S is for Sim Racing is my illustrated children’s alphabet board book, with 26 sim racing subjects and artwork by Ompunks Auto Illustration. This is the story of how a family idea became a Potato Nation community project.
About this article: This announcement was originally published in September 2024. The launch plans and fundraising aim below describe that period; they are not a current delivery promise or a report of donations completed. Visit the product page for current book details.
How the alphabet book began
In 2022, I started writing a book. It started out as a learning exercise, using generative AI to explain complex sim racing terminology to a five-year-old. I have two young kids, so I had the perfect focus group. I quickly realised that as I was writing down challenging words, they all started with different letters. That’s when the concept of doing an alphabet book was born. I figured “I can use AI for that!”.
Illustrating every letter
I wanted to generate the art, generate all the descriptions, etc, and just print a one-time book online. As with any project, the deeper I went the more I searched for perfection. Long story short, AI got me started, but not one of the paragraphs in the book is AI generated. I also HATED the AI generated artwork and figured, if I’m going to SELL this thing, people deserve better than AI. So I teamed up with a great illustrator Ompunks Auto Illustration. He had previously done some amazing artwork for my road car, so I really knew he was the right guy for the job.
His work raised the bar. So much so that I pretty much rewrote the whole book again from scratch. He ended up doing the artwork for every single subject of every single page. We spent weeks doing each graphic, one by one, with feedback at all times of the day and night. We did 26 graphics, one for every letter of the alphabet.
Why I chose a board book
Meanwhile I had been getting quotes and well, card books are EXPENSIVE. The only place where I could get them printed for a reasonable price was China. Having the pages as hard card pages was very important to me. My kids absolutely love them and they’re just a nicer bedtime reading experience, especially with very young kids. Card books allow printing to the very edges, rounded corners and vibrant glossy artwork. I got the printing template from the printers and it started to get real.
Potato Nation helped bring it together
But I still had to do the actual book composition. Ompunks Auto Illustration did the main graphic, but I still needed to put it on a page, size it, rotate correctly, put text on it, etc. That was a huge amount of work. So I enlisted some of the community. B1gjugg, evantaitt, Simmy, Milex, Flea McBaggins, Kuyar (RIP), Peter McCann, Gav Taylor and Spudder all helped with proofreading, feedback, etc.
The charity motivation
Eventually it started coming together. Now all I needed was a charity partner, because charity is a huge motivator for me. By the time I wrote this announcement in September 2024, we had given away almost €100,000 over the preceding five years through the channel. We’ve given to mental health. We have given to schools and childcare facilities. We’ve given to those who help sick people. We’ve given to race car drivers. We’ve given to community members. We’ve sent sim racing hardware all over the world. We have helped out community members. I really wanted to work with Make-a-Wish International.
Make-a-Wish is a global children’s charity which grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to give hope, strength and joy. They helped a neighbour of ours many years ago and it was memorable and special. When working with large companies, initiatives need to align with their goals so we had to pick our moment, and that moment is now.
The original 2024 launch plans
When I wrote this announcement in September 2024, I had received three samples and the first 1,000 copies were being printed. The plan was to have 50 copies at the 2024 ADAC Sim Racing Expo, for the book launch at the Potato Nation stand. I am fortunate enough to have some monthly income from my sim racing channel, so I have put quite a lot of it into this initiative.
At launch, I opened pre-orders with the aim of writing a first cheque for €1,499 to Make-a-Wish International. Your support is appreciated immensely, and your kind words keep me grounded and remind me that this ‘fun’ we keep having as a community makes a real difference.
Thank you all so so much for giving me a platform to do silly things that make sense.
LD
Find S is for Sim Racing
View S is for Sim Racing in the shop for current pricing, availability and delivery information. The original pre-order delivery estimate in this announcement applied to the 2024 launch.
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