Send the artwork and the text, and we hand back the files your printer will accept: a print-ready interior, a cover wrap with the spine calculated from your final page count, and an EPUB if you are selling the ebook as well. Built for Amazon KDP, IngramSpark and Barnes & Noble Press, whether or not we illustrated the book.
Most books come back in two to three business days.
Formatting is its own job. It does not matter who drew the book, or whether anyone drew it at all.
The artwork is finished — yours, ours, or another illustrator’s — and it needs to become pages a printer will take without sending the file back.
Chapter books, workbooks and activity books. We set the type, build the pages and keep the reading age in mind while we do it.
Then formatting is already built into the project. It is the last stage of every illustration job here, not a separate invoice.
Take all of it or any single piece.
Every page laid out to your trim size, with bleed where the art runs off the edge, margins that clear the gutter at your page count, and 300 dpi throughout.
Front, spine and back as one file, with the spine width worked out from your final page count and paper stock. Under 80 pages the spine prints blank — that is KDP’s rule, not ours.
If the cover itself still needs designing, that is book cover design.
A reflowable EPUB for Kindle, Apple Books and Barnes & Noble, with the images sized so the file stays small enough to deliver.
Choosing and placing the text itself: typeface, size and where it sits on each spread, so it never fights the illustration underneath it.
Rejected uploads nearly always fail on the same handful of measurements. These are the ones we work to. If your printer publishes different ones, we use theirs.
| Bleed, interior | 0.125 in on the top, bottom and outside edges. Never on the spine edge. |
|---|---|
| Outside margin | 0.25 in minimum, or 0.375 in once the art bleeds. |
| Gutter, 24–150 pages | 0.375 in |
| Gutter, 151–300 pages | 0.5 in |
| Gutter, 301–500 pages | 0.625 in |
| Spine width, white paper | page count × 0.002252 in |
| Spine width, cream paper | page count × 0.0025 in |
| Spine width, premium colour | page count × 0.002347 in |
| Text on the spine | 80 pages and over. Below that it prints blank. |
| Image resolution | 300 dpi at final printed size |
| File format | PDF for interior and cover. IngramSpark takes PDF/X-1a:2001. |
For an Amazon KDP paperback, using KDP’s own paper thicknesses. Hardcover and IngramSpark are built from their own templates, which we download per book — the figures below do not apply to those.
Spine width is page count × paper thickness: 0.002252 in white, 0.0025 in cream, 0.002347 in premium colour. The wrap adds 0.125 in of bleed on every outer edge. Page count must be even, and a paperback needs at least 24 pages.
KDP’s figures, current in October 2026. For IngramSpark we download their template for your exact trim size and paper stock for every book rather than working from memory, because their spine allowance moves with the stock you pick.
The artwork at full size, the text, your trim size and the printer you are using. If you do not know the trim size yet, tell us the book and we will recommend one.
Resolution, missing bleed, art that stops short of the trim, text sitting in the gutter. You hear about every one of these before any work is billed, not after the upload fails.
Interior, cover wrap and EPUB, each to the specification of the printer you named.
You see a proof PDF and mark anything you want moved. Corrections at this stage are part of the job.
Two to three business days for a standard picture book, counted from the day everything we need is in hand. If a printer rejects a file we supplied, we fix it at no charge.
Formatting is priced on the page count, how many spreads carry full-bleed artwork, and whether you need the EPUB as well as the print files. Send the book and a firm quote comes back within one business day. If we are illustrating the book, the formatting is already inside that quote.
If the book is not drawn yet, we illustrate from the manuscript up — what a full illustration project involves, and the stages it moves through. You can also see a book followed from first rough to printed page.
What the printing itself will cost you afterwards is a separate question, and our guide to what it costs to print a book covers that side.
Yes. Most formatting-only jobs come from authors whose book was drawn somewhere else, or who have written a book with no illustrations at all. We work from the files you already have.
The artwork at full size, the text as you want it to read, your trim size and the printer you are using. If any of those are still undecided, send what exists and we will tell you what the decision changes.
Two to three business days for a standard picture book, from the day everything we need is in hand. A longer book, or one where the artwork has to be re-sized to a new trim, takes longer and the quote says so.
We fix it at no charge. A rejection is a specification problem, and meeting the specification was our job.
Yes. Chapter books, workbooks and activity books are all straightforward. The type is set properly rather than poured into a template.
Yes. The EPUB is reflowable, built for Kindle, Apple Books and Barnes & Noble, with the images sized so the file stays small enough to deliver.
Yes, calculated from your final page count and paper stock. Page count moves the spine width, so the wrap is built once the interior is final.
Send the artwork and the text and you will have a quote back within one business day, and the finished files two to three days after you accept it.
Tell us the page count, the characters and your deadline. We will send back a quote and a timeline within 24 hours.
Start your briefTakes about three minutes. No obligation.