Imagitime or IrayaBooks: what you see before paying and what changes from one page to the next

Step by step on Imagitime: from the form to the first pages

You choose one of its fourteen titles and fill in the name, whether it's a boy or a girl, their age, the month they were born, the language and your relationship to the child. As Hugo is 8, the site suggested switching to a different book better suited to his age. Then it asks for between two and four photos.

1. The first page appeared after just over a minute. The rest arrived one by one, and four to six minutes later the whole book was on screen: more than twenty pages.
2. Each page comes with three versions and a button, “Generate more options”, to ask for others. The instruction is to leave each one on “the option you like best”: you put the final book together yourself.
3. To see the price you have to give a name and an email address. A message arrives instantly with a link to that same preview.
4. On the price page, before you pay, it offers three extras: an extra copy for €18.01, a digital PDF for €3.99 and a personal dedication for €1.99.

Step by step on IrayaBooks: a single cover, the one you'll receive

Here it's all one form: name, age, boy or girl, your email and the photo, which we check on the spot in case it won't work. While you wait, you watch the photo turn into the character, and within a couple of minutes you have their finished cover, with their face and a title with their name. You don't have to choose between versions: we've already done that.

Why don't we show dozens of drafts? Because the inside pages aren't made up on the fly. Every scene in the story is drawn and approved before your photo arrives, and the only thing that changes is your child. If you like the cover, the rest of the book follows the same drawing; if not, you try another photo without paying anything.

Why Hugo didn't always have the same eyes

In the Imagitime preview, Hugo's face comes out almost like a photo on top of a drawn body. You recognise him straight away, though with a collage effect: the face and the body aren't painted with the same brush, and lines appear on his forehead that no 8-year-old has. Because each page is generated separately, you notice it as you turn them: his eye colour doesn't stay the same, his hair changes shape and his expression varies. Being able to choose between three versions helps you weed out the worst ones, but keeping the whole book consistent becomes your job.

In our book, Hugo is the same boy from the rooftop at the start to the flight at the end: the same hair, the same mask, the same colours. And before it's printed, a person checks it page by page. If there's anything you don't like about how it's turned out, we redo it for free, once.

Imagitime versus IrayaBooks, point by point

Imagitime: prices seen on 8 October 2026 (hardback €44.99, paperback €34.99, delivery €6.99) and delivery time shown on its website on 21 October 2026. In its favour: its website advertises printing in Europe, guaranteed satisfaction and cancellation within the first 24 hours.

Our books

Dinosaur ValleyAges 2 to 8Super Hero Saves the CityAges 2 to 8The Sock PlanetAges 2 to 8The Day You ArrivedBabies aged 0 to 1The Mystery of the Torn MapSiblings aged 2 to 10

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