A creative process designed to remove uncertainty

Over the years, we have worked with many first-time authors, and we've used that knowledge and experience to create a guided process tailored to address their concerns from manuscript to publication-ready artwork.

Rather than leaving you to navigate dozens of creative decisions on your own, we break the journey into clear milestones, each with its own objective and review process. Below you'll find a summary of our four-milestone creative process, and if you have questions or specific requirements, we are happy to help!

Build confidence at every milestone

Each stage builds upon the previous one, and before moving on to the next phase, you'll have the opportunity to review the work, share feedback, and confirm you're happy with the direction. This also helps reduce revisions later while ensuring the finished book feels cohesive from beginning to end.

Working in milestones creates natural checkpoints. This means you're never surprised by the final result. For example, characters are approved before they're illustrated across the entire book, and page layouts are reviewed before full-color artwork begins.

A collaborative journey

We always encourage our clients to leave room for the artist to contribute to the creative vision you already built for your book. Collaboration at this stage is key to the success of a children's book, and the illustrator's input will add originality and personality to your characters and overall story.

Illustrations should tell the reader something more about the story, and not just be a 'literal' representation of the written text. When you find your illustrator, whether here or elsewhere, remember this concept to spot the good ones from the bad ones.

A process that supports creativity

Character Sketches, Storyboard & Book Layout, Full-Color Illustrations, and Front and Back Cover Design. This structure guides most of our book projects, but it isn't meant to limit creativity.

Pufli approaches every new project with the understanding that it's a story close to the heart of the author, or a deeply personal subject. For Pufli, no project is merely a transactional project.

From story to book