Book design is crucial when you create a book for a young reader. The book size, illustrations, colors, and font all need to complement each other to attract your target audience. We’ll discuss all of this and more in this guide to children’s book design!
As you go through the process for your children’s book, try to keep in mind what colors and font are best suited for your book cover and the interior pages. After you determine the book trim size you’ll use, you can work on formatting your illustrations. But the best place to start may be with a storyboard.
The first step in this process is creating a storyboard, which you can use as both a starting point and a roadmap to keep your book design on track.
When you create a storyboard, you are building a foundation for a beautiful book design. Your storyboard helps you figure out which sentences or paragraphs in your book should be accompanied by an illustration.
Eye-catching illustrations go a long way to marketing kids’ books. Although a storyboard might seem like an unnecessary step, it can really set you up for success in the long run.
A storyboard is basically a visual representation of the children’s story that you’re writing. It helps you as the writer determine how many illustrations you need. And when you partner with an illustrator, it helps them understand the story and what you’re looking for.
To start making your storyboard, go through your story line by line and identify which parts should be illustrated. Some children’s book authors like to draw rectangles to help break up their overall story into smaller, more manageable sections. Each rectangle represents a section of your story. Just write some notes or sketch some ideas in each rectangle to create a visual storyboard for your children’s book.
There are several tools you can use to create your storyboard. If you’re self-publishing your children’s book, there are two main options:
If you’re working with a publishing house, they might have resources like specialized software to help. However, you can also easily create a storyboard on your own if you’re self-publishing!
Creating a storyboard takes time, so try not to rush it. Keep in mind that a storyboard is a great way to communicate with your children’s book illustrator. If you rush your storyboard, your children’s book illustrations might miss the mark.
The actual time it takes to create your storyboard will depend largely on how long and complex your story and characters are. Each scene and character illustration takes time to both develop and create. So be patient and try not to rush this fun, creative process!
Choosing the layout, colors, and fonts for your children’s book is exciting! You really get to see your book come to life. These components will help create your book’s overall aesthetic, so it’s important to consider them as you begin to lay out the book.
Once the storyboard is done, authors who self-publish picture books often work with their illustrator to develop the book’s layout. Here are a few questions that might help you create the layout:
As you lay out your book, keep in mind that the color choices affect how your readers perceive your book.
Color choices greatly affect your readers’ initial reactions. If your book is catering to a young reader under the age of five, try to include bright colors to stimulate their minds. And if your story is more appropriate for children a little older, broaden your color spectrum a bit. Use colors that might invoke emotion, such as bright yellow for happiness, or a nice, calming blue.
When it comes to structuring picture books and young adult novels, the font you choose makes a big difference.
Young children learning to read will have an easier time understanding a picture book with a large font and clear, simple letter shapes. Conversely, an older child who can understand more complex storylines might prefer a smaller font.
There are millions of fonts out there. So choose the one that fits best with your book!
Book trim size is an industry term for a book’s height and width. Your ideal trim size will depend on a few factors, including:
It always helps to research some cover design tips so you can learn more about standard and custom book trim sizes—and to find some examples.
You broke the mold when you wrote your children’s book. And you can do the same with a custom trim size if you’d like! However, depending on how you’re publishing your book and your overall budget, you might want to stick closer to the industry standards.
Here are a few examples of common trim sizes for children’s books:
Trim size is a big factor in how you design and lay out your book, so it’s important to familiarize yourself with the average sizes.
If you begin to design your children’s book before you choose a publisher, it’s important to have an idea of the average trim size. This way, you and your illustrator can begin laying out the book and just make small adjustments when you choose the printer and get their template.
For example, say you’re creating a board book for very young readers. The book should be large enough to accommodate thick cardboard pages that are easy for little fingers to turn. You might be envisioning a big, impressive 16” x 16” book that showcases large, beautiful illustrations. However, if you start designing such a big trim size, you’ll have to do a lot of cutting if you end up printing a much smaller standard size.
