How to create Children's Storybooks with AI

Creating Storybooks for Kids Using ChatGPT and Canva

Boy in Racecar Banner

Overview

Creating a children’s storybook has never been faster thanks to AI. Generating ideas, text, and illustrations can all be easily done using AI. Have a great idea or story already? Use AI to fill in the blank spots with illustrations that compliment your story perfectly. With so many programs though, starting may seem overwhelming- here's our recommended FREE workflow using Canva and ChatGPT to make your children’s book a reality. There are other programs to use, but they either aren't as beginner friendly or cost money to use. Once you're finished, simply upload to Presto Photo.

Don't have the time to make a book yourself? Search for AI Children's Book companies that will make professional looking AI book PDFs. While some of these sites offer physical books, they are expensive and only offer limited binding and paper options. Save money and get a high quality book with the options you want when uploading your PDF to Presto Photo.

Brainstorming

You’ll want to do some ideation on what kind of story you want to create. Is this book for a specific 3 year old or a general crowd of children? What are the themes and morals going to be? What genre will it be? Think about pacing and the story arc. These are all questions to consider when creating an engaging story.

Create your Story

Either write the story yourself or have ChatGPT (free) create one for you. Just ask ChatGPT to plan a story out for you with a prompt like:

“Write a basic 20 page outline for a children’s story for ages 3–6 about a brave boy with a red shirt, brown, curly hair who learns to race his blue race car with his blue pet parrot. Include a section where he gets a flat tire. Include detailed background and cartoon illustration prompts to accompany each page.”

This prompt will give you text and illustration prompts to use later. Make sure to be specific with your prompts and outline any important details such as age, any plot elements you want incorporated, shirt color, hair style, etc. Also be sure to ask for an illustration prompt in a specific style such as “cartoon” and include the background or setting for each page; this will make step 4 easier. Note that ChatGPT is not perfect so you may want to do a few edits here and there to the text or prompts where you see necessary.

Find a Canva Template

There are so many design programs but we are going to use Canva because it is free and simple and also offers 100 free AI generated pictures. Find a Canva template that you like by searching their template catalog located on their left home navbar. You can also use one of our blank templates that automatically account for bleed and show crop guides. For more information on Canva templates, check out our Canva PDF Printing page. Once you’ve found a template, you are ready to generate your images.

Generate Images

On the bottom left of your project navbar in Canva you will see “Magic Media”. Click this and enter one of your detailed prompts from earlier. Press “Generate images”. Canva will generate 4 images at a time for you to choose from. Click the one you want to add to the page. Repeat this step for each page by adding a page and entering a new prompt.

Boy in Racecar

Add your Text

Enter your text by clicking on “text” in the left navbar and selecting “Add a text box”. You can move this text box to wherever fits best. Once you have done this for each page, all that’s left is to save your PDF and upload to Presto Photo.

Save PDF and Upload

In the top blue navigation bar, select “Share” and then "Download" on the bottom Ensure the following selections are made:

  • File Type: PDF - Print (recommended)
  • De-select the “Crop Marks and Bleed” option
  • Keep the color profile as RGB

Click “Download” and you’re ready to upload to Presto Photo!

Presto Photo is the best place to get your AI storybook printed due to our low prices, high quality, fast turn around times, and quick delivery. We have a large assortment of papers and bindings to ensure that your book looks and feels exactly how you imagined.