---
title: "How it works | Once Books"
description: "Turn a few photos into a 16-page book where your child stays recognisable on every page — the avatar → style → story → book flow, in about 6 minutes."
source: "https://www.oncebooks.com/how-it-works/"
---

How it works

# From a few photos to a book that looks like one book

Four steps, about 6 minutes. The hard part — keeping one child recognisable across 16 pages — is the part we built the whole product around.

1. ## Add your hero

   Upload a few photos of your child. We build a locked Character Sheet — a written description plus your approved reference images — that every page is generated against.
2. ## Choose a story and a style

   Pick a tale and one art style. The style is frozen onto the whole book, so page one and page sixteen belong to the same illustrator.
3. ## We illustrate, consistently

   Each page is generated against your locked references, not from scratch — so the character stays recognisable across all 16 pages instead of drifting.
4. ## Approve, print or share

   Reorder pages, regenerate any one you want to change, then export a print-ready PDF to order a copy or share a private read-along link.

Step one means uploading a photo, so here is [exactly what happens to your child’s photo](https://www.oncebooks.com/child-safety/) — private by default, and never used to train AI.

Why it stays consistent

## The model never works from memory

Image models are stateless: ask one to draw the same character twice and you get two different children. Most AI books drift for exactly this reason. Once Books never asks the model to remember. We lock a [Character Sheet](https://www.oncebooks.com/glossary/#character-sheet) — a written description plus your approved reference images — and re-supply it on every single page, so each illustration is generated against your references rather than from what it drew a moment ago.

The art style is chosen once and frozen onto the whole book too, so page one and page 16 belong to the same illustrator. Consistency is the product, not a happy accident — you can [see it hold across a real sample book](https://www.oncebooks.com/examples/), or see how it [compares to other personalised books](https://www.oncebooks.com/compare/).