New to all this.
Iāve always been drawing, but never had an actual goal or wider audience. Just enjoying me-time drawing stuff I like.
For this Christmas, I promised my nieces a colouring book. They love my zombie drawings, I draw a lot of zombie themed stuff, so I created a Xmas/ zombie crossover.
The story is ready, they already got some pictures as a teaser, and passed it on to friends, who also passed it on, and I get texts from lots of people now to publish it because they also like it and want to buy it. I dont use any social media apart from Reddit but my sister is in a lot of parents facebook groups, and seems like my drawings are kind of getting a bigger response than expected.
I do take some pride in my drawings, but never had so many people interested in what I do. Do you think itās ok to use AI in the process? Or would it be like scamming people? I never did a colouring book, and the AI clean-up was a logical last step to me making it look neater and printable. I used it for neat lines and fonts.(Im sooo bad at fonts)
But I feel bad about it if it reaches a bigger audience, and people I dont know.
I started sending out panels on WhatsApp, but nobody wants to print out the pictures themselves, they want a full printed colouring book.
The list is getting longer, thereās more texts coming in daily. Iām posting this because itās over 500 people as of today, and Iām feeling a bit lost.
So what do I do?
Print it at my local copy shop, send it, and use PayPal? Thatās too time-consuming. And expensive. Over 500 copies? I cant handle that. What other options do I have?
That leads to my second question: how to distribute it?
Seems like Amazon is the easiest option, because I dont have to print and send out hundreds of copies.
Is it even allowed to upload artwork on Amazon when AI was involved, even if itās just the last clean-up? I donāt know anything about publishing, copyrights, or requirements/ process for self-publishing (which seems the most viable option)
So my questions are,
is it legitimate in general to clean up your drawings with AI, for a wider audience?
Can I publish the book on Amazon, and is the process doable in 2 weeks or so?
Is it expensive to do?
Is there an alternative to Amazon?
What would a reasonable pricing be?
Most importantly: Thanks for your input, Iām a bit overwhelmed rn.
I never posted in this sub, I hope my questions are not bothering anyone!
Merry early Christmas to everyone <3