How to write Adult Coloring Books?

We’ve already covered

1. Why are Adult Coloring Books so popular?
2. Are Adult Coloring Books a good market to get into?

In this post, let’s go through actually creating an Adult Coloring Book. The steps and resources required

Very Important Note: There is No One Absolute Truth

1. This is just one way to write/create an Adult Coloring Book
2. There are lots of different ways to make Adult Coloring Books. Choose the method that works for you
3. Here is one very good example – DIY with Caitlin teaches her mother (and you) How to Create an Adult Coloring Book

That being said, we present a very structured method of creating your first Adult Coloring Book

The 7 Elements to Writing/Creating an Adult Coloring Book

There are 7 main elements to consider when writing an Adult Coloring Book

1. The Genre and Target Market
2. The Theme & Story/Narrative
3. The Illustrations
4. The Cover
5. The Book Design
6. The Book Creation
7. The Publishing

Let’s look at these, one by one

Writing an Adult Coloring Book – The Genre and Target Market

This is the single most important thing when deciding on what Adult Coloring Book you are going to create. It will make or break the endeavor

For Genre you want to make sure

1. It’s a genre/category you understand very well and enjoy working in
2. It’s a genre/category that has little to no competition
   1. There should be adult coloring books that are selling well (see next point)
   2. There should not be too many of them
   3. The quality of the ones doing very well should not be so high that you cannot exceed them in quality
3. It is not an unproven or impossible genre
   1. It should not be something so narrow or obscure that a market might not exist
   2. It should not be something where no sales happen
   3. It should not be a genre where people have tried and failed to sell adult coloring books

For Target Market, you have to remember at all times

1. Your primary target are readers who ALREADY buy and color Adult Coloring Books
2. You should understand these readers very well
   1. What they like
   2. What they don’t like
   3. What their expectations are
3. You should have a concrete plan for how you are going to get your Adult Coloring Book in front of them, and into their hands

Make it easy for them to see your book and buy your book … and they will (provided it is high quality)

Next, let’s look at theme and narrative

Writing an Adult Coloring Book – Theme and Narrative

You have to pick a theme for your Adult Coloring Book

1. Pick a theme your target audience will enjoy and be passionate about
   1. If your target market are yoga fanatics, pick a yoga theme
   2. If your target market like knitting, pick a knitting theme
   3. Pick some theme that will strike a chord with your target readers
2. Pick a theme that is proven to work for your Target Market
3. Pick a theme you are excited about, personally
4. Don’t pick a theme that is very difficult to work with
5. Don’t pick a controversial theme, until and unless you are absolutely sure you can make it work

You also have to pick a narrative (story) for your Adult Coloring Book

1. It is necessary to have some sort of narrative for your Adult Coloring Book, even if it is an implicit one
2. Not having a narrative is also a narrative
   1. Much better to set a narrative yourself, than let readers conjure up something themselves
3. If you can make a strong story/narrative, then it is very easy to create a SERIES of Adult Coloring Books and greatly increase your chances of success
4. Do not target tiny markets with your narrative
5. Remember that these are ADULT Coloring Books
   1. You might think it’s very cute to make an Adult Coloring Book that is Alphabets & Numbers
   2. Meanwhile the ADULT readers that are the market for Adult Coloring Books are more interested in Patterns and Designs and Flowers and Intricacy

In Step 1, you picked The Right Market and The Right Target Audience

In Step 2 (this step), you are picking The Right Product

Treat it very seriously, as Step 1 and Step 2 determine whether you will sell 10 Copies of your Adult Coloring Book, or 10,000. If you do an exceptional job in Steps 1 and 2, you can sell 100,000 or more

Writing an Adult Coloring Book – The Illustrations

The heart and soul of your Adult Coloring Book will be the Illustrations

1. Are they beautiful? Will readers enjoy looking at them
   1. Will readers enjoy looking at them after they are filled in?
2. Are they fun to color?
3. Are they interesting and challenging to color
   1. They should hold the readers’ interest
   2. They should be hard enough to be challenging, while not being too hard
   3. Remember, complete shapes are very, very important. There should be no breaks
   4. Remember, a lot of the beauty comes from patterns and intricacy
4. Whenever possible, you should have very, very high quality illustrations made by a professional illustrator or designer
5. Whenever possible, the illustrations must fit into a narrative (the story you have chosen for your adult coloring book)
6. The Illustrations must fit into the theme of the Adult Coloring Book
7. The Illustrations must appeal to your target audience and to your target market

