Amuse your friends – and your favorite crabby people – with two new books guaranteed to bring giggles to holiday and Christmas activities. Stuff This in Your Stocking! and Stuff Another Stocking! feature 158 original cartoons with witty captions for “vintage women.” The books contain no calories, no politics, no profanity, and the images will prompt grins all year. And, you can share cheap laughs because each book is less than $10.
Artificial Intelligence Meets Human Creativity
Proving age doesn’t destroy learning and creativity, I researched how to use Artificial Intelligence – AI – to create memes (the new word for cartoons.) I asked Grok, a free AI assistant through my X.com account, to generate images I wanted, and I added witty or sentimental captions for my target audience – older women. For example, I requested “Create an image of an older woman in red bikini popping out of a Christmas package.” The caption includes the name Ethel Merman – only older women would remember her hilarious, passionate singing of “Everything’s Coming up Roses.” Here is the resulting meme:
According to xAI’s consumer information, authors have the right to publish the images created from Grok, including for commercial use. This means my generated images can be used in books to sell. I created 158 memes in two weeks.
More images:
My publishing company, Eagle River Publishing, used Reedsy to professionally typeset the books. Reedsy is a free online service but the formatting can be complicated. Reedsy also offers professional assistance in design, editing, proofreading, and writing workshops. I’ve used Reedsy to format four of my books.
I uploaded the manuscripts to my KDP author account on Amazon. I chose to publish in eBook and paperback formats, selected the distribution and price, and designed the cover with Canva and uploaded the images to Amazon’s Cover Creator. After everything was uploaded, I requested proof copies. The proofs came in a week. I approved and clicked the “Publish” button. The entire process took six weeks. Costs were minimal because I already had a publishing company with ISBN numbers and accounts on Canva and Amazon.
I’m learning how to use AI to market the books. I joined Zeely to create video ads for social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. I used Canva again to create QR codes to direct potential customers to the Amazon sales pages. I have books to sell for those who prefer not to use an online source.
After twenty years as a small publisher, I’m still learning about new techniques and opportunities to create books. What once took months now can be done in a few hours. The negative reality of AI comes with the actual writing of a manuscript. I don’t use AI to write my books or blog posts. This old brain still works.
Here’s one of the problems if too much attention is focused on AI without proofreading. In this ad generated through Zeely, bestselling is misspelled:
In Zeely’s defense, the platform created several excellent still and video ads. In my opinion, humans still are needed to proofread and manipulate the data. I remain in awe of the early writers who created great literary works using only a pen and paper or a manual typewriter.
