How to Write a Pop-up Book

1). Determine your subject. Is it fiction? Nonfiction? Once you have decided what to write about, you need to figure out your format: page count and trim (cover and interior page size). Pop-up books come in all shapes and sizes, with paper engineering ranging from simple (lift-flap) to complicated, which is why you need other pop-up books for reference.

Let's assume here that we are going to create a pop-up book about dinosaurs for children. We will create seven spreads (14 pages) of text and paper engineering (pop-ups and other 3-D moving mechanics). Our cover size will be 10 inches high by 8 inches wide, which means the interior pages will be 9 3/4 inches high by 7 3/4 inches wide. Pop-up books often require pieces of the mechanics to be anchored and engineered inside the pages, so our book pages will be accordion folded, meaning that instead of single interior pages, we will have back-to-back connected and folded pages.This is where the large card stock paper sheets come in.
2). Write your 14 pages of text. Assume you will need space for flat art on the base pages. Many dinosaur books concentrate each spread (two facing pages) on a type of dinosaur that represents a class of dinosaurs of that type (flying dinosaurs, vegetarian dinosaurs, raptors). For more complicated topics, such as explaining long periods of time, you may want to add longer text in little booklets.
3). Step three: Because paper engineering is a skill requiring many years of practice, your best bet would be to partner with a paper engineer to create the pop-up paper mechanics for you. Assuming you are ambitious and mechanical, you may be able to emulate existing paper engineering out there with your own. You will also need to be able to sketch out your ideas beforehand in order to either create the pop-ups themselves or to indicate what kind of paper engineering you envision on each spread of your book.
4). Start examining the pop-up books in your reference collection. You may want to have doubles of each title if you plan to deconstruct the existing book to see how the paper engineering was created. Look in between the accordion-folded pages to see how the paper mechanic was created. Simpler paper engineering includes lift-pops, in which lifting a flap of paper makes the paper underneath it move; or center-page-pop-ups, in which opening the spread makes motion occur.
5). Determine which kind of pop-ups you want to use on which pages. Make sure you have a good combination of large, center-page pop-ups; lift-flap pop-ups; pull-tab pop-ups, in which pulling a tab of paper creates the motion; information booklets; and wheels (in which a wheel of paper is turned at the edge of the page to show different information through a window cut into the base page). Best of all, you can even try inventing paper engineering of your own.
6). Sketch out all your ideas. Attempt to use cut paper and glue to emulate existing paper engineering in other books with your own illustrations. If this proves too complicated, you can sketch what you expect to be engineered by someone else. Some pop-up book writers simply use art and engineering notes with their text to indicate what they would like to see.

For example, in a section about dinosaur gestation, you might write: ART NOTE. Show large maiasaur in center of page looming over an egg that pops out of its shell situated in the lower portion of the center of the spread (across the gutter, or fold, in the center of the spread). Sketches accompanying text and art notes are best for explaining what you expect to create if you are not doing the paper engineering yourself.
7). Put together a dummy book. Dummies are books that place the text, art, and paper engineering (if available) all together in one sample book. They can be black and white or color, but they indicate what the reader can expect to see once the book is completed. If you only have text and no sketches or paper engineering samples, a dummy book is not necessary.
8). Go back to your current pop-up book references to figure out which publishers publish pop-up books. Then you will have to determine the editors who handle novelty books (books with more than just text and flat art) for children at that house. Alternatively, you can go to the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' site and get that information. Submit a COPY of your dummy book along with an additional copy of your text and art notes and wait to hear back!