I used Bean to create a Template for an illustrated novel. Having searched the web, it appears that illustrated novels are often the same dimension as your standard Trade Paperback. Made some test runs and found it fairly simple to render or generate a page with a graphic. Then I thought of something.

I have a nice little program called Comic Life. I used Comic Life to make two comics in the past. I also used Comic Life to generate the Covers of my novels.


The ease and flexibility at which one may generate pages with graphics is way easier in Comic Life. See above. Built in Templates for comics and/or graphic novels are there. In fact, under the Book Paper Sizes tab, there's a Trade Paperback template as well. I'm sure that's what I used to generate the covers for my novels.

I'm going to search for examples of illustrated novels to get a clearer understand of their unique layout. In just looking at the test run I did using Bean; see top image, I'm thinking utilizing a picture on the left page with text on the right page is the way to go.

Stay tuned.

What ya'll know about Bean? It's an uncluttered, free word processor. I used it to write Sun Juice Mechanics; books one and two! My favorite feature is that it allows you to create and re-use templates! Naturally I've got a Trade Paperback template on deck. And I'm about to create an Illustrated novel template for use as well. I just need to decide on the size I want.

Click the image and jump on over and download the latest version. While you're there, be sure and hit the link to the various screen shots on display too.

Just remember, it's macOS only.