If you're going to self-publish a colour book, read this first

[Rosen]

If you're already familiar with designing for print, ignore this post. It's for people who, like me, thought that setting up a colour book would be as easy as setting up a black and white book - it isn't.

IngramSpark asked for files to be uploaded in CMYK format. CreateSpace don't, but if you don't use this format, you may notice significant difference between books printed in the UK and US.

My advice is this:
Design in CMYK to begin with. Converting later is a nightmare and you're likely to see unexpected colour results. Similarly, research colour density and get that right from the very beginning.

As far as I can tell, CMYK is a format that specifies how much of each colour ink to use. If you don't upload a CMYK file, printers have to convert your file themselves, and the way this is done varies enormously from printer to printer, leaving potential for colour-conversion hell.

Also, if possible, use a design programme such as Adobe InDesign, and not Word.

I hope this is of help to somebody.

[Patti (baconater)]

You're always so helpful to others, darling. You rock!

I'm just going to pop into the author zone so it stays more visible for longer.

[Rosen]

Thank you.

[Patti (baconater)]

Pleasure!

Think I'll blame my frightful writing in my above post on being half asleep... ;)

[Katie]

I've found this video useful for working out ink density and changing to CMYK. I didn't do Famous Animals Volume 1 in CMYK and I'm not doing Vol.2 in CMYK either, but with a bit of jiggling, the colours came out pretty well when it was printed. You need Photoshop to use the advice on the video, but it's pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it.

The video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT30i...

[Tim]

Thanks Katie, that's a very useful video, even "just" for covers. :)