![]() ![]() To self publish a children’s picture book, we’ll be using Amazon KDP. I wanted that traditional kids book size I remember from my childhood. 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. If you are just a writer and you get your artwork done for you, this guide will still be useful. 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. No longer do you need to be signed for a big publisher. The great thing about self-publishing a children’s book on Amazon is that anyone can do it. 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. 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. However, after finally catching Covid and with nothing else to do, I knuckled down and got to work over Christmas 2021. For example, I didn’t understand what programs to use or what ‘trim’ and ‘bleed’ meant. 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. Review the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines section 3.6 and section 4.3.This year I finally figured out how to self publish a children’s picture book on Amazon. Please refer to section #2.5 Adding Text of KKBC user guide that will help you with creating pop-ups over text: ĭiscussion Thread from Amazon April 2016: Hopefully this helps, and if anyone with more experience or insights can add to what I learned the hard way, please chime in! I’ll modify the posting to reflect any input. If i had chosen to use a landscape (horizontal) layout, this is what I would have used: I left my text area blank and inserted text with the KKBP tool.ĮXAMPLES: NOTE that the border is NOT part of my image, it’s only here to outline the actual image area for clarity.That said, I made all my images as follows: The ‘preview’ isn’t really entirely accurate. Originally I didn’t understand that my image needed to be the size of the screen – I guess I assumed that the KKBP software would create the page sizes correctly, and somehow ‘insert’ my image where it needed to be.Įven after I figured out the right image size, I found that the KKBP software ‘previewed’ my book with vertical and horizontal scroll bars, indicating (I thought) that my image was somehow too large for the screen.Įventually, I realized that the KKBP software is suboptimal, and while it displays those scroll bars, the actual finished book works just fine. If you intend to insert text via the KKBP tool, you’ll still make your image the full size as per aspect ratio above, with a blank space for the text. TEXT: If your image contains your text in it as part of the image, add pop-up over text for optimum user experience (this is a feature of the Kindle Kid’s Book Publisher.) If you submit a larger file, it will take much longer to convert and may fail completely, so it’s better to stay below these limits. IMAGE FILE SIZE: The largest single image file KDP can accept is 5MB. RESOLUTION: Use a resolution of 300 dpi or 300 ppi for all images. ![]() Some pixel-specific resolutions which fall under this 8:5 ratio are, 3840*2400, 1280*8*1200. If an image has an aspect ratio is 5:8 that’s 5 horizontal units to 8 vertical units – Portrait orientation. Then, below that, you’ll find what I did based on that to make it work.įinally, there’s a few links listed for more info.ĪSPECT RATIO: Use an aspect ratio of 8:5 or 5:8 for the images to fit Kindle devices.Īspect ratio is the ratio of the width first to the height of an image.įor example, an image with an aspect ratio of 8:5 has 8 horizontal units to 5 vertical units – Landscape orientation. ![]() I did a lot of digging around, and it’s not at all well documented.īelow are the specs as per Amazon… mostly from discussion threads among users, rather than from Amazon themselves since their documentation sucks. Specifically, understanding exactly how big the images needed to be to display properly on devices, and allow for text to be added. Making my first picture book for Kindle was fun and frustrating. If you find it useful and want to pay me back, please consider getting yourself a copy of Angelico Goes To The Store – and please leave an honest review! This post is probably only of interest to other authors making picture books for Kindle with the KKBP (Kindle Kids Book Publisher.)
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