How I Write My Books.

How I Write My Books

AI has been an incredible advancement in recent years. It has been both a blessing and a curse.

There are many AI apps out there that claim they can create children’s books for you. With that said, I want to personally assure my readers of one thing:

I do not use AI to write my books.

All of my stories are original. They come directly from my mind and imagination, without the use of creative AI. Every idea, every line, and every story is created by me and is original.

The only time I use AI in my books is for illustrations—and even then, it is far from “easy.” I put a tremendous amount of time, care, and direction into every image. I guide exactly how each page should look, what the characters are doing, and how the scene should feel. In fact, creating the illustrations is often the most difficult part of the entire process.

In fact, those AI apps that offer to write children’s books and generate illustrations for you produce work that you can easily recognize. The illustrations often look the same from book to book, with very little individuality or uniqueness. That’s where I differ. The process I use is not an easy one, but it results in books that feel original. My books look original. My illustrations look original. And that separates my work from many of the AI-generated books out there.

It also means that because I design each character and carefully instruct AI on how those characters should look, I am not using generic templates or pre-made assets from other platforms. The characters you see in my books are created through my direction, and I fully own them.

At no point do I hand over control and let AI create the book for me. That’s not what I do.

Using AI for illustrations is no different than hiring an illustrator—except it allows me to keep costs down. When you hire an illustrator, you often need to sell 20–30 copies of a book just to break even. This approach gives me the ability to create more freely while still maintaining full creative control.

I also handle the full layout of every book myself. I use a word processing program to set up each page, insert the illustrations, and place the text exactly where it needs to be. I create the dedication page, title page, and copyright page, and I personally design and build each cover. Every part of the book—from the first idea to the final layout—is put together by me.

Because of that, even though I use AI as a tool, its role is very limited. It supports the process, but it does not drive the creativity behind the books.

To be clear:

• My stories are original

• My lyrics are original

• Every book is a Gregory Michael original

AI does not create my ideas. It does not write my stories.

Everything starts with an idea—and then I sit down and write.

I’m also a stand-up comedian, and comedians are natural storytellers. At the end of the day, that’s exactly what I am:

A storyteller—telling stories to children.