After sharing this dream come true project of mine, the biggest question I was asked was “how?”. Turns out, so many people have a dream of writing a book — which makes me happy to say, anyone can do it! Now with self-publishing, anyone can hold their very own book in their hands. To make answering this question easier for me, I decided to spell it out in this blog post rather than try & get all the information needed via direct messenger. If you have any further questions passed where this blog post goes, do not hesitate to reach out! I want this dream to come true for you, too. This blog post shares the three parts of creating & publishing your own book: writing, illustrating & publishing.

I realized as I typed out this blog post that it is SO hard to explain IT like this. If publishing your book is something on your dream list, I would love to help walk you through it on a deeper level. We can schedule a facetime or coffee meet-up if you are local.

Disclosure : This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I make a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links at no cost to you. This is made for full transparency.

In this blog post you will happily find…

+ writing

+ illustrating

+ publishing

But first… if you are interested in getting your hands on my special story, here you go!

Our Blue Abode, a Children's Book

Things to know —

You will need 2 files to upload. 1st will be your cover (the self-publishing program offers help with this!) & the 2nd will be your manuscript. Manuscript = the inside of your book.
Not every book needs illustrations for example chapter books. HOWEVER every book needs a cover. Again, the program offers some options or you can design your own using programs like Canva.
The publishing program will have templates to help with both the cover & the inside of your book if you need them.

more details on all of this you will find in this blog post, these are just key things

Writing your book.

skip to the point — Get it typed out. Whether this is on notes or microsoft, get a copy typed out. When you are ready to get it into manuscript format, you can edit it accordingly on an appropriate program. Chapter book = Microsoft/Google Docs. Picture book = Canva/Adobe.

This part will change depending on what type of book you want to write. Poem book, novel, picture book, or cookbook — you can publish anything!! I will talk more about picture books (children’s books) because that is what I did, but you can get an idea for whatever kind you are writing. A picture book carries more weight on the illustration end, whereas a novel you can get away with just typing away on Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Regardless, the program you decide to self-publish with will have an option to download a manuscript template. Manuscript = the middle part of your book. The templates, I found, only match those of chapter books. I had to kind of create my own thing for my book, but they still offered the dimensions for me.

Before we get that the finished part, the downloading documents that will be uploaded into the self-publishing program, you need to write your book. I wrote mine in the Notes app on my phone, actually. It was a rough draft, but an idea to get it started. Since I was doing a picture book, then I had to get my words onto a program that could also hold my illustrations. A chapter book is just words on a page, but a picture book has minimal words with lots of photos.

This is not going to be a lesson on how to actually write your book. That was for your English teacher. This is just on how to get your book into a book format to upload into a self-publishing site. If you are doing just a regular chapter-type book then I recommend Microsoft Word or Google Docs, but you surely can still use the program I used. You just don’t need all the features it offers since you only need words. Now if you are doing a cookbook, comic book, or anything that requires more design, I highly recommend Canva. Programs like Adobe will work as well, too!

I use Canva for all of my digital graphic designing. Create a canvas in the size you need according to the template from your publishing program, then upload your illustrations & your words for each page. You literally drag around your paragraphs wherever you would like them to go according to that page.

This all brings me to the illustrations part…

Illustrating your book.

skip to the point — if your book has pictures in it, you will need to have illustrations. You will also need to design a cover no matter what. Most publishing programs have cover creators, though, if you are not too picky on the design of it. if your book will have pictures in it, then you will need to use this method to get your manuscript.

Q: How are illustrations done?

A: They can be hand drawn & uploaded to a computer to be made into a digital file or you can illustrate digitally on programs like Procreate (iPad) or use programs like Canva & Adobe. Just know that if you use a program that has graphics & elements, you need to still make them into your own by putting elements together. You legally cannot just take someone’s designs & use them as they are. You must make them your own in some way. This is why I recommend drawing your own whether on actual paper or digitally on an iPad (I did this way).

Q: Who will be illustrating your book?

A: You can find illustrators to HIRE on Fiverr or Upwork or someone you know maybe can do it. You can also do it yourself to save money — this was how I did it despite how badly I did NOT want to illustrate my own book.

The inside pages

The Cover

Q: What do I do when I am done with my Illustrations?

