Custom Made Children's Book as Christmas Gifts

alexw

Hello SVS Learn friends!

I'm working on a children's book my mother made. She gave me some quick sketches and some ideas 2-3 years ago and I want to make it a real book with my own illustrations.

I'm not that rich, budget is $50 max maybe. I was thinking of making 2 or 3. One for me, one for my mom and maybe an extra for marketing or something like that.

The book is for Christmas mainly.
Do you guys know of any custom vendors that I could use soon in time for the Holidays? The picture book would be square I imagine, at least landscape style.

Thanks so much!

Jeremy Ross

Hi @alexw , yeah - for 1 or 2 copies, just print them using Shutterfly or Walgreens Photo. If you were thinking of making it available for mass public distribution, you might consider Amazon POD KDP.

TheresaMuth

@alexw Congrats!!! For a Paperback, I would use Amazon KDP. You could "publish", order a few, then take it down.
Or if you want a hard back book, I did a test book using Ingram Spark. It was very nice, and I think you could to 2 or 3 copies for under $50.
https://www.ingramspark.com/

makekong

I agree with Jeremy, going local is a great idea as this is a heavy shipping season and gives you more time to work on them. Then you can have more time to do a nice hardcover later on, and they can regift the first print to someone.

alexw

Thank you @Jeremy-Ross @makekong @TheresaMuth for your suggestions! This is extremely helpful! I appreciate you all!

I feel equipped now to make a decision!

Fey Realme

@alexw I hope you keep us in the loop as the story develops! Are you going to do it in black and white? Or maybe 2 colors? There's not too much time before December--good luck!

alexw

@R-Fey-Realme Good morning!

My color palette is rainbow, I just recently finished the thumbnails. Now I'm going to do some re-draws of the thumbnails to get a clearer direction for each of the pages. It'll be about 12 or 14 pages, and at this rate I don't think I'll be able to have enough time to have refined, printed books. But we'll see.