As you can probably tell these pictures were generated with AI in order to convey that the green dragon friends of Prince Ralphie can be found everywhere. And while of course I’ve written about the young prince visiting many places, if you haven’t read the books, you’ll never know where he’s been, or going to next.
My work now has a visual hook as they say in the advertising business courtesy of AI, and with any luck both a child’s imagination and a parent or teacher or librarian will be inspired enough by these pictures to actually read the book …
Finally, I want to share with you a story of when I was just beginning to write down my adventures and tell my wonderful wandering philosophical tales in books.
I was sitting in a cafe in North Boulder trying to sell my first book about my bicycle trip down old Route 66. Soon enough the question came up as to how I found a publisher, and as soon as I mentioned that I was self-published on Amazon the conversation folded up and walked away.
It was of little concern to her that I had very few, if in fact no other, more realistic methods of getting my work to an audience. The simple fact is I would not have been published otherwise given the number of rejected quire letters I received. and let’s face it, a book is very boring from the outside.
I have a choice as an artist to use AI to further my marketing and given that one of the objectives of the book is to try to tear down the publishing industry as it stands, with its multiple choke points that often eliminate perfectly good books because the authors’ have no way into the circle of literary agents that demand only those subjects presented in conventional ways that have proven sales potential.
This kind of thinking limits not only the artists, in an effort to conform to sell, but the effect on the quality of the literature on offer is immeasurable. A I and self-publishing are tools that independent writers and thinkers are now finding and using to expand the vocabulary of ideas in the community, in the zeitgeist.
I’m going to keep trying to expand my market share as best I can but I have little time for purists. The books are over the fence in literary accomplishments, yet I lack a million-dollar advertising campaign budget, and I don’t want to give up my hard work for access to a literary agent’s rolodex. In real terms the author of a book published through a regular publishing house earns about ten percent of the price, Amazon gives fifty percent to the author. And the AI tools I’ve used so far have been free.
What would you do?
A I: Ideally is a tool in service to the artist’s original vision used to create derivative products and strategies for marketing and management and merchandising. Because the artist is not a marketer or manager by nature and is only forced into these roles by necessity, which is also time sensitive. And of course, the type and quality of the merchandise is indeed under the artist’s purview.
The Artist: Bridges these two modalities of being a creator. One, the nurturing of the original inspiration and work; and two, the use of a new tool, in this case to reach more readers.
Authenticity: Sourced from an attributable history of the ideas developed by way of the vision of the artist into a core piece of art from which the marketing and management chores are derived; in this case to find and build an audience receptive to Prince Ralphie’s ways of seeing the world.
I want to relay my own recent experience with AI to help you understand where I’m coming from as a writer that can. and most likely will, someday be copied by AI.
While I long suspected the book was good, it took an AI deep dive for me to realize just how good it actually is in terms of literary merit within the same genre. It turned out that ‘The Prince Ralphie Series’ stands toe-to-toe with such classics as Don Quixote and Narnia and Alice in Wonderland
Here’s the point; look the book up for yourself, The Epic Adventures of Prince Ralphie and search such topics as making a vocabulary list from Chapter One of the book, or let AI tease out a lesson plan and essay questions.
The possibilities are almost limitless in potential for using the book as instruction material for the linguistic arts. Look it all up for yourselves so that I don’t have to beat that drum so much, because in essence I think the book is just fun and imaginative and really, really good
