G’day gorgeous souls,

We received this question the other day from Sarah in the UK:

Hi Leonie,

Thanks so much for all the inspiration you give each day.

Your Business Goddess program has totally inspired me to start creating my very first ebook. Thank you for that!

But I want to make sure I make my ebooks include my own handwriting + art into them like yours do…they are so warm and inspiring!

Can you tell me how to do that?

This question comes up SO often – I know lots of people are interested in creating ebooks that are just as unique and inspiring as their creators!

As you know, almost all my ebooks + e-course manuals are hand-drawn… they have my handwriting & illustrations… they are rainbow and inky, just the way I like them. I feel like it gives a really gorgeous energy & spirit to them… plus it makes me happy to create them.

Sample pages from my popular 2012 Creating Your Goddess Year Workbook, Planner + Calendar

So! The how-to!

Handwrite + Illustrate

I hand-write and illustrate them using a waterproof ink pen and watered down acrylics or watercolours. I tend to just use plain photocopy paper for ebooks as I’ll create hundreds and hundreds of pages often. Then I scan in each page using this Epson scanner-printer, crop and correct using Photoshop (you can use Elements as well) and save as an image. I usually save the name of the image as the page number it will be – eg 13.jpg.

Scan + Digitise

Then once I’ve scanned in all the pages, I use either Microsoft Word or OpenOffice or Adobe InDesign (it depends on what software I’m in the mood for… I go through software-adoration phases!) to create a document, and on each page, I insert an image of the scanned page. Once all the pages are in, I then save or export it as a PDF.

Word of warning – when you make an ebook using hand drawn images, it’s gunna be much, much bigger than a normal text document. Make sure when you save the images that you don’t save them as a high res, or as a huge image. I tend to make each about 1000px wide, but you’ll need to find a way that works for you.

Utterly beautiful & unique & exquisite hand-drawn ebook! We like that!

Want to check out a free illustrated ebook of mine? Make sure you grab The Project Finisher ebook (aka The Cowgirl’s Guide To Riding Wild Donkeys!)

(Got a question to Ask Leonie? Email askleonie@leoniedawson.com!)

Hope this is helpful! Now get creating your miracles!

love,