Children's book design service

Will you create all my artwork?

In most cases, the illustrations are already created before we begin. Creating custom artwork for a children's book is a very specialist task and is usually done by an illustrator working across the full set of pages. Our role is to take that artwork and turn it into a finished book, preparing each page for print and making sure the images and text work together properly. If your illustrations are not yet complete, or you are still exploring options, feel free to get in touch. We'll advise on how best to move forward and prepare everything for design.

How do I prepare my illustrations?

To work well in a children's book, artwork does need to be carefully prepared. Things like quality, color, bleed, trim, text placement and the binding all need to be considered. But you don't need to worry about any of this when sending your files over, as we take care of it as part of the design process. Just send us the highest quality version of your artwork and we'll handle the rest. However your artwork has been produced, we can almost always put it right with the tools we use every day. For more about preparing and managing illustrations and other graphics, see creating a set of book images.

Can I request changes?

Absolutely, feedback is part of the process. We begin with a short sample, and you can request as many design tweaks as you like. Once you are happy, we complete the rest of the book. At the review stage we fix anything that does not match the approved sample at no charge. Other edits are billed at our standard rate, from £0.75 each if added clearly as pdf comments. All changes subject to a £30 minimum fee. After we have supplied the final print-ready file, further changes are still possible but they will cost more, as the files must be regenerated and resubmitted to your printer.

What about a book cover?

Our book formatting service covers everything for the inside pages. The cover is prepared as a separate file, but for children's books it often comes directly from the interior artwork rather than a new design. We can usually adapt or extend one of your illustrations to wrap around the book, which makes the process simpler and often less costly. Once complete, we prepare the final cover PDF to the printer's size, spine and binding specifications. If you already have a cover, we'll ensure your interior works with that. If not, please visit our cover design service page.

Is an ebook included?

Our book formatting service prepares your book for print. Many authors later decide to publish a digital edition as well, but this is a separate product. While most fiction and nonfiction titles are converted into reflowable ebooks, a children's book needs to keep its layout exactly as designed so the words and pictures stay together. We can create this as a fixed layout ebook or interactive PDF that displays just like the printed book on tablets such as iPads. For more please see our ebook conversion service page.

Can I have the source files?

Your project will be delivered as a print-ready PDF. Source files (such as InDesign or Photoshop files) can be provided if required, but they are not straightforward to edit, require specific software, and may rely on licensed fonts and imagery that cannot be included. Changes made without the correct setup can affect layout or print compatibility, so we generally recommend that any updates are handled by us. If you still require your source files, we can package these for £30 per file.