On the other side of the coin, if you know that the average trim size of a board book is 12” x 9”, you can begin designing your book with those dimensions. This dramatically cuts down on your revision time down the road.
In other words, knowing the average trim size of a children’s book makes your life easier when you prepare the book to print and publish.
The term “safe area” is basically the boundary in which you can include your text and illustrations. Your book printer needs to leave room around the perimeter of your cover and each page to account for page margins and the binding.
Review the template that your publishing house or self-publishing company provided. There should be an overall boundary as well as a smaller “safe area” boundary. The space beyond the safe area basically allows the printer a little wiggle room so they don’t interfere with your font or illustrations when they print, cut, and bind the pages and covers.
All right, you’ve created your storyboard, chosen your colors and font, and picked a book trim size. It’s time to format!
Every part of your book needs to be formatted—even your title page, which probably won’t have much text or illustration. Formatting your illustrations is easier than it might sound, especially if you understand the basic formatting principles.
One important factor in how you format your children’s book illustrations is the ratio of illustration to text on each page. Some pages might have a large, colorful illustration with just a little text, and other pages in your book will work well with just a background image and more words.
Another factor to consider is the trim size. You don’t want to overwhelm a small page with a large illustration or too much text. Likewise, you don’t want a large page to look blank. In many cases, your illustrator will have access to software that will help you play around with formatting options so you can design the perfect page.
Each professional book illustrator has their own preferred medium. Some prefer the tried and true, old-fashioned method of drawing by hand. However, in the evolving landscape of e-books, computer-based programs have gained popularity over the years.
Nowadays, many illustrators use tablets that they can draw on, just like they might on paper. This allows them to effortlessly save different sketches and color schemes to show the author.
The actual software will vary depending on the type of computer or tablet your illustrator works with. Here are a few of the most common software programs that book illustrators use:
Once your illustrator has created beautiful images for your book, it’s on to the formatting process.
Each book is unique. Although there’s no universally “right way” to format your children’s book illustrations, here are a few steps to take as you finalize your book design:
Most self-publishing companies are happy to answer questions about formatting. After all, they want your book to look great, too! So if you have any questions on the steps you should take to format your illustrations, just contact them for advice.
Beautiful books capture their target reader’s eye. Since young readers are drawn more to pictures than text, beautiful book design is extremely important in children’s book design.
Let the experts at Elite Authors help you design the perfect children’s book. Visit our website to learn more about our book cover design, formatting, and marketing services!
Formatting a children's book can be an intimidating venture. Getting it right is key to having a finished product that's ready for children and their parents to read.
So whether you're looking to sell print copies, digital copies, or both, you'll need a little guidance to get you through the formatting process. That's what this article is all about! Read on to find out how to format a children's book for self-publishing.
In this article, you will learn:
As you already know, there's more than one type of kid's book. So before I dig into the meat of this article, let's get clear on the types of children's books I'm talking about.
Get Your FREE Children's Book ChecklistDon't know where to start your children's book? I've got a checklist that will take you through the entire process, from the initial idea to the finished, polished product. Check it out!
If you're a chapter book author, you can go about formatting your text-heavy book in much the same way you would any other fiction book. Many of the steps below won't pertain to you unless you have a lot of images in your book. Luckily, I've got you covered. Check out my article on book formatting to learn how to format your middle-grade or young adult book.
If you're a picture book author, this article is for you. The complexities of images, text, layout, spacing, trim size, and bleed all come together to make picture book formatting more difficult than text-heavy book formatting.
So, let's get right to it.
Formatting means different things to different people. To be clear, this article isn't about formatting your picture book manuscript to send to a literary agent or a publishing house. Manuscript formatting for children's books is very different from formatting for self-publishing.
In fact, in a perfect world, formatting happens during the “writing” process as you put your images (or placeholders) together with your text. The real formatting happens on the computer, but having a vivid idea of what your book will look like before you start formatting on the computer will save you a lot of time and a lot of headaches.
So, before I dive into the tips for formatting your children's book, it's important to know what you should already have done before focusing on formatting.
