How to

Pagination for Children’s Books

Children’s books tend to follow a similar structure throughout the publishing world. Use the list provided below as a guide to help plan your children’s books pagination. There are lots of possible variations to this sample pagination, but it provides a basic structure on what pages to include and important details you may want to include. 

Page count

Most kid’s books are 32 or 40 pages (though this is just a guide, they can be shorter or longer). If you plan to traditionally print or publish your book, the page count needs to be divisible by 8. This is a requirement of trade printers. If you’re printing by Kindle Direct Publishing or Ingram Spark only, then your book just needs to be divisible by 2.

Reminder: Be sure to think of your book in spreads. The first page of your book is a single right hand page, but the rest of your book contains a series of spreads with 2 pages facing each other. Each page of a kids book can be a separate artwork, but since kids will view the whole spread at once, it’s nice to intermix artwork that spans the whole spread. The last page of your book is a single left hand page.

A sample pagination based on a 40 page book

Note: Odd pages are on the right hand side of your book and even pages are on the left

• Page 1: half title page
  • this is often where the title will go with some kind of visual element
  • This could also be a dedication page or just a visual
• Page 2-3: full title page 
• • This is a larger title page that has the full title information with the author name and illustrator name
• Page 4-5: dedication
  • If you chose to put your dedication on page one, or you would prefer not to have one you can omit this spread
• Page 6-37: your complete story is contained within these spreads
  • It’s up to you if you want to start your story on a right hand page or if you want to start it with a full spread (both right and left facing pages)
  • I personally think it’s nice to have your story end on a full spread (2 pages) rather than on a left hand page. That way the final moment in your story isn’t facing a blank page or any other distracting content.
• Page 38-39: author/illustrator bios and headshots 
  • You don’t need to include a headshot, but if you do consider having illustrated headshots that match the style of the book as a fun detail or use a professional photo
  • This could also just take up one page, and the facing page could have a visual
  • Possible additional content that you may want to include here could be an activity for kids that relates to the book, a note for parents, additional supporting information or links if the book is on a difficult topic, or teaching guides for how to bring the learning of the book into the home or classroom
• Page 40: copyright page 
  • I like to put this at the end of kids books so it’s not the first thing a kid sees when they open the book 

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are printing with Kindle Direct Publishing or Ingram Spark, the last page of your book needs to be blank to pass the proof review stage. This is where they put their own barcode which is different from the one you have on the back cover.

Sample pagination layout. With your illustrator, you can draw boxed on a piece of paper like this to plan your own!