Illustrations make stories come to life. And while I could write a story, I was a total novice at illustrating a book. Thankfully, I figured out the path with the help of my publisher, Heather.
My first book, Shine a Light, was illustrated by a traditional illustrator. I learned how to lay out my story and describe my scenes, as seen in this graphic. Luckily, I take a lot of photos so I used those as inspiration for my scenes, and I visualize in my mind the experience the reader will have.
It is so important to describe the scene, not just the story, to an illustrator.
For my second book, we were tight on timing. I could not get in touch with my past illustrator, so we went to Fiverr to find someone new.
Unfortunately, the quality was poor, the work was delayed, and they were clearly using AI. So, I had to take matters into my own hands to get the book done in time.
I took my ideas from my layout into Canva and used traditional paid images, and I also dabbled with Canva AI. I changed the layout style from full-page illustrations to an early reader style, with less illustrations and cleaner pages.
I pivoted to meet my deadline, and create an award-winning book.
For the next books, I changed course again. I took real family photos and ran them through ChatGPT. Combining these with some Canva images and editing, we created a full-page, illustrated story in a week.
Why this story?
I have tried all the styles. I know how they all work. I do what works for my timeline, budget, and quality needs, and purpose.
In a world where AI is all around, there are some places where AI is encouraged and some where it is not. But when my paid professional was using it (and inconsistently too) I had to take permission to also.
I share all of these options with authors during my workshops. If you need help navigating illustrations, consider grabbing a copy of the video and our free Author & Creator worksheet.
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