How to Make a Coloring Book to Sell on Amazon

What do you need before you start?

• A free Amazon KDP account, with tax and payment details filled in.
• A ColorCraft account. The 7-day free trial (a card is required to start it) includes 40 pages, enough for a complete 24-page book. Trial downloads are watermarked previews; the print-ready file comes with a plan (from $9/month), or you can unlock a single book for $24.
• An idea: a theme and an audience. If you don’t have one, Paige suggests niches for free, and our coloring book niche ideas post covers what publishers make most.

How do you make a coloring book for KDP, step by step?

1. 1

   Choose a niche and audience

   Pick a theme and who it is for, such as cozy woodland animals for kids aged 4 to 8, and check the competition on Amazon.

2. 2

   Start a coloring book with Paige

   Open Book Generation, then Coloring Books. Enter a title and a specific theme, pick the audience, art style, page count and page format, then click Draft prompts.

3. 3

   Edit the page prompts

   Read the list Paige drafts, reword, reorder, add or remove prompts, then click Looks good to render the pages.

4. 4

   Review and fix pages in the editor

   Open the book in the editor, redraw any page that is not right, and add more pages with the Prompt Generator if you need them.

5. 5

   Add blank backs

   In Print options, switch on Single-sided so every design prints on its own sheet. This doubles the page count.

6. 6

   Design the cover wrap

   Open Cover, choose a look, enter the title and author, generate the front art, add a back-cover blurb and sample pages, and export the cover PDF.

7. 7

   Write the listing

   Open Listing to generate a KDP-formatted description and 20 keyword ideas, then edit them.

8. 8

   Export the interior PDF

   Click Export PDF in the editor. The file is in KDP’s bleed format at 300 DPI.

9. 9

   Upload to KDP and publish

   Create a paperback on KDP, enter the details, choose black and white interior on white paper, your trim and Bleed (PDF only), upload both PDFs, answer the AI questions, approve the preview, set a price and publish.

The rest of this guide walks through each step in detail, with the settings that trip people up.

Step 1: How do you choose a coloring book niche?

Narrow beats broad. “Animals” competes with everything; “cozy woodland animals having a tea party, for ages 4 to 8” is a book a parent can picture. Search Amazon for your idea, look at the first page of results, and ask whether you can make something clearly better or clearly different. The niche guide has a full validation checklist.

Step 2: How do you set up the book with Paige?

Paige is ColorCraft’s AI book agent: you describe the book once, it writes a drawing prompt for every page, you check the list, and it draws the whole book. Open Book Generation → Coloring Books in the left menu, then fill in the Brief (every option is explained in Paige for coloring books):

• Book title and Theme & subject. Be specific about mood, characters and setting; Paige writes every page from this.
• Audience: Kids (4–8), Tweens (9–12), Teens (13–17), Adults or All ages.
• Art style: 11 to choose from. Kids Coloring Book (bold outlines, big spaces) is the default; the others are Standard Coloring Book, Cozy & Cottagecore, Intricate Patterns, Detailed & Realistic, Bold & Mature, Stained Glass, Anime & Manga, Minimalist Line Art, Dot Marker Pages and Single Subject.
• Page count: 5 to 24 on the free trial, 5 to 100 on a plan. This is the number of designs, before blank backs.
• Page format: 8.5 × 11 (default), 8 × 10, 7 × 10 or 6 × 9, with 5.5 × 8.5 and 5 × 8 under Show 2 more sizes. It can’t be changed after the pages are drawn.

ColorCraft coloring books can be made at 8.5 × 11, 8 × 10, 7 × 10, 6 × 9, 5.5 × 8.5, and 5 × 8 inches. KDP’s Set Trim Size, Bleed, and Margins page lists the trim sizes it prints.

Step 3: How do you review the prompts and render the pages?

Click Draft N prompts. Paige lists one prompt per page. Edit any of them, drag to reorder, add or delete rows (a book needs at least 5), or Re-draft all. Drafting is free. Good prompts describe a scene, not an instruction: “a fox sketching by a stream” beats “draw a fox”. The prompt guide goes deeper.

Click Looks good — render N pages. Paige draws three pages at a time; an 8-page book takes a minute or two and a 50-page book about ten. You can close the tab: rendering continues on ColorCraft’s servers and the book appears on your dashboard. Pages that fail are not charged.

Step 4: How do you fix and finish pages in the editor?

Click Open in editor. Flip through the page strip at the bottom and look at each page as a buyer would. Replace any weak picture from the Coloring Page panel, either with the same prompt or a reworded one (how replacing works). To add pages, the Prompt Generator panel drafts a batch from a theme and renders up to 10 at a time. Drag thumbnails to reorder.

Step 5: Should coloring book pages have blank backs?

Usually, yes. KDP prints on both sides of the paper, and markers bleed through onto the next picture. In the editor’s right sidebar open Print options and switch on Single-sided (insert blank backsides). The export then puts a blank page behind every design.

Set this before the cover: the page count sets the spine width.

Step 6: How do you make the KDP cover?

Click Cover in the editor’s top bar. The cover editor already knows your trim size, page count and spine width. Choose a look, check the title and author, then generate front art from your theme (each generation uses 2 pages of your balance). Add a blurb and sample interior pages on the back, keep the barcode space switched on, and click Export PDF for the full wrap: back, spine and front with 0.125" bleed. The details, including how the spine width is worked out, are in the cover editor guide.

Step 7: How do you write the Amazon listing?

Click Listing. The Listing Assistant writes a description formatted for KDP’s description box (bold and bullet tags included) and 20 ranked keyword ideas from your book’s title, theme, page count and size. It is free. Edit it so it is accurate (page count, single-sided, age range) and pick the seven best keyword phrases for KDP’s seven boxes. If you want lifestyle images for A+ content or Pinterest, the mockup studio makes them from your cover.

Step 8: How do you export a KDP-ready interior PDF?

Click Export PDF in the editor. The interior is in KDP’s bleed format: each page is the trim plus 0.125" on the top, bottom and outer edge (an 8.5 × 11 book exports at 8.625 × 11.25 in), artwork sits inside KDP’s margins, and the binding-side gutter widens with your page count. On the free trial the download is a watermarked preview; the clean file comes with a plan or a $24 one-time unlock of that book. Rename the files so they can’t be mixed up, for example KDP-INTERIOR_Woodland.pdf and KDP-COVER_Woodland.pdf.

Step 9: How do you upload a coloring book to KDP?

On your KDP Bookshelf click + Create → Paperback. Then work through the three tabs; the Print Previewer opens from the second:

1. Paperback Details: title and author exactly as on the cover, your description, up to three categories (for adult books, the Amazon store category Coloring Books for Grown-Ups, under Crafts, Hobbies & Home), and up to seven keywords. Leave the Low-content and Large-print boxes unticked.
2. Paperback Content: get a free KDP ISBN; choose Black and white interior with white paper, your trim size and Bleed (PDF only); upload the interior as the manuscript and the cover PDF as the cover; leave “my cover has a barcode” unticked; answer Yes to the AI questions.
3. Print Previewer: check the barcode sits in the white box, nothing is cut off, and every page is inside the guides. Approve.
4. Rights & Pricing: set a list price and check the royalty KDP shows, then Publish. KDP’s Timelines page gives up to 72 hours for review, or up to 6 days for an account’s first book.

The Upload your book to KDP guide covers every screen and the common errors. For pricing, see KDP coloring book royalties or try the royalty calculator.

How much does it cost to make a coloring book with ColorCraft?

A 24-page book with one cover and one mockup uses about 28 pages of your balance. Plans and allowances are on the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions