This document provides instructions for self-publishing a comic book by turning individual comic pages into a printed book. It outlines a 7-step process for using Adobe InDesign to arrange pages and print a booklet. For those without InDesign, it describes manually arranging pages side-by-side in a graphics program and printing them. Finally, it discusses adding a cover, stapling, folding, and other printing options through online services.

1. S elf Publishing
Or, making your comic into a book

2. S o you made a comic
And you thought maybe you could sell some
copies
Or perhaps you just wanted to give one to a
friend
Either way, you want to make your comic into a
book

3. If you have adobe in design
Then this isn't going to be t o o hard
STEP 1: SCAN ALL OF YOUR COMIC
PAGES. UNLESS THEY'RE ALREADY
DIGITAL. THEN YOU'RE ALL SET.

4. S tep 2
Size all of your pages to the same size in your
graphics program.
Generally, most mini-comics are letter size
paper folded in half, so you want your comic
pages to be about 8 inches tall by 5 inches
wide at 300 dpi, or some close semblance

5. S tep 3
Create a new document in in design

6. S tep 4
Place your pages (in order) into the document

7. S tep 5
When all the images are
placed and sized
correctly, its time to print!
Go to file -> print booklet

8. S tep 6
In the print booklet dialogue, choose “print
settings” (at the bottom)
Set the printer to “postscript file”
Under setup, choose the landscape orientation

9. S tep 7
And print!
This will save a file to your computer that is a .ps
file.
Use acrobat distiller to make it into a pdf file

10. B ut what if you don't have
in design?
You'll have to manually make each page 'spread'
in your graphics program. But its easier than it
sounds.
First, a little math.
Divide the number of pages you have by 4. This
tells you how many sheets of paper you will
need.

11. Fold these sheets together to make a
mock up

12. Number each page so you know which
comic image to put where.

13. Take apart the book
Now you know which pages you have to put next to
each other, and which pages print on the backs of the
others.

14. Make a new image in your graphics
program
It should be letter size, or 10 inches by 8 inches for
margins. Make sure it is the right direction
(landscape)

15. Place the comic pages side by side
Following the way the layout is set up – so page 16
on the left, page 1 on the right. The next one will
have page 2 on the left, page 15 on the right, and so
forth.

16. printing
Printing can be done on a home printer or at places
like office max or kinkos.
Home printers allow for you to be in control of each
page and is better for figuring out how to put together
a book, but is also more expensive and the quality
may not be as high
Stores with printing services sometimes have helpful
staff that can correctly print your comic, but
sometimes have people who do not know what they
are doing and will mess your work up. Black and
white copies can be as little as 10 cents at some
stores, color copies can run as expensive as $1.50

17. Add a nice cover
Adding a cover makes the whole comic come
together.
Then, its time for stapling and folding your comics.

18. Staple!
Folding your comics in half lets you know where to
staple
Use a long-arm stapler (available at office supply
stores for around $20)

19. Other ways to print comics
Some websites such as comixpress, kablam offer reasonable
printing rates
You have to have a .pdf file for them
They often offer templates to help you correctly make your
comic
Can be expensive, and sometimes you have to order a certain
number of copies
Usually good printing quality, larger sizes, color options