I curated and published an illustrated children’s book in 6 hours using ChatGPT. Here’s exactly how I did it.
On November 30, 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a text-generation application that allowed anyone to easily ‘talk’ to their large language model (LLM), known as GPT-3. Later upgraded to GPT-4 and its variations, these models were trained on virtually the entirety of human intelligence. For anyone skilled in the art of communication, it represented a window into a creative world that was previously and perpetually just on the other side of “someday.”
Flash forward a year later to November of 2023, and OpenAI once again redefined the space, by allowing subscribers of the newly minted ChatGPT+ plan (economically priced at $20/month) the chance to create custom trained versions of their model (not-so-creatively named CustomGPTs). While monetization opportunities of the “GPT Store” have yet to be fully realized, the ability to harness the power of a LLM for one very specific purpose feels somewhat akin to focusing a beam of sunlight through the lens of a magnifying glass. Until recently, you had to be a subscriber to access these tools, but earlier this year OpenAI updated their application, allowing anyone with a free account to use CustomGPTs created by subscribers.
One such CustomGPT was created on a whim during a live TikTok broadcast of the AI Learning Lab by Kyle Shannon from the AI Salon. Embodying the Salon’s mission statement of playing first, this impromptu demonstration of ChatGPT’s power came in the form of creating an application that received a word input by the user, instantaneously returning a new and novel poem and associated image. As the demo wrapped, Kyle casually mentioned that someone could use this application to create a children’s book. Challenge Accepted.
Before we go further, a couple of housekeeping items. First, while users of the free version of ChatGPT can now interact with The Rhyming Dictionary and other CustomGPTs, image generation is still reserved for ChatGPT+ subscribers. Also, for those that are wondering, the content generated in responses is really truly unique to your conversation. While ChatGPT may have been trained on the content readily available on the Internet, they are vastly more complex than copy-paste pirates. On with the conversation.
Within minutes of the demonstration ending, I was logged into ChatGPT. Since I had previously worked within Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform to author my previous work “Simply Digital,” I knew that it was in the realm of possibility to “will this book into existence,” but other than having two young children of my own, I was a bit lost where to start. One thing I knew though, was that I wanted to start having conversations with my children about the role technology will play not only in their education, but also their daily lives. That seemed like a good enough place to start, so I took a deep breath and entered the following prompt:
“Let’s publish a children’s book together! I want to use the alphabet to introduce children in elementary school to futuristic technical concepts like AI. Can you come up with an alphabetical list of 26 words that would be good to include in this book?”
Within seconds, ChatGPT enthusiastically responded.
“Absolutely, creating an alphabetical list of futuristic technical concepts for a children’s book sounds like a fun and educational project! Here’s a list to get us started. Each of these topics can be explained in a simple, child-friendly manner to spark curiosity and learning about the future of technology.”
In the time it took me to process what was happening on my screen, I had a list of 26 words from Artificial Intelligence straight through to Zero-Emission Vehicles. And it was a good list. And when it suggested “My First Journey into the World of Tomorrow” as a title that would be considered approachable and intriguing for young readers, I knew I was onto something.
The next step was to actually generate the content of the book. One-by-one, I fed my AI generated list of words into The Rhyming Dictionary and, one-by-one, ChatGPT produced a corresponding poem and image. Perhaps this is a good time to talk about motivation. If this was anything more than a middle-of-the-night, adrenaline-filled experiment, I probably would have taken the time to edit, polish, or even read the content being reflexively generated back to me. But it wasn’t anything more than that, so with the exception of a couple of images that were way off the mark, I accepted the content for what it was: simplistic, slightly repetitive, and sufficient. And it only took a few minutes more to download a template from Kindle and lay out the content into the proper format.
With the drafted book saved, I needed to shore up a few more details, but it was getting late and my enthusiasm for the project was slowly being absorbed by the parts of my body that were insisting on sleep. It was at this moment I realized that if ChatGPT could generate the content of the book so readily, surely other required elements such as a back-cover summary, introduction and dedication pages would be child’s play. Sure enough, ChatGPT handled all of those things with grace, even suggesting “whimsical yet legible” Word-friendly fonts to consider. One cover art prompt later, and I was logging into my KDP account.