At this point in the children's book writing process, it's important to have a fully edited text. This means that you've already had an editor look at it (which I highly recommend), or you've edited it yourself.
Either way, it's important to have the words exactly the way you want them. Making changes during or after the formatting process can be a bit of a headache, so make sure you have this done already!
Formatting is all about putting your text and illustrations together, so it's also important to have all your illustrations ready to go. If you're still waiting on images from your illustrator, you'll want to wait until you have them all at your disposal before starting.
Before formatting, it's incredibly helpful to have a mockup of your book on hand. Sometimes called a book dummy or a storyboard, this is an approximation of how your book will look when formatting is finished.
It's actually a good idea to do this before hiring an illustrator (or drawing your own pictures, if you're going that route) because it helps you determine what illustrations you actually need for the finished product.
You can do this on folded sheets of plain white paper, sketching out each illustration and putting the words down so you can see how the layout will look. Then, once you get your artwork back from the illustrator, you can create a new mockup with the new images to make sure everything looks good. You'll use this for reference during the formatting process.
Side Note: I recently reviewed another great course on publishing children's books, read my review here.
There are a lot of different ways to go about formatting a children's book. You can use software like Adobe InDesign, Pages, or even MS Word if you're truly brave. There are too many options for us to present this as a step-by-step guide. However, the intricacies of various software programs don't change the core factors that you need to follow to have a book that your target age group will enjoy.
So, if you follow the tips below, you'll be well on your way to becoming a children's book author!
Most children's picture books are 32 pages. This includes the title page, copyright, front matter, and back matter. The reason for this originally had to do with how children's books are printed, but now it has become the standard.
Sticking to this 32-page standard is a good idea for your first children's book. However, if you won't or can't stick to this number, try to ensure your book has a total page number that's a multiple of 8 (24, 32, 40, 48, etc.).
Like page count, word count is also something to be aware of as you format your book. Most children's picture books are under 500 words total. A little bit over this may not be a big deal, but if you're more than a hundred words over, it may be a good idea to revisit your plan for the book to get that number down.
Remember that formatting isn't just about putting a book out there. It's about putting a book out there that has the best possible chance of success.
It's best to choose your trim size and orientation early on in the book writing process — or at least before you hire an illustrator.
You have three options for orientation: landscape, portrait, and square. Within these choices, you have standard sizes that do well in the children's book publishing world.
However, before you choose a size, you'll need to know what print-on-demand service you'll be using (if any), as some of them have different sizes available. IngramSpark and KDP are the two big players, and neither of them offers landscape format sizes. Below are the standard sizes they offer:
Once you know your trim size, you can take bleed into account. Bleed is a term that describes when the images in your book will go all the way to the edges of the page. No bleed means the images don’t go all the way to the edge, meaning you’ll have a border around the pages. Most children's books do have bleed, but not all of them. It's up to you whether you want the images to go all the way to the edge of the page or not.
Keep in mind that if even one image in the entire book goes to the edge, you should format the whole book for bleed. It's also important to note that if you will have bleed in your children's picture book, it only works on KDP for fixed-format options, such as print-ready PDF files.
If your book will have bleed, you'll need to change the page size accordingly to make sure you don't end up with an unwanted white border around the pages. You can do this by following this formula:
Confused? Let's do an example together.
Let's say your trim size is 8″ x 10″ and you want bleed so your images go all the way to the edge of the page. Following the formula above, I would do it like this:
Page size to allow for bleed = 8.125″ x 10.25″
You can resize your pages to fit these before continuing on. But I still have margins to deal with!
Margins are important so none of the essential elements in your book get cut off during the printing process. You have four margins total: the outside margin, top margin, bottom margin, and the inside margin (also called the gutter).
The gutter margin depends on the page count because that's where the binding of the book goes. The more pages you have, the larger your gutter needs to be. Luckily, children's picture books all have low page counts, so the gutters are almost always 0.375″.
Depending on the software you're using for formatting, you may have both an inside margin option and a gutter option. If you do have both, ignore the gutter option or mark it at zero. The inside margin should be set at 0.375”.
