A coloring book is one of the simplest things you can publish on Amazon KDP: no chapters to write, no editor, and a printed paperback at the end. It is also one of the most crowded. The books that get bought are the ones that were made for a specific person and printed properly, so this guide spends most of its time on those two things.
1. Decide who it is for
“A coloring book” is not a product. “Cosy garden scenes in bold lines for adults who want to relax” is. The more precisely you can name the person and the mood, the easier every later decision becomes — the style, the size, the title, the cover and the keywords.
- Age. Young children need big shapes and thick lines; older kids like more detail; adults vary from easy relaxation to fine, intricate scenes.
- Theme. Animals, gardens, seasons, a hobby, a place. Narrow beats broad: “ocean friends for 4–8 year olds” is easier to find than “animals”.
- Mood. Calm, funny, cute, spooky. It decides the drawings and the cover.
Search Amazon for your theme and look at what is already there. Plenty of results is not a reason to give up — it means people buy it. Look for what the existing books do badly, and make that the reason yours exists.
2. Pick a trim size
The trim size is the finished size of the page. It is fixed before you lay anything out, because it decides the shape of every drawing. These are all standard KDP paperback sizes:
| Size | Shape | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 8.5 × 8.5 in | Square | Adult and gift books; drawings that suit a square |
| 8.5 × 11 in | US letter | The classic big coloring book; kids’ books; lots of room |
| 8 × 10 in | Slightly smaller | A more compact book that still feels generous |
| 6 × 9 in | Travel and on-the-go books; smaller, simpler designs |
For more on the trade-offs, see which coloring book size to choose for KDP.
3. Work out the page count
KDP will not print a paperback under 24 pages. A coloring book reaches that faster than you might think, because of one choice: whether each drawing gets a blank back.
Printing on one side is the norm for coloring books, because markers bleed through paper. Each drawing then takes two pages — the drawing and its blank back. Add a title page and its back, and 12 drawings printed on one side make 26 pages: just over the minimum. Printed on both sides, the same 12 drawings make 14 pages, which KDP will not accept.
| Drawings | One side (blank backs) | Both sides |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | 26 pages | 14 pages (too short) |
| 20 | 42 pages | 22 pages (too short) |
| 30 | 62 pages | 32 pages |
| 40 | 82 pages | 42 pages |
4. Make the drawings
There are three ways to get the pages: draw them, pay an illustrator, or generate them with AI. Whichever you choose, the same rules make a page good to colour:
- Closed shapes. Every area someone might colour should be enclosed by a line. Gaps let colour “leak” and frustrate people.
- Line weight that fits the reader. Thick lines and big shapes for children and relaxed adults; finer lines only where the book promises detail.
- No grey, no shading. Pure black lines on white. Grey tones print muddy and leave nothing to colour.
- One style across the book. A book where every page looks like a different artist made it reads as cheap.
- Print resolution. Line art needs to be crisp at 300 dpi at the finished size. A picture that looks fine on screen can print with soft, jagged edges.
If you use AI, check every page at full size before it goes in the book. Look for broken lines, shapes that do not close, odd hands and paws, stray text and anything that does not match the theme. Redraw the ones that fail; it is the difference between a book people finish and one they return.
5. Build the interior PDF
The interior is the file of pages, without the cover. It needs to be one PDF at exactly your trim size, with every page in order.
- 1Start with a title page, and leave its back blank.
- 2Place each drawing on its own page, with a margin all round. Keeping the art inside the margins means you can choose “no bleed” at upload, which is the simpler and safer option for line art.
- 3Add the blank backs if you are printing on one side.
- 4Check the page size of the finished PDF matches the trim you will select in KDP. A mismatch is the most common reason a file is rejected.
6. Make the cover
A paperback cover is one wide image: back, spine and front. The spine width depends on the page count and the paper, so the cover can only be finished once the interior is. Two ways to do it:
- KDP’s Cover Creator builds the wrap for you from a front-cover picture, a title and a back-cover blurb. The simplest route for a first book.
- Make the full wrap yourself in a design tool, using the exact width for your page count. The KDP spine width calculator gives you the numbers.
Either way, the front has to work as a thumbnail the size of a postage stamp, because that is how most people first see it in search results. Show a real page from the book, in colour, with a short title that says who it is for.
7. Upload it to KDP
- 1Details: title, subtitle, author, description, and keywords that describe the theme and the reader (“dinosaur coloring book for kids 4-8”).
- 2AI questions: KDP asks whether the book contains AI-generated text, images or translations. If the drawings were made with AI, answer yes for images. It is part of the upload form, not printed in the book.
- 3Print options: your trim size, white paper, black ink, no bleed (if your art stays inside the margins), and a matte or glossy cover.
- 4Files: upload the interior PDF and the cover, then open the previewer and look at every page.
- 5Pricing: set a list price. KDP shows the printing cost and what you would receive for each sale before you publish.
Then order an author proof copy if you can. Holding the printed book is the only way to see whether the lines are thick enough and the paper takes markers the way you hoped.
BookArc plans the pages, draws them in one style, and gives you the print-ready PDF and the cover.
See the coloring book maker8. Publishing is the start, not the end
A new coloring book on Amazon is one of a great many. The people whose books sell treat publishing as the start: they look at what searches bring buyers, improve the cover and the description, make a second book for the same reader, and share real pages where their readers already are. None of it is quick, and none of it is guaranteed — but it is the work that the book needs.
How BookArc helps
You describe the theme in a sentence and choose the age, the style and the size. BookArc plans a page idea for each drawing, which you can edit, then draws every page in the same style as 300 dpi line art, with blank backs if you print on one side. Any page you don’t like can be redrawn or edited, and the cover is drawn in colour. Each page costs 2 credits. The download menu gives you a KDP print-ready PDF with a title page, the front cover as a PNG, every page as an image, and a home-print PDF — and warns you if the book is still under 24 pages.
