Length kills focus.
4. Re-paste the voice profile every chapter. AI does not retain it reliably across long sessions. A 200-word repaste is cheap insurance.
5. Audit for continuity at the end. Treat the continuity prompt as a non-negotiable QA pass. It catches repetition that humans miss after writing for hours.
6. Edit by hand. AI gets you to a 90% draft. The remaining 10% is where the book stops sounding generic — and that is human work.

Tip: For whitepapers, add a "facts and figures" stage between the outline and the draft. List the statistics, case studies, and citations you intend to use. Without this stage, AI invents numbers — which is fatal in a B2B document.

6. Practice Exercises

7. Key Takeaways