Ask a book lover how they feel about ebooks, and there’s a good chance they’ll talk about the feel of paper, the smell of an old book, or the glow or good leather. Good book design is inarbuably art, with some exemplars so famous movies have been made.
While modern book design doesn’t lend itself to the kind of craft that went into the Book of Kells, there’s a lot you can do to stand out from the crowd. From your choice of paper size and color to your fonts, layout and cover design, the manuscript is only the first step in creating a professional publication.
Designing a cover for a Kindle publication is different from doing so for a paper book. With the advent of print on demand options, amateurs are learning about colour separations, bleeds, and other topics once the domain of specialists. We help you sort through it, whether you want to do it all yourself, or interview specialists intelligently.
Word, InDesign, QuarkXPress, Scribus … there are lots of ways to lay out a book and opinions run deep. No matter which tool you use, there are a few things you can do to consistently produce professional books. Start with a template. Most of the big printers provide templates for at least some formats. Createspace [read more]
When designing a book for print on demand (POD), one of the first decisions is the book size. For some books like a sci-fi paperback this may be easy — conforming to industry standards would be sensible. We all know what a paperback fiction book is ‘supposed’ to feel like. But I was faced with [read more]
