How To Self Publish A Children’s Picture Book On Amazon KDP (Artist’s Guide)

This year I finally figured out how to self publish a children’s picture book on Amazon. I’d always wanted to create my own children’s book with illustrations in it but if I’m honest, the process always seemed too complicated. For example, I didn’t understand what programs to use or what ‘trim’ and ‘bleed’ meant. However, after finally catching Covid and with nothing else to do, I knuckled down and got to work over Christmas 2021. Annoyingly, I had to sift through a mountain of articles and YouTube videos to get all the pieces of information I needed before I finally tied them all together so I could begin. I thought it was a real shame that I couldn’t find all the information about how to self publish a children’s picture book in one place and so I thought I’d put this guide together to (hopefully) make the process easier for others.

The great thing about self-publishing a children’s book on Amazon is that anyone can do it. No longer do you need to be signed for a big publisher. If you have a cool idea, you can publish your picture book for no cost (if you do the artwork and formatting yourself.) However, this guide assumes you’re the artist wanting to get your work out there. If you are just a writer and you get your artwork done for you, this guide will still be useful.

Quick note for context before we begin: My book size for paperback was 8.5×8.5 inches and so I designed my illustrations to be square. I wanted that traditional kids book size I remember from my childhood.

To self publish a children’s picture book, we’ll be using Amazon KDP. Some people get confused and think that KDP is just for Kindle eBooks however KDP is your portal for publishing eBooks, paperbacks and hardcovers, all in one place. It used to be called CreateSpace.

It’s also important to note that there’s a variety of programs you might use when you self publish a children’s picture book, after all, we all have different preferences and budgets. For example, you may need or use;

• Canva
• Photoshop
• A Scanner
• PowerPoint
• Drawing tablet / tablet with a drawing app.

I used a Samsung tablet with the Sketchbook Pro app to draw my illustrations and then Canva to format and create my final file. However, you might draw your artwork and then scan it in when you’re done and then use a program like Photoshop to enhance your image.

Decide on the theme of your children’s book

The very first thing you need to do is to decide on the theme of your picture book. This may sound obvious but having a solid theme will keep you on track further down the line. For example, I decided to make my children’s picture book focused on a character that worried a lot before finally discovering a trick to overcome his worrying at the end of the book. However, you can literally write a children’s picture book about anything.

You can see my children’s picture book here on Amazon.

1. Know your book/page size

The second thing you need to be aware of is what your final book size will be. Amazon KDP offers a whole bunch of sizes for you to work with. The best thing to do is to go to Amazon KDP and look at the cover template size you want to work with. Just type ‘cover templates’ in the search box. When you download a cover template, you’ll get a zip file containing a PNG cover and a PDF version of your cover. However, don’t download one yet because you’ll have to enter a final page count and we don’t know that yet!

For example, I went with 8.5×8.5 inches so I knew that I’d need to design my illustrations as squares.

We want our images to fill the entire page (all the way to the edge) so we will be selecting ‘Bleed’ when it comes to uploading our book to Amazon KDP.

2. Storyboard your book

The next thing you’ll need to do is storyboard your book. In other words, make some rough sketches of each page of your book. It’s worth pointing out that Amazon requires you to have at least 25 pages in your picture book so keep that in mind.

Important: Your first page will always be a ‘right-side page’. If you go and open a book right now, you’ll see what I mean. Remember you’ll need to add your copyright information somewhere and this page is a good place for it. This contributes to your final page count. So, this page is page one of 25 in my case.

During this part of the process, you should also decide on whether you want to add text around your illustrations or on separate pages. For my children’s book, I added text on to all of my illustrations. If you opt to put your story text on a page next to your illustration, this will bump up your final page count. For example, if you had 25 illustrations and you added a page next to each with text, your final page count would be over 50 excluding your copyright page etc. If you added text onto your illustrations, it would stay at 25, excluding your copyright page etc.

Even if you think you know your final page count, I’d still advise not downloading a cover template yet. You might get halfway through designing your pages and then want to change something. Just outline each page with rough sketches first including your copyright page.

A paperback book always ends with a ‘left-side page’ so your paperback book is flanked by a right-side page at the beginning and a life-side page at the end. That’s two pages already you need to add to your final age count when downloading a cover template. Sandwiched inside of those two pages is your real body of content. So, in my case, I have 23 pages of content with an opening and a closing page on either side.

I believe this guide is everything you need to self publish a colouring book. If you want to and more importantly, if you’re in a position to, you can buy me a coffee using the link below as a thank you!

3. Get illustrating!

The next part is the fun part (and arguably the longest part!). Once you’ve got your storyboard down, start creating your images for your children’s picture book. As mentioned, I use a Samsung tablet with the app Sketchbook Pro. Whatever your method, create a blank canvas with your page size in mind. If you create your artwork digitally like me, you can convert your page size (from the cover template you want to use later) into pixels so you know what canvas size you need to create. You can do this by simply Googling your inches to pixels.

