Answers, including the awkward ones.

You upload one photograph of your child, and only a verified parent or guardian may upload it.

We use that photograph for one thing: to draw a character sheet — an original illustration of your child in our house style.

We keep that photograph, for as long as you have an account. Every illustration is drawn from the character sheet rather than from the photograph, and we keep the photograph so that a new picture, or a whole new book, can be drawn for your child later without asking you to upload it again.

The photograph is kept in private storage with no web address of any kind: there is no link to it, nothing on this website can request it, and no search engine can find it. It is never published, and it is never shown to anybody outside our own systems.

The photograph is never used to train any model, ours or anyone else’s, never sold, and never sent anywhere except the image provider that draws the character sheet.

Illustrations are generated by an AI image model from your photograph, art-directed and reviewed by us against a fixed house style.

You can have the photograph deleted at any time, and you do not have to close your account to do it: uploading a different photo destroys the old one, and removing a child from your account destroys their photograph with their character sheet. Deleting your account deletes the photograph, the character sheet and every illustration made from it, and the deletion receipt counts them.

No.

Nothing about a real child ever appears on this website, in an advertisement, or on social media. Every illustration you see here is from a house demo book about a made-up child.

The one exception is a share link you create yourself: it shows the book, including your child’s first name, to whoever you send it to. It expires within fourteen days, you can revoke it from your shelf at any moment, and it is served so that search engines will not index it.

Only a verified parent or guardian. The upload step is unreachable until an adult has confirmed their e-mail address, and the step says so plainly before it asks for a file.

We do not collect a child’s last name, home address or location at any point. A first name and a birthday are all we ask: the birthday chooses the reading level, now and as they grow, and it is stored encrypted like the name.

Written for ages 4 to 9, at two reading levels — you give us their birthday, and the prose is the one authored for their age rather than a shortened version of somebody else’s.

Both stories are bedtime stories and both end quietly. Lantern Wood is dark outside and brave inside; Cloud Kingdom is sleepier and sillier, which suits a child who resists bedtime.

By a machine, art-directed by people. We would rather tell you than let you work it out.

Every illustration in your book is generated by an AI image model from the photograph you upload, then checked page by page against your child’s character sheet so the same child appears in every scene.

The stories themselves are not machine-written. Every word was hand-authored before you arrived, which is why nothing your child reads was invented on the fly and why two children given the same story get the same words.

Yes, and it is checked rather than hoped for.

The first thing we draw is a character sheet — one canonical illustration of your child in our house style. Every scene in the book is then drawn from that sheet, so drift is bounded by one picture instead of compounding page after page.

Before you ever see the book, each illustration is compared back against the character sheet, and any page where the hero has drifted is redrawn. A book that cannot reach that standard is not offered for print at all.

Your child is drawn, not named. One photograph becomes a character sheet — an original illustration of your child in our house style — and every picture in the book is drawn from that sheet, so it is the same child on every page. We keep the photograph, privately, so the next book can be drawn from it too.

That is the difference worth checking rather than believing: the plates on every story page of this site come from one demo book about one invented child, and it is recognisably the same child in all of them. A book whose hero has drifted is redrawn before you ever see it, and a book that cannot reach that standard is not offered for print at all.

What your child does not do is steer the plot. Both stories are hand-written and go the way they go — we would rather publish two books that are actually good than offer a fork we cannot illustrate to the same standard.

There is no button that redraws it, and there is nothing to pay if it happens.

Before the book reaches you, every illustration is compared back against your child’s character sheet and any page where the hero has drifted is redrawn, so the failure this question is about is a book that does not resemble the sheet we drew from your photograph — and a book that cannot reach that standard is not offered for print at all.

If the finished book still is not your child, close the tab: you will have paid nothing, because reading it is the free part and the hardcover is the only thing that ever costs money. Write to us and a person will answer.

About ten minutes tonight: a minute to reach the photograph step, a few minutes while your child is drawn — the screen counts the real minutes rather than showing you a spinner — and the rest of it reading the finished book together.

The drawing is the part that takes minutes rather than seconds, because fifteen original paintings are being made for one book.

You do not have to keep the tab open. The drawing continues on its own once it has started, the wait page is just the live view of it, and we send one e-mail — to the verified address on the account — the moment the book is ready to read.

The first half, every page of it, at full size, with no watermark and nothing blurred. It is the same book, the same layout engine and the same illustrations that the press will print; the second half opens with either keepsake.

You do not have to take our word for any of this. A complete finished book is open on this site right now — every spread, no watermark, no account, and no photograph of anyone.

It is a house demo book about a child we invented, because no real child’s book ever appears on a public page. It is otherwise the same reader, the same layout engine and the same illustrations a customer gets.

The first half of the finished book is free to read, and completely clean: every page of it, no watermark, nothing blurred. The rest of the story is behind either keepsake — the digital file or the hardcover — and nothing is charged until you choose one.

7 × 10 inch portrait casewrap hardcover, 32 pages, full colour on 80# coated white stock.

The hardcover is $40.00 plus shipping and tax, and the digital keepsake is included with it at no extra cost.

Shipping is quoted live from the printer for your address and passed on at exactly their price — no markup, ever. The carrier, the amount, the tax and the delivery dates are all on screen before you enter a card.

The book is manufactured in three to five business days and then handed to a tracked carrier. Both windows are added together and shown to you as actual dates, not as a number of days you have to count out on a calendar.

Reprint or refund, thirty days after it arrives.

For two hours after you order, cancel yourself in one click for a full refund — nothing has been printed yet. After that the book is manufactured, and the guarantee still holds: if what arrives is damaged, mis-bound or simply not the book you approved, we reprint it or refund it for thirty days from the day it lands.

Sharing it, yes. Somebody else buying it, not open yet.

Any book gets a private share link, and whoever opens it can read the same first half you can and can start a book for a child of their own. What they cannot do today is pay for yours — the share page says exactly that, rather than offering a button that goes nowhere.

Every book has a dedication page you write yourself, printed, at no extra cost.

Yes, free, for two hours, in one click, with no support ticket. Nothing has gone to the press yet — the cancellation window is the production delay.

After that the book is being made, and the guarantee takes over. If you need a hand at any point, write to hello@ministoryteller.com.