I thought that is was time to write an update about my fairytale book project, Below the Floor. 🙂

Everything is going well, I have finally finished all (yes all!) of the illustrations I need for the content pages of the book, which was a huge milestone for me and I´m extremely happy, that it has finally been done. At the end, I coloured all of the illustrations, also the smaller ones, which I initially had planned on leaving in black and white (like the Mud-Skrat and the grumpy door knocker).

A Mud Skrat

I still need to draw a cover illustration, but that should not take so long, as I already have scribbled down some rough sketches and the direction in which it will go is fairly clear.

Also, I already did a rough layouting of the book with all the text passages and illustrations in it. I initially had thought, that the printed book would be anywhere near 30 pages, but considering the margins, text size, line spacing and needed white space, it will be anywhere from 100 to 120 pages. Sure, the font will change as well as the line breaks and some other details, but it is foreseeable, that the book will have around 100 pages.

A grumpy door knocker

I have already sent a printready file of the mockup book to a book printing company, because it is always something different reading a book on a screen and reading it printed on paper. And after three rounds of sending the print files back and forth (the company needed the file with a different bleed than noted in their technical specs), I think that we are ready to go. If you are wondering what a bleed is: It is the area of the printed page that goes beyond the print size and is trimmed off. Having worked in media for a decade and a half pays off, that way I can safe some money doing stuff like that myself. 🙂

Two eightlings

I am really happy, that some friends of mine who have backgrounds in (script-)writing, agreed to read through the manuscript and will tell me what they think about it. So I am awaiting the mockup books to arrive. In the meantime I´m studying for the next exam at University.

In my next article, I will post some of the errors I have made and lessons I have learned creating my first book – considering these will save me (and hopefully you) some time in the creation of the next children’s book. So stay tuned. 🙂