2026 Updates on Creating ePub Files from Children's Picture Books
Finally! A simple, effective method.
Publishing children’s books means dealing with fixed format ebooks, a strange hybrid sort of ebook. Ebooks for novels are reflowable, that is, the text can move from page to page without affecting the way a reader consumes the novel. Readers can change the font size to fit their needs and the novel still reads well. However, children’s picture books depend on text placed exactly on a page, often on top of an image. If a reader tries to change font size, the story becomes incoherent because text and images don’t match up. The answer is a fixed format ebook, which keeps text and image together.
NOTE: Report on Bookshop.org and D2D partnership. Yesterday was the official announcement that indie authors will be able to put ebooks on Bookshop.org through their D2D account. When I checked today, I was disappointed. They will NOT accept Fixed Format epubs. Children’s picture books won’t be represented on D2d unless you use reflowable epub format, which is inappropriate for a text with lots of images.
To create a fixed format ebook is hard. I’ve written about this several times, but there’s a new software that might make it easier.
Creating a Fixed Format eBook
For years, I’ve been hand-coding ebooks because it creates a strong fixed format ebook and offers the smallest file size. First, I export page images from my book, embedding the text into the images, thus bypassing the problems of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to produce the exact placement of text. Then, I use ImageOptim to reduce the file sizes, and then put it into the hand-coded book. I learned that if you use images that show spreads instead of pages, it further reduces the file size.
Why does file size matter?
File size only matters on Amazon, because they charge a download fee of about $0.15/MB (varies by country) if you choose the 70% royalty rate. A fixed format epub from a picture book can easily be 20 MB or more. Indeed, if you go over 8MB, you should instead choose the 35% royalty rate because it doesn’t charge that download fee. Also, if your book is in Kindle Unlimited (KU – Amazon’s subscription ebook program that allows for certain promotional activities in exchange for an exclusive listing), then file size doesn’t matter.
So, my goal has been to create a fixed format ebook with the best layout and design that also has a small file size.
However, for children’s books on Amazon, in December, 2025, ebooks were only 3.8% of my income. I rarely put my books into KU because my ebooks are other markets.
Maybe, my criteria needs to change: save time, and make the ebook process easy. For paid subscribers, I’ll explain my new, simple, effective method.