The brief

A layout book's premise screen asks different questions from a novel's, because "chapters × target words" means nothing to a coloring book.

What it asks

The print format first. Platform, trim, binding, ink, paper and bleed sit at the top rather than below the fold, because ink is the expensive, irreversible choice and burying it is how authors get it wrong.

A page count appropriate to the preset. For a picture book this is a dropdown rather than a free number: printers count in eight-page signatures, and 34 pages is not a thing most of them will make. A puzzle book asks for activity pages — pages of puzzles, however many the layout puts on each.

What the pages add up to. The This book card beside the form breaks the book down — the title and copyright pages, your own pages (and, for a puzzle book, how many puzzles they hold), any How to play or section pages, the solutions, and the blank pages the printer needs so each section starts on the right side — and gives the printed total. Before the pages are planned it is an estimate from your answers; afterwards it counts the real pages.

The book's page templates are at the top of that card. Click one to open it in the page designer. Change layout takes you to the Page layout card further down, and ＋ Blank template starts an empty template and opens it in the designer. Made before the pages are planned, a blank template becomes the book's page design in place of the chosen layout, and the card says so. An activity book and a planner make their own templates when their pages are first laid out, so for those the blank template is offered once the pages exist.

Preset-specific questions. A coloring book is asked about subject, style and complexity. A picture book about the character, the reading age and where the words sit on the page. A recipe book about cuisine and how a method is laid out.

The page layout. What every page looks like — a framed design, a story page, a puzzle with its word list, two players' puzzles on facing pages. It is asked here, before the pages are planned, because for some books the layout decides what a page even holds: a sudoku book laid out four to a page needs a quarter as many pages. A planner is asked for its sections instead — a month overview, four weekly spreads, two notes pages, repeated twelve times. See Page layouts.

The brief is the prompt

This is the part worth understanding.

Your answers are not filed away as metadata. They are appended to the prompt for the page plan and for every single image. That is what keeps the fox on page 9 the same fox as on page 4 — the brief travels with every render.

So a vague answer produces a book that drifts. "A fox" gives you a different fox every page. "A small red fox with one white ear and a blue scarf, gentle expression, no other animals" gives you a book.

Every field on the brief carries a line of prompt with it. There are no decorative fields.

Where the words go

Presets that print words on the page — picture books, recipe books, photo books — ask where those words sit.

That answer does two jobs at once: it positions the text box, and it tells the illustrator to leave that part of the picture quiet. Because both come from the same answer, the words land in the band the artwork was drawn to accommodate, rather than across somebody's face.

Changing the trim

You can change the trim at any time. Every page is laid out again at the new size: each template is redrawn from its design (keeping any change you made to it), every page is redrawn from its template, and pictures, words and puzzles move into the new boxes. Pages you drew by hand are scaled to the new page. Nothing is cut off at the edge.

Asking the assistant

The assistant is on the Premise too. It can read the brief, suggest sharper answers, recommend a trim for this kind of book, and say whether the length is sensible — and anything it suggests arrives as a card you accept or reject.

Changing it later

The brief is editable. Changing it does not retroactively redraw pages you have already rendered and paid for — it steers what happens next.

If you change the character's description halfway through, regenerate the briefs or the art for the pages you want brought into line. See The page plan for per-page regeneration.

What to watch for

• Fill the brief in before generating the page plan. The plan is generated from it, and replanning discards briefs you have hand-edited.
• The description of a recurring character is the single highest-value field in an illustrated book. Spend a minute on it and every page benefits — then give them a reference picture in the cast, which is what actually keeps them the same from page to page.
• Reading age is a real constraint, not a label. It sets the minimum type size the preflight will accept, because a picture book set in nine-point type is not a picture book.