How to Format a Picture Book for Createspace

How to Format a Picture Book for Createspace


okay so before I dive in and go over the
steps for laying out pictures and the text for you create space book, there are a couple of key points that I want to point out as regards the illustrations. I’ve got
example here and one of the illustrations from my wafflehoffer
curious maple book and as you can see the illustrator has put the little foal really
close to this line here a little bit will be cut off when the book
is actually being printed out it will be cut a little bit and then this will be
the fold this is actually going to be the fold of the book so what will happen
is kind of the part of the tail will be missing so I didn’t want that to happen
so make sure when you create your images that you can center the image so that
when it actually goes to press and the books printed out that nothing
gets chopped off. It doesn’t matter about the trees see the trees cropped off
here that doesn’t matter about the tree being cut off but the main characters in
your book you don’t really need them chopped off so just make sure that
characters are kind of centered or away from the edge so when the book is bound
you don’t have part of their body missing off. And the other point I
want to mention is make sure when you write your book and you have your
manuscript and everything that you have it professionally edited. That
way I should say the worst thing that can happen is you don’t bother having
your book professionally edited your book goes up on Amazon and someone reads your book and they notice all these editing issues or grammar issues and
they give you one star review and that’s it that’s already damaged your book so
other people that come along and look ebook they can see the one-star reviews
so that is that really good encourage them to buy your book I don’t think so,
so have you booked professionally edited. Make sure it’s laid out properly and the
editor laid everything out correctly. The editor will make suggestions, now it’s up to you
as to whether you act on those suggestions, it’s your book it’s your
manuscript so if you don’t like what they put then leave it that way
and just let them know that you want to keep it that way and just help make sure
that they actually correct it for grammar that’s what I highly recommended
is have it professionally edited you can have it done through create space. It costs about three hundred dollars to have it done through create space and it’s definitely worth having that done. Alright, so that’s a couple of tips so let’s get to how to
format a picture book for a create space. Don’t forget to watch my other video
when it comes time to publish your book make sure you watch my other video which
is called how to self publish a children’s picture book using create
space. Make sure you watch that one because it goes through step by step on
the whole process of publishing your book to create space. Okay, so let’s get
started so what we start with is we go to google and we type in picture book template for createspace. Alright, and then what we need is createspace community interior template we access the template through here scroll
down the page and then you select this is actually a format for novels, chapter
books and things like that here is this this is for the picture book so what we
need to do is go down to whatever trim size our book is going to be. For my wafflehoffer books my trim size was eight and a half by eight and a half so I’ll do is go
across here and click on this and download the actual template. So now
let’s open that up, okay, so get the basic template now what I’ve done here is this
is the information it’s just a one page so of course like with when you work in
word the more content you put on here that it will add more pages. What I want
to show you here is when I’m laying out an image, let me show you the the wafflehoffers here this is how I’m laying it out so I actually
have my opening page I copyright my ISBN number and my
dedication and then I start with the chapter and I start the layout out here.
The easiest way to see the actual layout is and how it’s set is to click on
this the tab here and let me just go back to the first page as you see you
can see the little tabs here so it’s for the positioning, position
everything so there’s the positioning so that helps you as regards layout let me
just go back to that first page again so the way it starts out with me click on
this and you can see it already puts in the positioning of this, the little tab
alright so when you delete this what’s already in here before you start typing
as you can see you just start typing this does not go away even if they try
to remove it the tab will not go away so no matter how much you start typing and
watch start typing see it always stays there so just remember that when you’re
actually typing. So, let’s remove that and no matter what it just
stays there so the best way I’m going to click out of this start doing the layout
I set my format so what it helps me is to actually also use under view the grid
line because it’s important just because you saw publishing a book doesn’t mean
to say that it has to look self publish you need to look make it look as
professional as possible so I found that by using the grid and the little tabs
it helps me position my text and my images the way I’m laying out book is
image text in you see image text image takes image
text so putting in an image into platform I click within the page I can
see all the little tabs even though of nothing on here the tabs
are here. So, what I do to bring in an image is go to insert click on picture and then go
to the file where my pictures kept and I keep everything in a particular folder
so nothing is up so I’m now going to bring in my latest image which is just
17 so I click on that clicking insert alright so I send it up over here I need
you on this page so what I’m going to do is it’s already selected I click on
position and then I’m going to click on tight what’s important here is this
template is eight and a half by eight and a half so what I need to make sure I
do is make sure the picture eight point and I add all them also make an eight
point five three just going to go about eight point five three then I grab hold
of this and move it over to the page and there it is so as you can see the
pictures in position we went over well but if need be for the picture is in
position where I need to do okay alrighty so that’s in position we’ll go
over maybe a little bit okay so I moved it over a little bit so now
it’s exactly where I needed to be the picture now for the text going to once
again just click in there click on the page right now it’s positioning itself
there I found the easiest way to keep track of when I’m put publishing a book
is to is when I’m copying the text is when I copy it is to just highlight each
section so I don’t duplicate the content all right so I need your highlighter
the text that you need I click copy and I usually do is once I’ve taken a copy you
will highlight that so now I’ve copied that over go back to my document and
then I paste it in so as you can see right now it’s actually right it’s not
positioned correctly also the text is smaller than I want to be so once again
highlighted again make sure the font size is the correct size you need to be
within the book first of all I need to make sure it’s got some more space. So I’m going to move it over move it in another half an inch the same
here going to position it in from the side
now wait does the indentation as its supposed to be displayed and it also saw
when the book is bound the text is pretty much centered. It’s the
book will be cut a little bit there’s the binding going to be here so it’s
nice enough with me I shall make sure that all your pages are positioned the
same – they’re all indented exact for the same distance from that edge as well
as that edge that all are indented exactly the same that way when the turn
from page to page it looks much more professional. All right, now as you can
see I’m starting my text a certain distance down – so that’s when you look
at the book – you want to each turns the page the text should be positioned
exactly the same you don’t need to be looking for the page or down or
searching on the page for each where your text begins
that’s finally be going to be do little images all over the place that’s going
to happen but if you like to begin with when you start doing a createspace book
and start publishing yourself start simple.
Start with one image on one side and the text and the other and the more you get
familiar with the layout and using word and you can get a lot more creative and
get a little fancy with it with the display. If you’re proficient at word then
by all means jump right in and start doing a little pictures here and there
within the text and everything else like that but if you’re not familiar with
word and the layout and help to position things just start simple and just start
with a picture on the left and the text on the right. So, you can see I’m actually
all my text starts the same distance down. All start so many squares down that
actually it’s 18 squares downs little tedious doing this but it actually
starts 18 squares down so I will position this now the best way to do
that of course is to just do enough jot it down just click the the enter key
to make it drop down and then we need to just unfortunately it also is as I
mentions a little tedious but count the square so I want 18 squares 1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 so you can see 18 squares right there I’m a
little too high either go like that it’s going to go too high up so what I need
to do is use these old tabs if you highlight these two tabs using your left
mouse what you can do here is make the font smaller you see how about jumped up
and that’s going to follow too far so let me take you throughout 9 now the
looks a little too small so let’s try 10 even maybe 11 okay so that’s I
found that to be the easiest way to change the position of my text to push
it down is to use utilize these little tabs and use the text size that way the
text will go up and will go down perfect it’s exactly where I needed that to be
18 squares down position correct so that’s all set there then I will save it
and then get my next image click on that and then just keep going throughout
things so hopefully that’s helped you a little bit if you have any questions
just contact me but that I found is the easiest way to layout my book for
createspace using word thank you

