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