How I Used AI to Publish My Children's Book, End to End
When I wrote a book about my son's travels to teach him digital safety concepts, I spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to publish it. I interviewed fellow Stanford LEAD alumni who had published their own children's books, and somewhere in those conversations, an idea took shape: what if I used AI for the entire process?
To me, this felt like AI used the way it was meant to be: for efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and turning ideas into something real. I originally planned to use it only for prototyping, a way to flesh out the concept before handing it off. But this book became an opportunity to experiment.
I tested all the leading AI models, along with some lesser-known ones, and each served its own purpose. Together, they acted as my end-to-end publishing assistant: checking grammar, fact-checking, editing, creating illustrations, and even teaching me how to get ISBNs and which publishing platform would work best for my book.
I learned a lot along the way. I don't agree with many of the ways AI is being used today, but this was, by far, the most rewarding use case I've experienced.