Because we will be selecting Bleed when we upload our book (which means our illustrations go all the way to the edge of the pages), we don’t have to worry about making our images the perfect size because we can always crop them later. Just focus on making your illustrations in roughly the right proportions. Again, 8×5 square pages made it easy for me. I just created a blank canvas which was 2000×2000 pixels. I ended up having to crop it up a bit to fit my page sizes but not too much. The bigger you make your images, the better quality they will be.

There’s nothing worse than making lovely illustrations and then realising they are too small later on. By too small I mean when you make them bigger they become pixelated. You’d be surprised how many pixelated books there are on Amazon by people who don’t know what they are doing.

If you want to add text to your illustration pages, make sure you design your images with plenty of space for text. I made the mistake a couple of times of making awesome illustrations and then I realised later I’d left no room for text!

As mentioned, to find out what size your illustrations should be in pixels, just head over to KDP and look at what cover size you want. When you know what the cover will be in inches you can then convert your inches into pixels. That will be the canvas size you need if you’re making your illustrations digitally.

4. Create your book!

After all your hard work and long evenings, it’s time to start making your book! To do this you can use Canva.com which is my favourite way because it’s free and it’s easy. Basically, Amazon requires you to upload your book as a PDF file so Canva will let you create one, page by page.

Canva is an online design tool that lets you create pretty much anything you can think of and export your projects in multiple different formats. If you don’t already have an account, sign up for a free one.

The first thing you’re going to need to do is to make a new project by entering your own custom dimensions. If we look at my book size, we know that it is 8.5×8.5 inches. However, when Amazon prints my book, they will be cutting off the trim along the edges. This means we have to make our book and page size slightly bigger to give them some wiggle room. The trim sizes we have to use are always the same.

The width needs to have .125 inches added on and the length needs to have .25 inches added on. This means my final dimensions on Canva need to be 8.625×7.75 inches. The below image demonstrates how I create a new canvas with the correct dimensions.

When you create a new project, make sure you set it to inches not pixels. Once you create your project you’ll have a blank canvas to work on.

6. Add your trim grid

The next step is really helpful because it allows you to constantly check if your image and text will be within the ‘cut off’ area or trim when Amazon prints your books. Essentially, when you get to the point where you can preview your book on Amazon, you’ll see dotted lines around the edge of your book that will show where your book will be cut off. All we’re doing here is replicating that grid in Canva so we know where to keep our elements.

Below is what I mean. To do this, I added square elements and then stretched them until they were the right sizes. As I mentioned, the first page of any book is always a right-sided page so we need to create it as such. This means we need to know how big we need to make the grid around the edge of the blank canvas. Amazon calls this area the ‘gutter’ but let’s not complicate things. All you need to know is, depending on if your page is left or right, you need slightly different dimensions around the edge.

Canva also lets you name your pages which is helpful because you can just duplicate these pages until you reach your desired page count by clicking on that 2-page icon above your design.

The top and the bottom of your right-sided page should have a grid that is 0.5 inches deep (for every page). The left side of the page should have a grid depth of 0.4 inches and the right side should have a depth of 0.5 inches. For a left-sided page, the left side should be 0.5 and the right page should be 0.4. Basically, the gutter is always deeper on the inside of the binding.

You could just skip this grid outline if you want but I find it useful so I know where I can add text and where I can’t. If your text goes outside of the grid space, Amazon will cut it off or reject your design when you go to upload it. The Amazon previewer will highlight anything in red that needs to be changed so you can always go back and change things before you hit ‘publish‘.

Before you start adding your designs, you’ll want to lock the grid outline you’ve just made by clicking on each icon and then clicking the locker icon for each. This ensures they won’t move around later on.

Once you’ve got your pages laid out how you want them, you can start to import illustrations to Canva. This is a simple case of going over to the left of your screen and selecting Uploads.

7. Upload your designs to Canva

The first page of my book is the title, copyright and my name information. The second page of the book is the first piece of artwork. This isn’t a golden rule but it’s how I like to do it. When you open my book, the title page is on the right side. When you flip the page you will see two pages of artwork next to each other and that is how my book looks throughout.

You’ll notice that the grids are on top of the illustrations which is helpful because they show the areas where you can put text. Your illustrations can go past these lines but your text cannot. If you put your text to the edge of your page, KDP will reject your manuscript when it comes to uploading it.

The great thing about Canva is you can add your text on top of your illustrations when using it by selecting text on the left of the screen. You can then move your text around and change the font to how you like it. I used Canva to add the details on my first page too.

