Design Your Own

Welcome to the publishing process! You’ve selected Option 1, the process in which you will design and publish your family memoir project with our guidance and resources! 

Step 1: Select Your Template

Below you will find two Canva templates we’ve made for you. You can use one of these or opt to design your own from scratch. 

Note: If you opt to make your own design, the dimensions are 4.25 in x 6.87 inches.

Here are your pre-designed templates:

• Template 1

• Template 2

Canva is known for being user-friendly, even if you don’t have any design experience at all! We suggest playing around on a blank template to learn the ropes. 

If you’d like a brief tutorial on the ins and outs, click here.

Step 2: Design Your Book!

Drag and drop your photos into the uploads folder on the left side. Be sure to have your text document open to copy and paste into the template. 

You can duplicate and edit the existing pages if you have additional content, or design additional pages (see the icons at the top of each frame to duplicate, add, and re-order the pages). 

Be sure to look at the design on 100% view to ensure everything is legible and make sure that you have a 0.5-inch margin around everything to ensure nothing is cut off in the printing process. 

Note: As you move things around, a pink box appears in the center. Try to keep your elements within the box.

Step 3: Review!

Once your design is complete, download it as a PDF and review it. We invite you to have someone else review it, too.

Make any necessary changes and download it again.

Step 4: Publish!

We will be publishing using Kindle Direct Publishing by Amazon, formally CreateSpace. This is a very efficient and cost-effective platform! 
While the process is quite intuitive, you may want to check out this step-by-step video tutorial. Click here. 

Step 5: Order Your Books!

Decide how many books you’d like to buy and put in your first order!