Give a Book Nobody Else Can Buy This Holiday

Most holiday gifts are forgotten by spring. A book where your niece is the hero, or one that tells the story of how your grandparents met, ends up on the shelf for decades. With Anthra you can write, illustrate, narrate and print that book yourself, and mid-October is the right time to start if you want a printed copy wrapped in time.

Start With Who It's For

The best personalized books are made of small specifics: the dog's name, the street where they grew up, the joke only your family gets. Write those details down first, then give them to Anthra as the premise. A picture book for a five-year-old might run eight short chapters. A memoir for a parent might be a dozen chapters built from stories you collect over a few phone calls. Either way, you're always editing, so every line can sound like you.

"The gift isn't the book. It's being the main character in it."

Make It a Real Book

Illustrations keep each character consistent from page to page, so the little hero on the cover is the same child at the end. Choose a trim size that suits the gift. Square formats up to 12×12 work beautifully for picture books, and smaller trims suit keepsake memoirs. Design the cover in the cover studio, and the art and typography you see are composed at the printer's exact geometry, bleed included, so the printed book matches your screen.

Then add a narration. For grandparents who live far away, or a child who wants the story at bedtime when you aren't there, a recorded copy of their book is a gift of its own. Order your printed copy early: printing and shipping take time, and the holiday rush makes both slower. The sooner you start, the more time you'll have to get the story right.