Guides

How to sell coloring books on Amazon KDP

By the create-ebook team · Updated 2026-09-20

Step 1: choose a theme you can fill and a buyer can find

A theme has to survive two tests. First, can you name 24 different drawings inside it without repeating yourself? "Animals" passes on paper and fails in practice, because pages two to twenty end up as variations of the same animal. "Farm animals with their babies" gives you a list on the first try. Second, would a buyer type it into the Amazon search bar? Nobody searches for "beautiful designs to relax"; people search for "mandala coloring book for adults" and "dinosaur coloring book for boys 4 to 8".

Write the theme as a sentence with three parts: subject, audience, style. "Bold line dinosaurs for children aged 4 to 8." That sentence becomes the title, the cover, the page list and the keywords.

Step 2: build the interior file

• Trim size: 8.5 x 11 in unless you have a reason to differ. It is what buyers expect and what most coloring book art is drawn for.
• One drawing per page, no text on the page, no page numbers over the art. A title page and a short "this book belongs to" page at the front are normal.
• Single sided: put a blank page behind every drawing so markers that bleed through do not ruin the next picture. That doubles the interior page count, which is expected in this category.
• Black and white interior on white paper. Line art on cream looks dull and colors sit badly on it.
• Export a print PDF with fonts embedded and the art at 300 DPI. Amazon rejects low-resolution images at upload, and line art shows pixel steps sooner than photos do.

If you generate the pages with create-ebook, the coloring book format lays out 12 to 24 full-page drawings on US letter and gives you the print PDF and a cover image. Pay per book, no subscription. The pages you see before unlocking the book are watermarked previews.

Step 3: the listing

1. Title and subtitle: subject, audience and what the buyer gets. "Dinosaur Coloring Book for Kids Ages 4 to 8" with a subtitle naming the page count and the big, simple outlines.
2. Categories: go as deep as the tree allows. The shallow craft and hobby categories are unwinnable; the specific children’s activity and adult coloring branches are not.
3. Keywords: seven boxes, 50 characters each, filled with phrases buyers type. Do not repeat words already in the title, and do not use other books’ titles or brand names.
4. AI disclosure: if the drawings were generated, you tick the AI images box at upload. It is a KDP form field, it is not shown to buyers, and skipping it is the kind of thing that gets an account reviewed.
5. Description: what is inside, who it is for, one line on single sided pages, one line on the trim size. Buyers of coloring books read those two details before anything else.

Step 4: proof before you publish

Use the digital previewer for the obvious errors, then order a printed author copy. Two things only show on paper: drawings that sit too close to the gutter to color flat, and lines that print thinner than they looked on screen. Color one page in with a marker and hold it up to the light. If the bleed-through ruins the next drawing, your blank pages are doing their job, and if you skipped them, you now know why not to.

Step 5: the first sales

A new coloring book with no reviews sells to nobody by accident. Three things move it: a cover that reads at thumbnail size, a category small enough that a handful of sales puts you on the first page, and a second book on the same theme. Sellers who make a living here have catalogues, not hits. Publish the third book before you judge the first.

Give copies to real people, parents at a school, a care home activity coordinator, a teacher, and ask for an honest review. Never buy reviews and never ask family: Amazon links accounts and removes them.