u/AndIAmIronDan

I am not an author by any stretch, nor do I really read too often but I do consider myself quite creative (Canva and designing birthday cards etc). I wrote a children’s book based on a dream I had as a child which subsequently became a playground game we would play at school. It’s a very simple fun story and I wrote this about 2-3 years ago after I bumped into an old school friend who said I should’ve made that game into a book. So I did lol. I sent it off to some publishers and it surprisingly got small amounts of interest but didn’t evolve into anything so a friend of mine who enjoys art started doing some illustration for me, she ended up not coming through so I started reaching out to some illustrators but the quotes were way beyond anything I’d imagined. I made some myself but they were beyond diabolical so I left it on the back burner. I was talking to another old friend last year and mentioned this to him - he’s a tattoo artist and he made some really cool illustrations for my characters and main features of the book but like my previous illustrator he couldn’t get round to do a whole book. So once again I left it, and I’ve left it about a year / 18 months. My son recently asked me to ‘make him up a story’ so I said to myself I’d get this book published purely so he could have a book from his Dad. My tattoo artist friend touched up some of his work, made one of the characters look like my son, and made me a fantastic front cover. I was able to use ChatGPT to make some background scenes (don’t shoot me I really tried to not go this route and I used it minimally where I could and ABSOLUTELY NONE of the story or dialogue was AI). I used Canva to put the characters into the scenes and I managed to put the book together. Fast forward and I published it on KDP, I thought it would just be a cool gift for my son and some family friends etc but when I say almost EVERYBODY I have ever come across from school friends, to ex-colleagues, to friends of friends, were so supportive and bought multiple copies etc I actually ended up reaching #3 in the Children’s Sci-Fi best seller ranks. I just think that’s a pretty cool feel good story and wanted to share it as I’ve been so taken aback by people’s kindness. I’ve really been overwhelmed by it all and the best part is… my son has a book from his Dad that he can keep forever, and that means the world to me.