Some villains steal jewels. Titch Magee steals porridge. “At thirteen years, was heard to gloat, I had the three bear’s porridge oats.” By twenty he has pinched a golden goose, and it does not end well for his legs. Told in rhyming couplets that age the pixie one crime at a time, Titch Magee: Fairytale Thief is written and illustrated by Richard McCloskey-Wall, the Northern Irish author behind the Irish Bog Imp Tales.
We have printed Richard’s books for years, so this page follows Titch the way he arrived with us: in instalments.
A light fingered pixie joins the bog imps
Richard announced Titch on his own site as a pixie “who’s stealing gets him into all kinds of scrapes”, a newcomer alongside Hedgeroot, Muckfoot and Dryleaf. His character page sums up the habit nicely: Titch will take anything that is not nailed down, from Prince Charming’s shampoo to the big bad wolf’s inhaler.
The cover puts the whole rogues’ gallery on one yellow brick road. Titch charges at the reader in a gold crown and a red bandit mask, sack over his shoulder, with a scowling panda, a green faced witch, a wolf in a frilly bonnet and a pink pig hard on his heels. Giant spotted toadstools frame the scene and a storm crackles behind the curly blue title. It is busy, loud and very funny, and saturated digital colour like this needs printing that keeps its punch on the shelf of a market stall.
Spring 2022: cover and pages, sent separately
In April 2022 Richard emailed us files for a reworked Titch book, one link for the inner pages and another for the cover, each sent as its own PDF. That split is exactly how a perfect bound book should arrive: each inside page on its own, in running order, and one cover spread with the spine in the middle. We confirmed the order, raised the invoice and sent a proof link the same afternoon, with the dark blue trim line showing where each page would be cut.
Richard draws his books digitally in Procreate. On another title he once asked which CMYK profile would keep his colours brightest, and Mike pointed him to FOGRA39L VIGC 300. If you illustrate on a tablet, settle the colour profile before you export, not after the proof arrives. Our walkthrough for preparing a glued paperback cover and pages covers the file side.
Summer 2024: Titch goes on camera
When Mike set out to film a new booklet printing video in July 2024, Titch Magee was the example he reached for: a square perfect bound booklet that shows how a slim children’s book can still carry a proper spine. Our pictures here come from that shoot. Inside, the spreads run edge to edge. The golden goose towers over Titch beside a little gatehouse, and the three bears stare at their empty striped bowls and a box of “Faker oats” while Titch snores on a stack of stolen beds.
“I’ll look out for that wee video”, Richard wrote back. A few weeks later, a sequel landed in our inbox: book two, in which Titch turns his hand to piracy. Our check on those files flagged a sign close to the trim and some lines of text near the spine, and Richard explained that he had locked the lettering onto the illustration in Procreate. Here is a lesson to borrow from that exchange: keep your words on their own layer until the very end, so a printer’s note to nudge something 3 to 5mm becomes a two minute job.
World Book Day 2025: back for more
In early March 2025 an email arrived with a cheerful “Happy world book day!” Richard wanted a fresh batch of Big Knickers, and of the first Titch Magee book too. Mike dug out the previous artwork and a proof followed. For a self published author, a reorder like that says the character has found its readers.
If your own character has a sequel or two in them, think like Richard. Keep the format consistent so the books sit together as a set, keep your print files safe and labelled, and ask us about a series of illustrated children’s books rather than a single title. For a quick feel for the numbers on a square paperback, try the calculator with your page count.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
