Just like you and your complex system of bones and skin, a book has a structure that holds it all together. From its cover (skin) through to the way the pages (bones) are formed – and even who does what role in the book-creation process – a book is a fascinating being.
Let’s start with the cover. A book cover needs to be a snapshot of what you’ll find inside. It needs to be dynamic and attractive because that’s what encourages people to pick it up. And we know what happens then … they might read it or even buy it, and then the author can make more books!
Let’s have a look at the cover for An Aussie Year (EK Books, 2014), written by me and illustrated by Tina Snerling. This book went through a range of cover ideas, and most books will do that because everyone needs to agree – from the illustrator through to the sales people – on what might be the most attractive cover for the book’s readership. And, of course, a readership is you! For An Aussie Year, the readership age is roughly age 5 – 12. So we needed to consider a broad age range.
Here are some of the cover ideas Tina came up with…
First, above left, is a calendar showing a month of the year. As the book is set over an entire year, we thought this was a fun idea. Then, above right, she played with having polaroid photos representing each month of the year.
Tina’s other idea, above left, was to have four strips showing the seasons of the year – again, all relating to the 12 months in the life of Aussie kids. Next, above right, was to have all the book’s characters on the cover, with one section having all five characters together as one.
We really liked the polaroid idea, so Tina put Matilda on the cover with photos of scenes through the book. BUT, as this book was designed for children of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, and genders, we knew that having a young blonde girl on the cover wasn’t inclusive enough. So, Tina created the cover without a character, just the polaroid camera. And it just didn’t work. We don’t relate to cameras, do we? We relate to other humans.
So, this is the cover she came up with in the end, and it’s perfect in every way. We knew that children of all backgrounds and walks of life would reach for this cover. It has just the right amount of people and internal story-peeks to make it intriguing.
When we finally entice someone to open the cover a book, the next thing we need are some fabulous endpapers. Some books don’t really make the endpaper a feature (I know! SHOCK!) but I love them. On the left, below, you will see an idea I had for the endpapers for An Aussie Year. Tina came up with this design, right, after she’d finished the illustrations for the book, and don’t they look sensational? This is what we went with in the end. They make for a bright and happy start to the book.
Now, to the pages of the book.
Most picture books have 32 pages, and illustrations, story and information can be featured on one single page – or across a double-page spread. Below, you’ll see a double-page spread for January. Each page and spread goes through lots of drafts, before deciding on the final illustrations, the text placement and the layout. Of course, layout means the way everything is laid out on the page. This is one of my favourite things to do as a book creator.
You can see how much the layout changed as the book progressed. There were probably a dozen versions of this spread.
Now, for An Aussie Year, Tina created the illustrations digitally, on her computer. For See Hear (EK Books), illustrator Jess Racklyeft took a whole other way of creating.
The first thing she did was sketch the illustration, bottom left, then transfer it onto watercolour paper. She then painted the image, below right, scanned it in the computer and added a digital background and text.
And here is the final image, which was set into InDesign by the graphic designer/layout artist. InDesign is like a digital book template, where all the pieces are added and the pages are assembled before heading off to the printer. The designer added some beautiful text, and this is the actual image that was sent to the printer …
Jess did the same thing for all spreads, including this one:
So you can see that these images were created with both hand-rendered art and digital art.
I also wanted to show you the cover and endpapers for See Hear, because it’s so much fun to see how and why these things are produced. See Hear is a little bit different in that it’s a picture book that has two sides to it. See (about seeing things) runs one way. Hear (hearing things) runs the other way, and the story meets in the middle. Jess had to create not one but TWO covers, and it may surprise you how much thought goes into covers (and every single aspect of a book).
Jess came up with this sketch for the two covers. She thought deeply about how to combine the text and the illustrations in a way that represented each word. For Hear, she created a trumpetlike contraption that could be ‘heard’. For See, it was a telescope that could be ‘seen’. Then she added the three book characters in the most charming way.
Jess also thought deeply about the backgrounds for each cover, and replicated those backgrounds on the endpapers. Can you guess which of these endpapers belonged to See and which belonged to Hear? (Hint for your little brother or sister: Have you heard of the phrase ‘seeing spots’?)
As for the centre of the book, where the two stories meet in the middle (because I know you’re dying to ask!) – here is what Jess did… First a sketch which was scanned in. A digital background was added.
Then Jess added her watercolour-on-paper images, and added some digital torchlight, lamplight and stars.
Lastly, the layout designer added all the text and prepared the file for print.
And you’ll see that no matter which direction you read this book, the two stories meet in the middle, and this ‘final’ spread can be read either way up … from the See side or the Hear side.
Isn’t that clever?
All these tiny little details add up to make a book whole. Each thought, each additional element, each clever surprise or layout decision makes the book stronger. It gives it bones.
I hope you enjoyed this little peek at those bones that make a book. Let me know if you have any questions – just leave them in the comments! I’m half way through my blogfest here on WestWords, so be sure to ask me questions while I’m still here!
Tan
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