📚✨ Epic Book Creation Software & Advice

We had such a beautiful Book Club convo this week with

From Midjourney to Nano Banana, ImagineArt, to writing, editing, and beyond your characters, creatures, and magical worlds are stunning.

But the big question that came up was: 🧐 “How do I actually build the book? And then promote it?”

So whether you're writing, illustrating, formatting, or doing it all yourself here’s a full round-up of top tools that our community recommends for creating, designing, and publishing children’s books (especially if you’re using AI artwork).

🛠️ Best Tools for Writing & Formatting Children’s Books

🎨 Canva

Beginner-friendly, drag-and-drop design with loads of book templates. Upload your AI images, add your text, and export print-ready PDFs. Amazing for visual books and quick layout.

💡 Tip: Use Canva’s “Presentation” or “Storybook” templates as a starting point for spreads.

📘 Book Creator / Book Builder

These web-based tools are made for interactive and visual stories.

Book Creator → Great for classroom use, teachers, and young readers. Add video, audio, and voiceovers.
Book Builder → Designed for accessibility and learner-friendly reading design.

Both are perfect for first-time authors or educators.

📖 Story Jumper

A favourite for interactive children’s books with easy-to-use layouts. Add your AI art, or use their own image library. Great for publishing both print and digital copies.

Super intuitive. Great for non-designers!

💻 More Advanced Tools (For Print-Ready Layouts)

🧩 Affinity Publisher (Mac only)

Part of the Affinity suite (with Designer + Photo). A powerful desktop app for combining text and full-page AI illustrations with pro formatting features.

✍️ Atticus

Designed specifically for authors. Easy-to-use book formatter with clean exports for KDP. Great for text-based books or simple layout workflows.

📚 Adobe InDesign

Industry standard. Powerful layout options and complete creative control — but with a steep learning curve. Ideal for picture books, workbooks, and graphic-heavy projects.

🧠 Ulysses (Mac/iOS)

Perfect for writers — a minimalist writing app to keep your chapters organized and focused. Easy exporting and a dream for long-form work.

📱 Procreate / iPad Apps

If you’re creating illustrations yourself — this is the go-to for digital drawing. Combine with desktop tools for full layout control.

✏️ Tips

✅ Keep each page or chapter in a separate file during editing

✅ Watch your file sizes, AI images can get heavy!

✅ Export test copies early and check print layout

✅ Use KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) to self-publish for free

✅ Vellum is amazing for formatting but Mac-only

✅ iBooks Author is now discontinued (RIP!) Apple now recommends Pages, but it’s quite limited

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