MyStoryBook is a fun and useful free website to create and publish storybooks online. You can use MyStoryBook to create incredible looking storybooks, complete with cover pages, illustrations and things like that. Primarily targeted at kids (though intended to be used by teachers), MyStoryBook aims at inculcating an appreciation for storytelling in kids. MyStoryBook can be used to create rich and vibrant looking illustrated story books on pretty much any topic, and these can be then used to tell these stories to the kids. You can use MyStoryBook’s online story prompts to create storybooks, and also include elements such as titles, characters, backgrounds etc. in them. Once you have created the storybook, you can easily publish it online and share it on Facebook. Excited? Let’s dig in deeper.
How to use MyStoryBook to create and publish Storybooks online?
As is the case with most web based services, you need to create a simple free account before getting started. Account creation is a routine process, and all it takes is an email and a password. Once the account is created, you’re immediately logged in to your MyStoryBook profile.
Here’s how the primary web UI looks like:
As illustrated above, MyStoryBook sports a pretty simple and easy to navigate user interface. To the left, it consists of options to directly add primary elements to your story (items, draw, text, and background). The right side has a vertically scrollable list of page thumbnails that can be directly clicked for easy navigation. The middle section is where all the activity takes place, with the additions/edits you make while creating your storybooks appearing here. Pretty simple stuff!
Using MyStoryBook to create your first storybook is fairly easy. Essentially, all you have to do is add the elements such as characters and places, draw illustrations and things like that.
Here is a brief summary of the steps:
Step 1: When you login for the first time, you are immediately taken to the storybook creation view (illustrated above). As mentioned before, the left section consists of options to directly add various elements to your story. These are what impart the visual illustrative look to your storybooks. These are briefly described below:
- Items: These are the virtual characters and things that you can add to your illustrated story. There is a categorized list of items that you can choose from to include in your story. For example, you can add people, and things related to places like school, city, house, country etc.
- Draw: This gives you a virtual pencil that you can used to draw shapes (using your mouse pointer) on your storybook’s pages.
- Text: As the name suggests, this option lets you add text to your illustrated story book. You can either add the text anywhere on the page, or use the storybook prompts.
- Background: Using this option, you can add images of background locations (bedroom, outdoors, landscapes etc.) to the storybook’s pages, to emphasize where your story takes place.
Here’s how a sample storybook page looks like, after all of the above elements have been added to it:
Step 2: That’s pretty much all there’s to it. You can use the procedure outlined in the above step to add as many illustrative pages to your storybook as you want. To add more pages, all you have to do is click the Green colored Add Page button on the bottom right corner. Once you’re done, click the Finish Editing Your Story button to get to the Publish page. Here, you can easily use the Publish option on your profile page to publish your Storybook to the public library, where anyone can view it. Check out the screenshot below: 
Also See: Create Animated Stories Using Google Docs with Gone Google Docs Story Builder
Conclusion
MyStoryBook is an amazing free website to create and publish storybooks online. It provides a simple and easy to use way of creating great looking illustrative storybooks and sharing them with others. Features like storybook prompts, ability to add virtual backgrounds, characters, items etc. make MyStoryBook even better. Do give it a try, and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