The higher the quality of the illustrations, the more you will sell

The better suited the illustrations to your target market and your target audience, the more you will sell

Writing an Adult Coloring Book – The Cover

There are two key steps to creating a great cover

1. Picking the one Illustration out of all the Illustrations in your Adult Coloring Book which will sell the best
   1. This is another reason your illustrations should be really, really high quality
   2. Because the best out of them will work as your cover
   3. If it is high quality, it will sell you a lot of books
   4. Make sure it is in FULL COLOR
   5. Do not put a black and white line illustration on the cover. It must be beautifully filled out, or at least half filled out
2. Getting a Professional Cover Designer to make a cover from it
   1. Please resist the urge to take the illustration and butcher it yourself in Photoshop
   2. Get a Professional Cover Designer who will turn your high quality, beautiful illustration into a high quality, beautiful cover WHICH SELLS
   3. Again, it must be fully filled out, in bright colors

Both steps are absolutely critical

What sells best for Adult Coloring Books is having the best/most sellable illustration on the cover. In full color. Fully Filled out

Nothing else works as well

Writing an Adult Coloring Book – The Book Design

At this point you should have

1. The Narrative and the Theme
2. The Actual Illustrations
3. A Book Cover

Now you need to combine these into a Book

You need to learn about Book Design and make sure you create an Adult Coloring Book that is a complete whole. Everything should fit in well

1. Please read our post on What is Book Design
2. Please also read our post on Top 10 Book Design Software

Your two options are

1. Option 1: Learn about Book Design. Do the Book design Yourself
   1. Read up on Book Design and learn
   2. Look at some well designed books (from any category)
   3. Look at some well designed Adult Coloring Books (in the same market as yours)
   4. Do your Book Design
   5. Actually implement it
   6. Make sure it is as high quality as the bestselling Adult Coloring Books in your target market
   7. Get things ready for printing (or ebook publishing)
2. Option 2: Hire a high quality, professional Book Designer. Let them create a beautiful book design for your Adult Coloring Book
   1. Paint a very clear vision for them
   2. Then step back and let them do their magic

Writing an Adult Coloring Book – The Book Creation & The Book Publishing

This is a topic for an entire post of its own. Perhaps an entire book of its own

You will have to find some resources for How to Best Publish an Adult Coloring Book And How to Best CREATE an Adult Coloring Book (giving it physical form)

This post’s focus is simply on Writing/Creating an Adult Coloring Book up to the stage that it is ready to print and publish

Important Things to Keep in Mind – Writing/Creating an Adult Coloring Book

You selling your Adult Coloring Book to readers, like all transactions, is an EXCHANGE OF VALUE

1. You are providing VALUE in terms of giving the readers an EXCELLENT ADULT COLORING BOOK EXPERIENCE
2. You are getting VALUE back in terms of a price in dollars

You have to make sure you provide Ample Value and the Highest Quality

1. The Illustrations are the most important aspect and they should be very high quality
2. The Illustrations must provide PLEASURE and RELAXATION when they are being filled out
   1. They must also provide pleasure and be pretty to look at, AFTER they are filled out
   2. They must provide a sense of satisfaction and cannot be too easy or too hard
3. The Illustrations must be beautiful to look at
   1. This has an added benefit – Your Cover will be the best looking/best selling Illustration
   2. So by doing very beautiful Illustrations you automatically get a beautiful cover (provided you get a professional cover designer)
4. By making a good Book Design, you ensure it is easy for readers to go through the book and get value from it
   1. Good Book Design = Making it super easy for Readers to Get the Value Stored in the Book
5. By creating a strong narrative, you keep the readers in the flow of the book
6. By choosing THE RIGHT MARKET and creating THE PERFECT PRODUCT FOR THAT MARKET you ensure you are providing MAXIMUM VALUE and SATISFACTION to your target readers
7. Focus 100% on providing the most value, the best experience, the best coloring experience, the best relaxation

All the Best!