Christmas picture book Boggy Christmas, where Santa crash lands in an Irish bog

• Format: 210x210mm Square picture book paperback
• Inside pages: Silk
• Printing: Full colour throughout
• Binding: Perfect bound
• Spine: Square, printed with title and series name

“’Twas the night before Christmas and the sky of the bog was thick with the thickest of very thick fog.” Within a few pages Santa is upside down in a snowdrift, boots in the air, and a cow called Rosie is hauling him out with a power we will leave you to discover. Boggy Christmas is book 5 in the Irish Bog Imp series, written by Richard McCloskey-Wall and illustrated by Kevin McHugh, and on Richard’s own shop the blurb sets it up perfectly: Santa gets lost in the fog, crash lands in the bog and has to enlist three very unlikely little helpers.

Richard sells his books at markets as well as online, and St George’s Market in Belfast shared this one as a stocking filler. The book is perfect bound in a square format, with Kevin’s paintings running full bleed across almost every spread. Below are six ideas from it that travel well to other books.

Before press: a colour chat and a second pair of eyes

Talk about colour before the files arrive. On the morning he planned to send the artwork, Richard asked whether anything could make the colours lift, as his previous title had looked a little dark to him. Mike explained that ink tends to come up darker on uncoated paper than on screen, that the silk stock Richard uses should sit much closer to what he sees, and that boosting the colours by a few percentage points is a sensible nudge. Richard thanked him for the advice on colour and sent the files that afternoon. One short email, before anything was printed, cost nothing.

Let the illustrator check the files first. The PDFs reached us via Richard, forwarded from Kevin with a note: “Please check it over and let me know if you spot anything :)” Two pairs of eyes on the art before it reaches your printer catches more than one ever will. Our reply on arrival was short: “The files look perfect and are ready to go ahead.” A proof link followed within half an hour.

What the pages and the spine get right

Borrow a rhythm everyone already knows. The opening page rewrites the most famous Christmas Eve poem in English, set over a wash of violet fog and a snowy fence. Readers hear the beat before they reach the joke, and a grown up reading aloud finds the cadence at once. If your story has a seasonal hook, an echo like this does a lot of welcoming in very few words.

Give the series a spine. Line up a handful of copies and the spines read BOGGY CHRISTMAS with AN IRISH BOG IMP TALE beneath, white on deep blue. The cover adds “Book 5” above the subtitle. On a market table or a bookshop shelf, numbering and a repeated tagline turn single titles into a collection people want to complete. A glued, square spine is what makes that possible; our notes on perfect binding for picture books explain how the spine width is worked out.

Paint the cold, then print it rich. Kevin’s palette leans hard on ultramarine, violet and white, with brushy skies, spattered snow and a glowing cottage window. Deep blues are where a weak print shows first, so it pays to choose a coated stock and to check your proof on a computer screen rather than a phone. The warm yellows of a fireside spread look all the brighter against them.

After the final page: selling into Christmas

Turn the last page into a shop window. The final spread is an “Also available” page from Tatynuckle Publishing, Richard’s own imprint, with six earlier covers and a one line pitch for each, from Donkey Soup to Where’s My Cheese? A reader who finishes one book is the likeliest buyer of the next, so tell them where to go.

Richard’s reply to the dispatch news: “Ah, you’re a star Mike!” Pre orders on his shop were promised for the beginning of December, which left plenty of time for markets and the Christmas rush.

Planning a festive title? Start in early autumn, send a draft early, and compare square formats and stocks for young readers before you commit. When the art is ready, check the cost of a square Christmas picture book in under a minute.