Since I assumed it already knew what Amazon’s requirements were, I simply asked it to generate a description for the book it just wrote, as well as 7 keywords that are required for Amazon’s search algorithm. It even generated a very nice description of me based on just a few key points. Clicking at full-speed, I was wholly convinced that I was only a few minutes away from making it onto the NY Times Best Seller’s list (or, at the very least, someone’s Good Reads recommendation). That was, at least, until I was hit with a question that I wasn’t prepared for: “Has any of this content been created using Generative AI?”
My heart sank. Was this the end of the line? Was Amazon about to tell me that I’ve violated some policy or terms of publishing that would put an end to my hours-long aspirations of becoming an artificially-intelligent children’s author? Fortunately, my anxiety was quickly quelled when I realized that they were just taking the pulse of the KDP community, and that whether I was generating Canva-created journal covers or wholly curated books, I was free and clear so long as I wasn’t violating any of their other terms of service. I did also have to specify that the book was geared towards children of specific ages, I assume to help with their content-recommendation algorithms.
After a bit of re-prompting for the cover art to get it to fit the required dimensions of the KDP template, I stumbled into my next roadblock. To be eligible for publishing in print, I had to hit a minimum of 72 pages of content, and I was sitting about 20 pages short. After sitting with this for a moment, I clicked back over to ChatGPT and gave it this newly-found problem to solve. Without skipping a beat, ChatGPT responded with a treasure trove of creative suggestions, from coloring pages to resource lists, to ‘blank pages with prompts that encourage readers to sketch and describe their own future inventions.’
The “my future invention” pages were low-hanging fruit, and after a few tries I was able to generate a coloring page that I was happy with. The biggest challenge ended up being the word search. Like math, consistent word and letter generation tends to be a challenge for LLMs in general, but ChatGPT+ subscribers also get access to code-interpreter, which allows ChatGPT to write and execute computer code on your behalf. After a few unsuccessful attempts, ChatGPT finally suggested that it would be easier to generate a CSV file that I could then copy and paste into the book.
After also generating a kid-friendly introduction to the process of making the book and a couple more minor edits, I was finally at the required length. The last thing I did, however, was verify the books on the recommended reading list were actual titles by actual authors, because ChatGPT does not have the best track record when it comes to citing sources. Sure enough, I was able to catch and edit a few hallucinations out of the list. Other than that, the only thing left to do was follow the prompts on KDP’s platform to upload and publish my new book. Unbelievably, six hours after I watched the demo, and as the sun crested over the horizon, the green check indicated my book could now be purchased and read either in print or on-demand through Kindle Unlimited by readers all around the world. The book even had its very own unique ISBN number.
Flash forward a couple of weeks, and my kids alerted me to the fact that an Amazon package had just been dropped off at our door. Without letting on, I encouraged them to open the box. Fortunately, they are still at the age where getting new books as gifts excite them, so this was a momentous occasion regardless. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when my astute six year old turned the book over and identified my name and AI-generated likeness, that they really lost their minds. For at least a week “daddy’s book” became required reading at bedtime, and after spending a week at Camp Invention, my daughter was eager to brainstorm future inventions.
The question remains though… am I an author? After all, unlike this article, nothing in that book was ‘created’ by my hands. But, without my input and hyper-fixation that night, this book wouldn’t exist. It is my personal belief that, so long as you are not doing it to take away from others’ work or livelihood, generating works like this are supplemental to the supply of creativity that exists in the world. It is not a zero-sum game. And as generative technology continues to blur the lines between creation and curation, publishers and readers alike are going to have to work together to determine how the rules of engagement are redefined. For my part, I am perfectly content mindfully creating content that holds value to the people that I hold close. If someone else benefits along the way, then that’s just an added bonus. All I know is that for me and many other creative minds around the world, thanks to the advent of ChatGPT and others like it, “someday” just became “today.”
Find your copy of “My Journey into the World of Tomorrow” on Amazon.