How To Publish A Gift Book
Do you have an idea for a gift book either to sell online or simply as something to share with your family and friends? Up until now I’ve either published my books traditionally or I’ve used print on demand services like KDP (for my novel and picture books) or Lulu (for my poetry). For this book project, I wanted to create something that was more like a mini piece of art.
Going right back to the beginning of this story, I didn’t set out to create a gift book. I started drawing hugs in 2020 to bring some comfort to myself and others. Over time I built up a collection of illustrations and began to imagine them gathered together as a project. I let the idea sit for a while as I wasn’t quite sure how to present them. Then it struck me, I was drawing them because I wanted to share the idea of how hugs make us feel. So I asked the question online, “How do hugs make you feel?” And I was amazed at how many different replies I got. Loved. Safe. Nurtured. Home. Happy. And many more. Suddenly the project made sense. With the words and illustrations, I could create a book. I used Procreate on my iPad to handwrite the words and started to pair them up with my illustrations.
Having used print on demand services before for my books, I initially went down that path. However, although there are many choices, after printing a couple of proofs, none of the formats offered by KDP or Lulu felt quite right. I wanted this book to be extra special and to feel like a real treat. I left the project for a while to give myself a little more time to think.
After a couple of months, as it so often does, Fate gave me the answer. I was taking a five hour train journey for work, so I bought a couple of magazines for the journey. One of them I hadn’t seen before, it was called Popshot. It was full of short stories, poetry and gorgeous illustrations and I was struck by how lovely the print looked. It had thick, lovely paper and a beautiful, uncoated finish. It was exactly what I’d been looking for for my Hug book. I did a little research and found that the magazine was printed by an independent printers called ExWhyZed. I loved how they described themselves as ‘run by creatives, for creatives’. Suddenly it felt like my options had opened up.
I abandoned the idea of printing the book on demand and committed to the idea of investing in a small print run. The next obstacle was to create the print files. I’m a complete amateur but I love learning and finding ways to proactively create things myself. Ideally the book would have been created using Adobe InDesign but as I don’t yet have those skills, I found a workaround using Photoshop and Adobe Acrobat. I chose my ideal print size, 120mm x 170mm and worked out how many pages the book would be. I then referred to the printer’s templates to figure out what width the spine for the cover would need to be. I created one Photoshop file for the pages and one file for the cover, including space for the bleed and trim (areas that allow for the colour to run over the whole page). I then created each page as an individual PDF and collated them together in Acrobat so that I had one complete file for the pages. All of my original hug illustrations had white backgrounds but as I collated them together, it felt like they needed a lot more colour so I played with backgrounds in Photoshop. Ultimately I simply went with my instincts about what colours felt right and also added colour to my handwritten words to give the book a coherent feel. I should note that this was simply my workaround while I learn to use InDesign! One drawback was that I couldn’t figure out how to add crop marks to the pages. These are required to show the printer where to trim the paper. Luckily, the team at ExWhyZed were happy to help with this for a small additional fee so do ask your printer if there’s anything you’re unsure of.
Based on the specifications of the magazine I had seen, I chose uncoated paper with a weight of 170gsm and a cover of 350gsm with a matt lamination to ensure the finish felt more book-like. As this was my first gift book project and my first time working with the printer, I also paid an additional fee for a hard copy proof, rather than just a PDF proof. I’m glad I did this as it reassured me that I was going in the right direction.
Once I’d approved the final proof, I ordered a box of copies and it was so exciting holding them in my hands and giving them to friends and family. The Hug book is for sale now in my shop. I hope that you love it and that it might inspire you to create your own gift book too.
