The Complete AI Coloring Book Journey! From Creation to Publishing

This is your friendly guide to making and publishing your own AI-powered coloring book! This document explains the exciting process of making your first image and then seeing your book live on Amazon, all with the help of great tools like MidJourney, Canva, and Amazon KDP. Let's get going

The Big Picture: Your Journey Through the Coloring Book

Making and publishing your coloring book can be like going on a thrilling three-part adventure:

Midjourney is excellent at turning your ideas into pictures. You will use Midjourney to create all the wonderful images for the pages of your coloring book, as well as an engaging cover.

Once you have your pictures, Canva can help you put them together in a neat way to make a beautiful interior and a stunning cover that will grab people's attention.

Letting the World See Your Work on Amazon KDP: Finally, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is where you can upload, manage, and sell your awesome coloring book to people who want it!

Midjourney (Your Image Wizard!) lets you be creative.

MidJourney is the best place to get all the pictures for your coloring book.

Getting Started: Licenses and Memberships: You need a paid Midjourney membership to sell your coloring book. The license is very important because it gives you the right to use the pictures you make for business. You will also need a Discord account to use Midjourney.

Making the Pages for Your Coloring Book:

The Magic Command: To use this command, type `/imagine` followed by a text prompt that tells the program what you want.

Prompt Power: For instance, you could type, "an image of a friendly monster cartoon drawing for a coloring book with clear black lines at three two inches." The most important thing is to say "crisp black lines," which is great for coloring!

Saving Your Treasures: After MidJourney makes pictures, choose the ones you like best! You can click on the picture (like "U1"), open it in your browser, right-click, and choose "Save As" to save it to your computer.

Page Count: Your coloring book should have at least 24 to 25 fun pictures on the inside.

How to Make Your Cover Stand Out:

Prompting for Pop: You'll use a command like `/imagine`, but this time you'll change your prompt. You will tell MidJourney that you want "vivid color" and "kids illustration" instead of "no shading" to make a bright cover.

To save your masterpiece, pick the cover image you like best and save it, just like you did with the interior images.

Putting Together Your Masterpiece with Canva (Your Design Friend!)

Canva is the friendly place where you can put all the parts of your book together.

Canva Membership: To start, you'll need to sign up for a membership on canva.com.

Making Your Interior Pages:

Canva has "pre-made Amazon-ready KDP templates" that are very useful. These let you easily "drag and drop your images" into the right spots!

Adding Your Touch: You can also change "image names" and add things to the template to make your book even more "engaging and educational for children."

A Little Housekeeping (Important!): Before you save, make sure to "delete the red layer frame on the first disclaimer page" in the template. This is a very important step for KDP.

Saving for Success: When you want to download your interior, click "share then download." Choose "PDF print flatten PDF color profile CMYK best for professional printing" from the dropdown menu. This will make sure that your book looks great when printed.

Making Your Amazing Cover Art:

Cover Template: You can also use the "pre-made cover art template" to make designing a cover easy.

Getting to Know the Pages: The template has three pages to help you:

Page 1 shows you how to arrange your cover art.

Page 2 has a "red layer frame." Be very careful here! Don't put your front cover in the red frame, or your artwork might be turned down.

Page 3: This section is where the fun begins! You will "customize the back cover color," "upload the front cover," add your "book title," and include the "author's name."

More Housekeeping (Very Important!): Please ensure you "delete the red layer frame and the first and second images" from the template before saving your cover.

Publishing Your Book on Amazon KDP (Your Bookstore Around the World!)

Your coloring book takes off and is available worldwide on Amazon KDP!

How to Set Up Your KDP Account:

Easy Access: Log in to kdp.amazon.com with your Amazon account (or create a free one).

To get paid for your sales, it's "important" to "set up your payment information in the account settings" early.

To add information about your book and upload it, follow these steps:

To start a new book, click "Create a new book."

Tell the world about your book: You'll need to give all the "required details for your book," such as the title, author name, description, and keywords. These help people find your book!

Choosing Categories: Pick the right categories for your coloring book so that it comes up in searches that are relevant.

To upload your files, just click on "upload ebook manuscript" or "upload paperback manuscript" and choose the file from your computer. This is where your PDF for the inside goes.

Previewing and Setting a Price for Your Masterpiece:

See It Before It Goes Live: Before you launch your book, use the KDP "preview tool" to "review your book and make sure everything looks good."

Setting Your Price: "Set your book's price and royalty options," keeping in mind how much you want to make and different ways to price your book.

Where to Sell? Pick "worldwide or specific regions" for where you want to sell your book.

ISBN (Good to Know): An ISBN is "not required for ebooks, but it may be required for some distribution channels or if you plan to sell physical copies."

KDP Select (not required, but useful!):

KDP Select is an "optional program that offers additional promotional opportunities," like Kindle Unlimited, but it does "require exclusivity for your ebook."

Sending in and looking over:

Getting Close! "Click on "Publish Your Paperback Book" to send your book in for review."

The Review Process: KDP will look over your submission to make sure it follows their rules for content and formatting. "This usually takes up to 72 hours."

Living and Loving It! Your book will be "available for purchase on the Amazon Marketplace" once it is approved. Yay!

How to Take Care of Your Book After It Comes Out:

Flexibility is key: authors "can always make changes to your book, update the content, or modify the pricing after it's published." KDP gives you the tools you need to manage and market your outstanding book.

A smooth publishing process!

Here are a few friendly tips to help you make and publish your coloring book without any problems:

You need a commercial license: don't forget that you have to pay for a Midjourney membership to use it for business.

Templates Are Your Best Friends: Use the Canva templates for both the cover art and the pages inside. They'll save you time and make sure everything is ready for KDP.

PDF Print: The Secret Format: Always, always, always download your final book interior from Canva as "PDF print flatten PDF color profile CMYK" to get the best quality when you print it.

Be Careful of Red Frames! Seriously, be very careful when deleting or avoiding those red layer frames in Canva templates. They are essential for KDP to accept.

Preview Carefully: Make good use of that KDP preview tool! Before your book goes live, this is your last chance to find any small mistakes.

Page Power: Give your readers a lot to enjoy by giving them at least 24–25 coloring pages.

Happy making and publishing!

SnugAcademy