🚀 Quick Start: Your First Book In Four Steps

A coloring book is the quickest way to see the whole journey from idea to print files. It runs on Pollinations, the free image provider that works with no key, so you can start the minute your licence is active.

This walk through follows Ella from yoursite.com as she makes Dinosaur Friends Coloring Fun, a 30 page coloring book for ages 4 to 8.

Step 1, open the wizard:

1. Go to AiX Publisher in your WordPress menu and click the New Book tab.
2. Under What kind of book are we making today, click the Coloring Book card.

Step 2, describe your book:

1. Type a title in Book Title, or leave it empty and the plugin names it Coloring Book for now.
2. In Your Idea / Premise / Main Character, describe the theme. Ella typed: Friendly cartoon dinosaurs having fun adventures: picnics, beach days, birthdays and starry nights.
3. Pick an Art Style. Classic Cartoon suits most coloring books.
4. If you see the box Lock a character for this book, untick it for your first book. See The Character Consistency Engine for when to use it.
5. Click Next.

Step 3, pick the page count and create:

1. Number Of Pages fills in with 30 for a coloring book. Keep it, or type any number from 4 to 300.
2. Read the trim note under it. For a coloring book it says the book is 8.5 x 11 inch, and that bleed, margins and gutter are set for you.
3. Click Create Book.

Step 4, watch the pages arrive:

The wizard moves to step 4, Generate. The progress bar and the line under it count the pages as they finish, and a grid of page cards fills in. The cover comes first, then page 1, page 2 and so on.

You can leave the screen. The background queue keeps working, about three pages a minute. When every page is done the panel says Your Book Is Generated, with a Continue To Publish button.

Review before you publish:

Look at every card. If a page is not right, hover over it and click Reroll. Only that page is made again, in the same style. See Rerolling A Bad Page And Editing Page Text.

Build your files:

1. Click Continue To Publish, or open the Publish tab and pick the book in the selector at the top right.
2. In KDP Listing Kit, click Generate Listing Kit. This needs a text AI key. If you have none yet, skip it for now.
3. In Export Print-Ready Files, click Build Export Files and wait. The button says Building files... this can take a few minutes.
4. Click each download button: KDP Interior PDF, KDP Cover PDF, Digital PDF (Etsy / Gumroad) and Pages ZIP.
5. Follow the KDP Upload Checklist at the bottom of the page.

How long does it take?

The queue works through about three pages a minute, so a 30 page coloring book with its cover is ready in roughly ten to twelve minutes. A journal is quicker because its inside pages are drawn at export time and need no images at all.

What to do next:

• Add a free Google AI key to make story books and to let AI plan your pages. See Connecting An Image Provider And The Keyless Option and Text AI Keys: The Writer, Listing Kit And Rewrite.
• Check your paper type in Settings before you export, so the spine on the cover matches the paper you pick at KDP. See Spine Width, Paper Type And The Wraparound Cover.