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 5 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!”.
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.
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.
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 proof reading, feedback, etc.
Eventually it started coming together. Now all I needed was a charity partner, because charity is a huge motivator for me. We have given away almost €100,000 in the past 5 years on this 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 out moment, and that moment is now.
Fast forward to today. I got 3 samples sent to me and the first 1,000 copies are being printed as I write this article. I will have 50 copies at the 2024 ADAC Sim Racing Expo, where I am launching this book 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.
Pre-orders are NOW OPEN! 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. I cannot wait to cut a cheque for Make-a-Wish International their first cheque for €1499. But I need your help to get there.
Thank you all so so much for giving me a platform to do silly things that make sense.
LD
PRE-ORDER HERE – ETA (to your door) is early December: https://laurencedusoswa.com/product/s-is-for-sim-racing-childrens-book/
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