Only registered users can comment.

  1. Thanks so much for posting this. I've needed help navigating CreateSpace for a children's book and this was a big help.

  2. Great tutorial! Quick question- when you set up your pages using the tutorial, did you add extra measurements on the "page setup" to account for the bleed? For example, making every page larger than 8×8, or did you just make the images larger?

  3. Once your done formatting how do you get rid of the little paragraph signs and the dots between the words, does it do that automatically or do you have to do something?

  4. Hi how do you use RGB for print on Microsoft Office word 2007 for children picture book so the picture is better?

  5. hi please my kids writing a story book . and i need a help how to do the cover printing and publish. what is first thing i should do? is that any way i can talk to you my email or phone thanks . [email protected] my email

  6. Thank you so much!  This was very helpful!  I have a dumb question.  Could you walk me through how you got the multiple page view that you started the tutorial with?  As I practice and type in a few random words, I hit the enter key several times to start a new page.  Then I insert a page break right while I sit at the beginning of the new page? Then I put in a random picture.  After doing this several times (words then picture), I tried doing "View" multiple pages, and mine did not look like yours.  Yours seems so much easier to work with.

  7. Do you choose bleed or no bleed when uploading your books to Createspace that have some large images that cover the whole page?

  8. I got a response back when I uploaded my pictures, I need to add 1/8 inch to the edge, how do i do this

  9. I can't seem to get rid of a large white margin only on the top and left sides of the page. All margins are set to .5". When I resize my photo to be .3 bigger than the template size, it cuts off part of my photo and positions itself towards the lower right corner. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

  10. how are you adding pages and formatting them 2 pages in a row? Also, if the page is 8.5, how is making the picture bigger than 8.5 doing anything since it gets cut off at 8.5 anyway?

  11. Please may I ask – how do you maintain DPI in your pictures in Word? Createspace want 300DPi and I keep losing this Thank you

  12. Thank you for walking me through this. I hired a designer for my last two children's books as you know can be costly. Keeping my fingers crossed for my next children's book that your YouTube video is going to help me tremendously.

  13. How much space do I need to allow at the inside page margin to make sure that important picture elements aren't cut off? 1/2 inch? more?

  14. I'm really having trouble when inserting the picture it's not reflecting the way it should be. I think the person from fiverr I used made it to long (landscape) how do I edit it to reflect your size if I'm using 8.5 x 8.5?

  15. Great tutorial! When you submit a manuscript do you submit the illustrations with it too? What if I don’t have chapters and it’s more of a poem, which format should I follow?

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