The process of adding your illustrations and adding your text is very straightforward. Once you’re happy with your arrangement you’ll need to add content to the last page of your book which is always a left-sided book. For my children’s picture book, I decided to add a nice message. You won’t be able to leave this page blank so decide on what you’d like to add. Below is my example.

The next step in publishing a children’s picture book on Amazon is downloading your book from Canva. To-Do this, go to the top right of your screen and select Download. You’ll need to download your design as a PDF as this is the preferred format when it comes to uploading your book to KDP.

Before you self publish a children’s picture book on Amazon you’ll need to create your book cover. This can also be done in Canva and is very easy to do.

8. Create your book cover in Canva

Now you know your page count, you can go over to KDP and download a cover template. Go back and see how many pages your interior is. You’ll need to know when you download your cover template. When you find the right book size for you (that you designed your interior around) go ahead and download it. You’ll get a ZIP file that will contain a PDF and a PNG version of your cover template. It will look something like the below.

Your template isn’t just for the front cover though. It’s a book ‘wrap’ cover that includes your front cover, spine and back cover.

Hop back over to Canva and as you did with your book’s interior, select a custom design size. We need to make a design that will fit our template perfectly. To get the right size design, we have to do some math. You can’t just enter 8.5×8.5 because we have to take into consideration the red margin (which is the red area around the edges) and the spine down the middle. This means the design we work on has to be slightly bigger than we need it. KDP will trim the edges of your book when it is printed. Make sure you select inches when creating your new design.

If we use the 8.5×8.5 example above, the width of your canvas design should be 8.5 (front cover) + 8.5 (back cover) +0.125 +0.125 (for the red margin at either end) + 0.7 for the spine. This amounts to 17.45.

Note: no matter what size your book is, the red margin is always 0.125 inches on every side.

To calculate the height of your blank canvas, you need to add the height which is of course 8.5 inches and .25 (for the total red margin) to get your total so this will come out at 8.75 inches. Once you’ve done this you can then create your blank canvas on Canva and then upload your PNG template. You can then drag and expand your template to the edges of your blank canvas until it snaps to fit. If you’ve done the math right, it will fit perfectly when you expand it.

Now you can start designing your cover and back cover!

Before you add your images, you’ll want to click your template wrap and turn down the transparency. Once you’ve done that, you can click the lock icon to lock it in place. This means you’ll be able to see the guidelines as you design. It’s important to stay within the red lines and not put any text over these areas. You must also not design over the barcode area or your final design will be rejected.

Note: even though you cannot go into the red areas of your design with images or text, you can drag an image over the red line. I demonstrate this with the whale’s tail in my cover wrap example below.

9. Upload your children’s picture book to KDP!

Now you’re ready to self publish your children’s picture book so head on over to KDP. If you don’t have an account, setting one up is easy enough. You’ll then have the option of creating a paperback book, ebook or hardcover book. Select paperback and you’ll have the task of going through three pages to fill out the details of your paperback book.

Details: This page includes your title, subtitle and product description. You’ll also need to add some keywords that your customers might use to find your children’s picture book. You’ll also need to select a category for your picture book to live on. You can select up to two.

Content: This page is where you will upload your interior manuscript PDF. You’ll also upload your cover PDF. This page also has a book previewer that will let you flick through the pages of your book and will highlight any errors that you may need to fix. The previewer is great because it will also display your cover. You’ll get a good idea of what your finished picture book will look like.

Pricing: This page is fairly self-explanatory. Here you can decide on the price of your book. There’s no right answer here but you’ll want to keep it affordable. You can choose a 30% royalty or 70% royalty. If you go for the latter, you’ll have to make your book more expensive so there’s a trade-off.

10. Order author copies

The next thing I recommend doing is ordering author copies of your book before you hit publish. This will allow you to see if you’re happy with how your printed book looks before you publish it to the world. Author copies aren’t free but they are a lot less than the finished retail price and your book will have the wording ‘not for resale’ across it to show it is an example book. If you’re happy with your children’s picture book, you can log back into Amazon KDP and hit publish!

Once published, it will take 2-3 days before it shows up in Amazon stores across the world.

How to self publish a children’s picture book on Amazon – Conclusion

And that’s it! You’re now a self-published children’s picture book author!

Here are some common FAQ’s;

• Is it free to self publish a children’s picture book? Yes, if you do the cover and interior yourself. It can cost $100’sif you get someone to design your cover and format it for you.
• How many children’s picture books can you sell? That depends on your marketing. There’s a lot of competition in children’s picture books so you’ll want to find a way to stand out.
• What makes a good children’s picture book? I’m no expert but the picture books that seem to do well are the ones with funny titles and beautiful illustrations.
• How long does it take to make a children’s picture book? It can take weeks or months depending on how well you plan your book and how fast you can draw!

If you’d like to find out how to self publish a colouring book on Amazon, click here.