Now, bleed will also affect the other margin sizes. If you're working with bleed, your outside, bottom, and top margins will need to be at least 0.375″. If you're not working with bleed, they need to be at least 0.25″. They don't all need to be the same, but they do all need to meet the minimum size for proper printing.
However, I recommend working with 0.5″ margins on those three sides, just to make sure you have enough space so your words or essential illustrations don't end up too close to the edges.
Once you have your document set with trim size, bleed, and margins, you can add illustrations and text, following the guidelines from your dummy book. All you have to do is make sure no important components fall outside the margins (like, for instance, the main character's head!).
This way you'll know that, once your book is printed, it will look great and be an excellent addition to the world of children's literature.
It's a good idea to take some time and think about the font you'll use (Times New Roman is not a great choice for a kid's book). Many times, children's book authors are so focused on the images and the placement of the text that they don't consider whether the text is easy on the eyes or not. The text needs to be easy for a young child to read, so a serif font is usually a good choice.
As you know by now, writing children's books is only part writing. You also have to know how to work with images (or pay someone else to do this — more on that later). So if you're looking to do everything yourself, you'll need to ensure your images are high resolution. If you're hiring an illustrator, you can request that they ensure the images files are 300 dpi.
You'll also want to get them to send you the raw files, just in case you need to make changes to the illustrations (you'll need Adobe Photoshop or InDesign for this).
If you're the illustrator, you'll need to scan your images at 300 dpi to make sure you get all the details that you can so there's image quality loss.
Once you're happy with the formatting of your children's book, it's time to save it and convert it to PDF. With most software, this is a built-in feature. And as long as you have the margins, gutter, and size set correctly, you should have no problems uploading your file on Amazon or IngramSpark.
As you can see, formatting and publishing a children's book takes a bit more effort than publishing a text-heavy middle-grade book or a traditional novel. So to make things easier, I've included some options you can use for the design and formatting of your book.
This is the Mac version of MS Word. And while it's not the best with design features, it's one that many people are already familiar with. It's possible to use Pages to format a children's book, but it's certainly not the best choice.
Like Pages, Word is limited in its functionality when it comes to working with illustrations. You may need to lean on Photoshop (or a friend with Photoshop) to make changes to your images if need be.
Adobe InDesign can do pretty much everything in terms of children's book formatting. However, it does feature a fairly steep learning curve. If you're not already familiar with the software, you'll need to invest some time in learning how to work it.
If you're writing children's books for older kids, such as middle-grade books, chapter books, or young adult fiction, Atticus is the best formatting and writing software you can use. It supports full bleed, so you can add full-page images for the beginnings of chapters, maps for fantasy books, or the odd image that will give your book that bit of extra flair.
However, Atticus is limited (right now, anyway) in what it can do for image-heavy books. So if you're writing picture or board books, sticking with Adobe InDesign or something like it is a good idea.
Easy to use, and and full of amazing features, you can quickly turn your book into a professional book.
Check It OutMany self-published children's book writers like to do it all. But if this all seems like too much for you, seek out the help of a designer who has worked on children's books before.
There's a global workforce at your fingertips through sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Or you can search for designers through your favorite search engine.
Before I close this article, it's important to mention the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator. This is a tool designed by Amazon that will help you convert your print-ready children's book to an ebook-friendly version which you can publish on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Or you can use the tool to design your book from scratch.
Lots of people still buy children's books in print, but more and more are buying them for e-readers and tablets. You can be sure to maximize your exposure to young readers by offering both a print and an ebook version. You can check Amazon’s free tool here.
Formatting a children's book starts almost from the very first planning stages. Because dealing with each illustration and the words on each page is part of the storytelling process, it's hard to put off formatting until the end of the publishing process, as is the case with text-heavy books.
And while your book writing process may start with a simple manuscript, it's important to consider things like word count, page count, trim size, bleed, and layout from the very beginning. Luckily, you can follow the tips outlined above to format your children's story and get it ready for early readers while avoiding common headaches new children's book authors run into!
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