A few years ago I became seriously ill. I was in a coma on heavy duty meds, and had a kidney transplant. I’m much better than I was, but I can’t do a lot of things like I could before.

We’ve now got quite a few kids in the extended family, so a while ago I wrote a short story to try to make it easier for them to understand. My wife and family like the story and have suggested making it into a picture story book. Problem is, I can’t draw and my imagination isn’t very good.

How can I get pictures for the story if I can’t do it myself and don’t have the money to hire someone? I want to avoid using AI tools because of the potential copyright issues.

I haven’t tried the services like Fiverr because I’ve heard that they force a race to the bottom on prices, but does anyone have any experience, or have any ideas of what I can do please?

Thanks in advance :)

  • livus
    14•7 months ago

    @Tippon if you are going the traditional publishing route, publishers don’t actually expect children’s book authors to provide the illustrations necessarily.

    If you are self-publishing, I suggest you reach out to the kidney transplant community (support groups etc) to see if anyone can volunteer.

    There might be someone else in your shoes who can draw and not write, who would love to be part of this project.

    • TipponOPEnglish
      2•7 months ago

      That’s a great idea, thanks :)

      I’ve just mentioned in another reply that the book is currently a bit too personalised, so probably wouldn’t appeal to other people. If I can rewrite it a bit to remove any personal details, that could work though :)

      • livus
        3•7 months ago

        I think that might be a good thing to do if you can; there are probably others in your situation who would love to have a book like this.

        You could even do something like donate proceeds to a kidney charity or hospital.

        • TipponOPEnglish
          2•7 months ago

          That’s a good point. I’m lucky enough to have received my kidney from a live donor, and the story is about how they saved the day, and because of that I was able to have a family with my wife, so it could go down quite well. I’d have to remove the personalised information, but that shouldn’t be too hard :)