I Have Art! Now, How Do I Get a Children's Book?

A Quick Peek at Indesign

You have art! Hurrah! You’re ready to create your children’s picture book?

But how do you put the art into a children’s picture book? You need professional software to do the design and layout of your book. There are specialized programs that are meant to allow you to take raw art, add the text, and produce the print-ready pdf.

DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT ART?

When you commission an artist to produce the art for your picture book, you should require art at 300 dpi, (dots per inch, a measure of the quality of the images; artists will understand this requirement). Printers need a pdf with art at 300 dpi for good print quality. Art that you see online is usually 72 dpi, good enough for viewing on a screen, but if you try to print that image, it’s blurry and pixelated.

It also needs to be in a CMYK format. There are two ways to discuss art, depending on whether you’re viewing it on a screen or printing on paper. CMYK means Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK, the colors of the ink used to print on paper. But on a screen, you don’t use ink; instead, you combine light. So they use RGB, or Rad, Green, and Blue. When you commission art, it should be delivered in CMYK format so it prints well. You can later use Photoshop or a similar program to translate to RGB for ebooks and any online promotions.

Let’s assume that you have the art in the right size, at 300 dpi, and in CMYK format! What next? How does that art become a children’s book? I’ve recorded a quick video to give you a peek at what Indesign or other layout and design programs do.

Why is the video behind a paywall? Because it takes time to record the video and when you support this blog with a paid subscription, then it makes possible for me to spend that extra time creating educational videos for you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber!