Recently I was asked to contribute an introduction to\u00a0print book design for a publication that will be out soon. I decided to address the piece to an author who was thinking about self-publishing, but wondering whether it\u2019s worth doing a print book. Here\u2019s my response: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you want to sell books at events or give them away to reviewers or to friends and family, you\u2019ll want to use print books. And many people prefer reading print books, even people who own laptops, tablets, and smartphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So there\u2019s a big role for print books to play in your publishing plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as a new self-publisher, you may not know how to get your book ready for printing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Print books haven\u2019t changed much in 500 years and they are far more complex than ebooks when it comes to preparing your book files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With ebooks, you\u2019re just converting your file from one format into another, then adding some cover art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But with print books you have to know how they will be printed, who will be printing them, and that specific\u00a0printer,s requirement It\u2019s good also if you\u2019ve designed a lot of books before, so you know how the image on your screen will translate into paper and ink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if you\u2019re thinking about marketing your print books, they will need to look even better. After all, they\u2019ll be competing with books from big publishers, where all the books are designed and produced by professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I\u2019m not going to pretend that I can give you an education in book design and production in this article. But what I can do is give you a big head start on your journey to creating a good-looking, reader-friendly, market-oriented print book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And point out a few things to avoid so you don\u2019t look like a complete newbie. That would be good, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay, let\u2019s dive in and start at the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One thing you probably don\u2019t want to happen is have your book \u201clook\u201d self-published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honestly, it doesn\u2019t cost any more to print a book that\u2019s properly put together and intelligently designed than it is to print a book that ignores book publishing conventions and looks like an\u00a0amateur production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, I\u2019ve got an idea of exactly what would help you get that book, and I\u2019ll tell you more about that in a minute.
No matter what you plan to do with your books, they will be more likely to succeed if they avoid the most common mistakes new self-publishers typically make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are some to watch out for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting your pages switched around<\/strong>\u2014remember that all the right-hand pages in your book, starting with page 1, are odd numbers. All the left-hand pages are even numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure your blank pages are blank<\/strong>\u2014a blank page doesn\u2019t need a running head, a page number, or \u201cthis page intentionally left blank\u201d on is. In printed books, blank pages are just that\u2014blank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No blanks on the right<\/strong>\u2014your book should never have a blank page on a right-hand page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forgetting the front matter<\/strong>\u2014you want to include at least a title page and a copyright page, and probably a contents page before you start the text of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tiny page margins<\/strong>\u2014trying to save money by printing fewer pages rarely produces a book people actually want to read. Leave enough space on the outside for the reader to hold the book, and on the inside (or \u201cgutter\u201d) so that it doesn\u2019t swallow your text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not capitalizing properly<\/strong>\u2014titles, subtitles, chapter titles and subheads should all be title case, not sentence case. In other words, all words except short prepositions are capitalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Avoiding full justification<\/strong>\u2014you don\u2019t really want your book to have \u201crag right\u201d typesetting, where the right margin is ragged. You want your book to be fully justified, which means that your page of type is a rectangle with all the lines (except the last line in a paragraph) extend from the left margin all the way to the right margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re curious about any of these tips, have a look at some of your own books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ll discover that these are rules or conventions of book publishing. Virtually all books produced by professionals will follow these rules and conventions unless the designer has a good reason not to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By watching out for newbie mistakes, you\u2019ll make your book look a lot better, and your readers will thank you for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the big decisions you\u2019ll need to make when it comes time to get your book ready for printing is: What\u00a0fonts\u00a0will you use?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What fonts you have available might depend on the software you\u2019ve installed on your PC, and what fonts came along with the program. Or you might have purchased or downloaded fonts from one of the many font sites online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In any case, here are some guidelines that will help you choose typefaces for your book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0Readability<\/strong>\u2014this is the most important quality for your text font, the one that most or all of your book will be set in. Many designers feel that the most reliably readable are fonts based on\u00a0old-style typefaces\u00a0like Garamond, Bembo, or Caslon. More modern versions include Minion, Adobe Garamond, and Sabon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contrast<\/strong>\u2014you\u2019ll want a different typeface to use for chapter titles or part titles, and for subheads in nonfiction books. Combining a text typeface with a san serif display face can add drama and subtle allusions to a specific era or style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legality<\/strong>\u2014fonts are intellectual property, just like your book manuscript. Make sure you have the rights to use the fonts in a book by checking out the licensing agreement, if possible. Most fonts that ship with software are licensed for commercial use, and there are reliable sites where you can download free, commercial use fonts online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Appropriateness<\/strong>\u2014you\u2019ll want a text font for your text, and a display font for your title and perhaps for interior display use. For an academic treatise, you don\u2019t want your chapter titles in Comic Sans, do you? That wouldn\u2019t be appropriate. If you can\u2019t decide, have a look at other, similar books and try to do what they did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As many other authors have discovered, there are great guides to how your book should look right nearby. Start taking a critical look at some of the books on your own bookshelf:<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do they treat the various elements of book design, like the chapter opening pages, the running heads (or running feet, if they appear at the bottom of the pages), the page numbers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you notice about the typefaces these books use to convey the author\u2019s ideas? Is a separate font used for the chapter titles or part titles?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How are titles, epigraphs (those are the quotations often found at the beginning of a chapter), and subheads aligned? How are the spaced compared to other elements on the page?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are the margins like, are they symmetrical? Are the outside margins larger than the inside margins? How close does the type come to the edge of the page?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there are illustrations, charts, tables, figures, graphs or other graphics, do they have captions or explanations of some kind? Are they numbered or referenced to the text somehow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is one of the fastest ways to educate yourself about how books are put together and what might work for your own book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concentrate on books that have been successful in your own genre or category, that will help keep you focused on finding a style that will work for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few hours absorbing these seemingly minute details will give you a grounding in book design as it affects your kind of books. Make notes on the elements you like the best, you\u2019ll use them later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You also want to make sure your book is put together properly, that\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, I promised to tell you about something that would help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been working for years on ways for new self-publishers to produce better books. A lot of the over 900 articles on this blog are a testament to that effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But guess what? I\u2019ve had a breakthrough, and I\u2019m almost ready to share it with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In about a week I\u2019m going to open the door to a new way for DIY authors to create industry-standard, great-looking books. I\u2019ve seen too many of the other kind of books, and it\u2019s time to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m really excited about this, there\u2019s nothing else like it anywhere. Inexpensive, simple to use, effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So stay tuned, I know you wouldn\u2019t want to miss it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently I was asked to contribute an introduction to\u00a0print book design for a publication that will be out soon. I decided to address the piece to an author who was thinking about self-publishing, but wondering whether it\u2019s worth doing a print book. Here\u2019s my response: If you want to sell books at events or give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ksdesigners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Picking Fonts for Your Book<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Researching Book Interiors<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
What Will Help<\/h4>\n\n\n\n