Thoughts from the author:

My time engineering at SpaceX deeply engrained in me a feeling that interplanetary space travel could become culturally established for Generation Alpha and beyond. I was inspired to publish this book (my first) after reading bedtime stories to my baby and wanting one about an interstellar journey (a bit more aspirational than "just" interplanetary; a bit more mysterious than "just" our solar system). Creating art is something I've always enjoyed. In spring 2025, as AI chat and image generation were continuing to impress, I thought, "This should be quick work! Shouldn't need more than a few hours..."  HA!

It honestly could have been very quick work if I didn't care so much about getting the product to match my own vision, translating to reality what was in my head. But as it was, I did care a lot about that. All in all, it was a few months, not a few hours. In the end, I think the product is better than either of us (me or the AI) working on our own. Big thanks to friends and family who shared their feedback along the way! 

If this helps inspire some kids to pursue wonderful space adventures, I am happy. If this helps inspire some kids to create, I am happy. The jump from idea to real-thing is the smallest it's ever been... and shrinking!

I started by manually drafting a description of the overview, purpose, poem style, motifs, perspective, and story outline detailed stanza by stanza. I shared this description with the LLM and got a few poems. Comparing/contrasting their verses was useful and inspired my own verses, more closely aligned with my vision and ear. The LLM was also a good brainstorming bud for straightforward things like, "what's another word for ... that gives a connotation of ...". The writing process was fun, and the final poem is the result of on the order of 10 drafts. 

Each page of illustration took me about 10 hours, a combination of both iterating with AI image generation and manual image editing. Updates to AI image generation during the making of this book made things both easier (a consistent character in various poses!) and harder (memory features making it seemingly impossible to change visual style once hung up on a bad direction). The generated images needed to be separately reformatted to the desired aspect ratio and upscaled to the right resolution for printing quality.

The AI illustrators (I mostly played with ChatGPT/Dall·E and Gemini) were artistically talented but often not the best listener:

There is a lot more to say on this topic, and there are many others more expert to speak on it!
I will say that PufferPrint has been FANTASTIC to work with for getting these board books produced (and with an eco-friendly focus!). I love the result and couldn't have asked for higher quality or care. I also appreciated my quick-turn prototype from Pint Size Productions. Both companies have been super responsive and supportive.

One thing I learned: some types of book varnishes can be pretty smelly and off-gas for months. It might be the "UV cure" option - something you can ask your printer about, if you are ordering...

Also, money is not the reason to do this - there's seemingly not much to be made here, unless you are selling tons of books. For example, assuming a small order of a few hundred books: $7 to make, $7 for third party logistics (for your distribution), already costs $14/book. Or, if you go the bookstore route, they typically keep half the sale price. People (like me) are doing this for other reasons than money!