A: If your illustrations are drawn digitally or on paper, get them uploaded to a program like Canva. Put the pages together with your words just like a book would be. I included a few pages of mine as an example. I also included how I did my cover. For my cover, I used their cover creator by uploading the front of mine & back of mine & they did the spine part for me. You can completely have them do the full front & back though too with their options to choose from. You will then download the manuscript (inside pages) into a pdf on your computer to upload into the publisher part. Which is the next part…

Publishing your book.

skip to the point — i SELF-PUBLISHED, i will SELF-PUBLISH again & i will recommend SELF-PUBLISHING. pick your self publishing program (examples below), upload your files, answer the questions & hit publish. Then you can order your very own copy that will be printed by the program/company you chose.

The two ways you can publish your book are through an agency or self-publishing. The difference? Time.

Agency: You can wait years for a publishing company to pick you up. Years. I am not sure the author royalties with this, but even if money isn’t your motivation (if you are like me the income isn’t even on your radar), you are at the liberty of an agency or company finding you & approving your book.

Self-publishing: You can do it right now. The author royalties are spelled out for you, programs have set-by-step instructions & you can very easily publish different versions of your book, you also decide the sale price. This is the route I took & here is more about it…

There are different programs you can self-publish through, I know of Amazon (KDP) or you can do Barnes & Noble Press, which is the route I took & I will tell you why. I wanted to go through Amazon because ordering through Amazon is so easy & everyone does it. For a buyer’s end, it is simple & I thought maybe more would sell that way. Again, money was not the motivation for this book though, which is why I chose Barnes & Noble.

Amazon has a minimum page limit of 75 to have a hard-cover book. I designed this book to not only tell a sweet story but to be a decoration on a bookshelf. Having this available in hardcover was non-negotiable. Barnes & Noble didn’t seem to have a page limit! Children’s books are’’t big so I knew I wouldn't have 75+ pages. Now that I started with BN, I will most likely continue, but hope to dive into Amazon as well.

Now HOW TO SELF PUBLISH. Just go to the website.

Amazon -

Barnes & Noble Press -

Follow their instructions. It took a little bit for me to wrap my head around, but I won’t be able to walk you through it any easier than how they have it set up for you, at least not over a blog post. They did a great job setting up templates & such for downloading the right size for things & such.

Information you will have to fill in when you publish is picking the categories your book will fall into, page numbers, about, author information & other contributors, you will have to pick your book size (there are tons of options), paper type & what kind of cover it will be, hardcover, paperback or ebook. Keep in mind you can do multiple versions of your book!

Here is a screenshot of what I did for my Children’s book through BN. I googled a lot of things for this. I searched what common options are chosen for my type of book. If you do a novel or autobiography, maybe look into what those books usually look like or find one in your home & compare it.

Uploading your book is split into two sections: your cover & your manuscript (the inside part of your book). The cover will be the outside front & back all in one document! I made my pdf versions, but the site will tell you your different options. Each program also had a cover creator set up to help you with this! You can also download templates so you know what size your document needs to be, what bleed dimensions you need, the location for the barcode, and all those things that will make sense when you get to this part of the process. I know this is so vague, but again, the programs have this part spelled out for you better than what I can do in a blog post. I will be happy to walk with you though if you need!!

After uploading, you will fill out all the information it asks you to, give you an ISBN number & then goes for the review. Keep in mind that uploading files takes a while & waiting for reviews & approvals takes days. They have timelines marked for you though.

Once that is complete, you will have a chance to order a copy yourself at just the cost of printing & shipping & then can set your book for sale! You get a link to your book & it is ready just like every other book out there. It is crazy!

MY BIGGEST TIP: Look up what normal books in your niche are. I did a children’s book so I looked at the ones we had for the size, paper type, categories, you name it! I did this for font sizes, words per page, page layout, literally everything.

Holding your book in your hands is a full heart kind of accomplishment.

I am sure there are so many other routes you can take, this is just the route I took & will continue to take if I publish others. My research included watching social media videos, reaching out to Facebook groups I am a part of & just plain Google. Choosing Barnes & Noble gave me a company I could trust because I have been to their own stores, they have actual customer service reps & are solely here to carry books. It feels cool to say I have a book with Barnes & Noble, too!