I recently created my first AI-generated children's storybook, the Tale of Nian, after signing up for my son's preschool culture day. I thought it would be fun to create a book and read it to his classmates, making my son and his brother the main characters. Here are the steps I followed along with lessons learned:

1. Use ChatGPT for the scenes/descriptions.

I had a storyline in mind "On a Lunar New Year's Eve, Nico and Keen are decorating their living room with their mom. Nico asked her a question..." and provided prompts to generate 9 scenes with English and Mandarin Chinese. I realized ChatGPT is not great at translating English to Mandarin Chinese so I had to do extensive editing to make it sound natural. The final output from ChatGPT looks something like this:

[Scene | English Description | Chinese Description | Prompt]

2. Use Midjourney to illustrate each scene.

Good news is that I already had experience with Midjourney so it was pretty easy to pick it back up. After adding the Midjourney bot in my Discord channel, I can start "/imagine" followed by the prompt. The prompt is comprised of a few key elements: style, texture, color and the good old PPP (people, place and product). I generated multiple variations and picked my favorites.

3. Layout the book in Canva using their templates.

This is actually not as easy as I thought it would be. Since I want to publish it on Amazon's KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) in a 8.5x8.5 inch size, KDP has very specific requirements on the margin and bleed of the book for them to accept it. You can find the specifics here. I combined the text and matched it to the images, refining as needed. Download the pdf version in CMYK format for paperback (digital for eBook) and make sure flattening is selected to make sure special characters like Chinese will be accepted even if Amazon doesn't have this specific font.

4. Publish via Amazon KDP for paperback and ebook distribution.

Next step is to upload my manuscript as well as cover page to Amazon KDP. I also did some keyword research to make sure I have the right title, subtitle, keywords and book descriptions for Amazon's algorithm to pick up when people are searching for things like "Lunar New Year Children's Book." The great benefit of publishing through KDP is that they handle everything for you including printing on-demand, registering a free ISBN as well as some promotional options like its KDP Select program which allowed me to do free book promotions later on.

5. Market it.

I actually wrote a marketing plan for this book which includes things like publish timing, outreach locations and events. All in all, I'm gifting copies, taking it to my son's preschool, and later on making it free for parents and families to download. I also printed out some stickers which is the main character of my book to give away and spread the word.

Key Lessons Learned:

• Use a character design sheet for consistent characters.

• Improve image resolution by re-uploading higher res versions into Canva.

• Avoid important text/images in the middle spreads.

• Proofread extensively and send to friends/family.

• Consider Amazon lottery ads to keep ACOS (advertising cost of sales) costs low.

  
  

You can find this book on Amazon and stay tuned for my next AI book coming soon! Follow me or ask me a question. I'd love to stay in touch!