Once referred to derisively as "vanity publishing," self-published books are finally taking their place alongside more accepted indie categories such as music, film, and theater. Indie Publishing is a practical guide to creating and distributing printed books regardless of your background, skill set, or ambition. It will help you realize projects of every scale and budget, from … [Read more...]
Create Effective Back Covers
The content and business information on a book’s back cover will determine whether a store will sell the book and whether someone will buy it. Knowing the basics required for a back cover are essential for getting your book the attention it deserves. After the front cover, which grabbed the customer’s eye and got him or her to pick up your book, the back cover is the most … [Read more...]
Eight Tips for Better Book Cover Design
As a design educator, I'm often asked to critique book covers. The most common stumbling block is typography. Here are some simple tips for designers and do-it-yourselfers. 1. Title text often tends to crowd the space. Ideally it should either sit comfortably within the cover and have some breathing room, or alternatively, it should expand past the margins altogether and … [Read more...]
Book Cover Design – Choosing the Right Designer for Your Book
Getting the right book cover design is critical to the success of your book, and choosing the right designer is critical to getting a great book cover. There are hundreds (thousands?) of book cover designers out there, so how do you choose the best one? First of all, there are probably many designers who could do an excellent job creating a cover for you. Selecting the right … [Read more...]
Making the Most of Your Book’s Title Page
The title page of a book announces identifying essentials of the book: title, subtitle, author, and publisher. It may also include more publishing information or descriptive text about the book. Illustrations can also be found on title pages. While this page primarily provides book facts, it is commonly also the most decorative display page in a book. As the rest of the book … [Read more...]
Getting Your Book Ready to be Noticed
So…You’ve done the final edit. Now what? Among the many steps you still have to take is: page design. Page design? Big deal you might say. What I need is a great cover for my book. Your potential reader has perhaps 5 seconds to look at your cover. Maybe 10 seconds or more to read the back of your book, before deciding if they want to open it and scan the first few … [Read more...]