Self Publishing Helpful Links ⋆ Illustration Services

In this article there are some helpful links for self publishers

Several of my clients have asked me questions about page count and book dimensions when formatting their books. I have gathered some information that I thought I could share with you. Below are some links and other information that you may find useful. This first link takes you to Kindle Direct Publishing’s (KDP) website where there is a form to fill out that will give you a template for your cover. Kindle Direct Publishing was formally known as Create Space.

Link: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/cover-templates

Here you can choose from the drop down menu, “TRIM SIZE” and these are the book dimensions that KDP will allow. I use this page to get my template for the book covers I create for KDP. They have a minimum page count requirement of 24 pages to a book. So with a children’s book, if you have 12 pages of text you can have 24 pages total if you put text on one side and a picture on the adjacent page. You can also add in the front of the story a title page, a blank page, an ‘About The Author’ page, a ‘Dedication Page’, and at the end of the story you can add a ‘About the Illustrator’ page, and a page with a list of Coming Soon Books page..and anything else you can think of. I have included this information along with a screenshot for better understanding in this article.

These are just some ideas that will help give you additional pages.
Here is a link to templates you can use for your Interior if you are using Word to write your book.

Link: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201834230

INGRAMSPARK: If you do not want to use Kindle Direct Publishing ( KDP), there is also Ingram Spark that is a popular self publisher. Here is the Link:https://www.ingramspark.com/

They are not as simple to use as KDP, in my opinion, and they do charge a fee. Also, when you want your cover done, you will have to obtain a 13 digit ISBN- (which is the number that identifies your book that goes in the barcode with the price on the back of your book).You will have to enter all your book info into a place on the site to generate your cover template: Link: https://myaccount.ingramspark.com/Portal/Tools/CoverTemplateGenerator

Here is a link about ISBN numbers on their site:
https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/topic/isbn
( KDP provides you with an ISBN free of charge.)
Here is a link to a PDF with IngramSpark’s File Guidelines:
http://www.ingramspark.com/hubfs/downloads/file-creation-guide.pdf?hsCtaTracking=796aac66-1817-4964-8a0c-bb02c41f18f4%7C8a3f7ccf-5aa8-43fa-9399-e8da53f4d3e5

I do not think Ingram Spark has the 24 page rule, but they do require a page count to be a multiple by 2 so if you say, had a 11 page count , they will add a blank page at the end to make it 12. Also, they do want a blank page at the end so if your book is 24 pages they will add 2 blank pages at the end.
There is a lot to process here, I know! But once you get it figured out, it will become easier.

Once you get your book done and are wanting to promote it, you will probably want to have a website where you can display and tell about your book/books. Building a website is now easier than ever with so many website builders available. You no longer have to know HTML to create your own website! Here is an article that contains helpful information on the available site builders out there:

https://websitesetup.org/website-builders/

And here is a helpful link that has topics on website building. It has eight chapters starting from website building fundamentals and ending with How to measure success:

http://project-local.com.au/create-a-website

If Blog Writing is your thing, here is a link to a helpful article on writing blogs:

https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-start-a-blog/

I hope these links help you along your self publishing journey!
Have a great day!

Christina

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