Author here. I used Claude and ChatGPT Images to help me write and illustrate a book for my daughter's fourth birthday. The images were the part I had to lean on AI hardest for, and they were way more challenging than I expected: five attempts at a bed that works in three dimensions before I gave up and went with an outdoor scene.

It taught me a lot about where AI helps and where it doesn't. Plenty of pitfalls, but I ended up with 25 printed copies at £3.32 each, and a personalised book that wouldn't otherwise exist.

It does raise the question of what it means to have "authored" it. For a one-off like this, and for the experience, I think it was worth it. Publishing at scale would be another matter entirely.