How can I publish a book for my nephew?

Question

I am making a children's book for my nephew as his christmas present. He is the main character and I plan on writing the story and doing all the artwork. I want the finished product to look professional, but I don't know how to do it. I have a sort of rough draft with the illustrations done in cardstock paper. I thought about making copies of those on a color printer and folding it up to make a kind of homemade paperback book, but I'd really like something that looks more professional. I can't find anything on-line except services for writers wanting to publish and market their books, but I just want one book for my nephew. And I want it to be my illustration and writing so it is more personal, so any service that creates a storybook for you is no good either. Does anyone know of a service that will publish just one copy of a book? Or do you know anyway to craft a professional looking book yourself at home?

Answer 1

I can do it for you. My husband and I just started our own home-based business, Vaughan Instant Publishing, LLC. We are focusing our business on small print runs (and yours would be very small). :) It would give us an opportunity to help you - and get more practice doing what we really want to - printing books.

I am actually looking at printing individual books for all of the children in our family for Christmas, so I know what you mean by only wanting one copy.

Typically, we'd prefer to do the whole project digitally so that we can control the page sizes and the paper your story is printed on. I'm sure we could work something out, though.

You can contact me at: Carla (at) vaughan-instant-publishing.com (replace the "at" with a @). I have to do it that way or I'll get spammed to death.

This whole project doesn't have to cost a fortune, either. I'm thinking less than $20 for a small book (5" x 7"). The cost depends on what kind of paper you want to use (cardstock or glossy double sided, etc) and how we decide to do the cover of the book.

It will be "perfect bound" so that it looks like a book you picked up in Borders or Barnes and Noble.

Very cool. I can't wait to see what all we can do with this. :)

Best of luck no matter what you decide to do.

Answer 2

This website has instructions on making and binding your own book...hope it helps. www.american.edu/Irvine/ericka/cover2html.