The indie publishing journey: Designing the book

Writing a book isn’t the only chance you’ll have to be creative. Designing your book’s cover, interior formatting, and ebook files can be just as important and, with the right mindset, just as fun! But there’s also a lot to think about, so check out today’s post covering the key steps and considerations in the design stage of indie publishing!! →

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SERIES CONTENTS

🤷‍♀️ What, why and how | 💰 Business mechanics | 📝 Editors and editing | 📚Choosing a platform | 📜All things “legal“ | 🎨 Designing the book | 📈 Marketing 101 | ⚙️ Tips, tricks and tools

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Getting your cover design right

Ever heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”? Well, in my experience, this doesn’t really apply to actual book covers. You could have the most incredible, well-written book in the world, but if it doesn’t have an eye-catching, genre-appropriate cover, there’s a chance your target audience won’t even pick it up. And that’s because the cover is one of your book’s most important marketing tools.

So it makes sense that you give the design of your book cover a good deal of consideration. Here are some of the things you should ask yourself while figuring out how to get your cover design right:

• Do I need to hire a professional cover designer? Short answer: no. You don’t have to hire and pay for a cover designer, particularly if it is cost-prohibitive for you. There are plenty of tools and programs out there that you could use to make your own book cover. Just make sure that if you’re using someone else’s images (even stock images), you have the right licensing and permissions to use them. However, if you’re not well across the specifics of book cover design or want a hand from someone who knows what they’re doing, there are stacks of incredibly talented cover artists out there!

• What do the covers of books in my genre niche look like? You might be tempted to make your book cover really unique and stand out from the rest of those in the genre. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. Like it or not, readers will form expectations about what the book is like based on its cover, and if those expectations aren’t met, they might be disappointed. So it’s important to study the covers of books in your genre niche and figure out what they have in common. Your book cover should look right at home on a shelf with other books in the same genre (see above).

• Do I need to write a cover brief? If you decide to hire someone to design your book cover, chances are you’ll never to provide them with a cover design brief. Each cover artist will have different requirements, so make sure you give them the information they ask for, but at the end of the day, it’s a rare cover designer who will create something from nothing. You’ll probably need to provide guidance around style, colours and themes, and any specific ideas you have. The more accurate your cover brief is, the better result you’ll get from the artist you’ve hired!

• What are the file requirements of my publishing platform? It is critically important that you know the cover file requirements of the publishing platform you’ve chosen to use. The platform will specify what file format(s) you need to submit your book cover in, as well as the dimensions and other relevant properties. For hardcopy versions of your book, the publishing platform will likely provide a template for you to use based on your trim size (i.e. width and height) and page count (which influences spine width). Make sure you provide your files exactly as the platform requires.

Interior design of a hardcopy book

If you’re publishing your book in a hardcopy format (e.g. paperback or hardcover), you’ll also need to put some time and effort into the interior design—what we usually refer to as “formatting”. Good formatting is vital to ensuring the reader has a smooth and enjoyable reading experience. It’s also an opportunity for you to add a little flair to your book, if you so choose.

There are a few terms you might want to be familiar with, as they often come up when we’re talking about formatting. It’s important you understand the difference when making formatting decisions:

Typesetting: The process of setting text onto a page to create the best reading experience. It involves determining the size of margins, line spacing, line length, typeface and font size, style of chapter starts, scene breaks etc.

Typography: The art of arranging text in a legible and visually pleasing fashion. It is the stylistic side of text presentation and can involve decorative elements like drop shadows, embossing, flourishes, and other design factors.

Much like cover design, formatting is also something you don’t need to do on your own. There are many experienced formatters out there, who you can hire to format your book. But it’s also possible to do it yourself. Adobe InDesign is often considered the “industry standard” for document formatting, but there are plenty of other, more affordable options out there, such as Vellum or Atticus. Technically, you could even use Microsoft Word, but the results will not be as refined.

You’ll also need to make sure you follow the file requirements of your chosen publishing platform. Each platform will provide its own recommendations for margin size and bleed, and it’s important you stick to these wherever possible to make sure nothing gets cut off during the printing and trimming process.

What about ebooks?

ebooks are where many indie authors make most of their sales, so don’t let your ebook design be an afterthought! It doesn’t have to be a scary process either. Like hardcopy formatting, there are plenty of programs out there that enable you to make and edit ebook files yourself. Even the popular writing program Scrivener has an option to export to an epub file.

Keep in mind that reading a digital format of a book is a different experience to reading a hardcopy. So there are some different considerations you need to make when designing your ebook:

• Ease of navigation: Maybe this is a me thing, but nothing annoys me more than when an ebook is not properly indexed and you can’t readily jump between chapters and parts. Think about how your readers will navigate through your ebook, and make sure it is structured and set up to enhance their reading experience.

• Use of images: Images files don’t always translate well to an ebook file. They absolutely can be, but you need to give extra consideration to what images you’ll be including. You’ll also need to think about their size and orientation and whether they will be legible to the reader. When in doubt, it’s always best to test it out and see what works!

• Font selection: Don’t get caught up in font selection for an ebook file, because most ereaders allow users to choose their own fonts to read the book. If there are specific fonts you want used in your ebook—say, for a chapter header—you’ll need to do a bit more work and may need to include them as an image file rather than text.

• Adding hyperlinks: The great part about ebooks is that you can include hyperlinks. Don’t overuse them, of course, but also don’t let this incredible opportunity pass you by! Add links to your website or newsletter or social media or other books to encourage readers to engage with you even after they’ve finished reading your book.

Have you gone through the design process for a book before? Did you DIY or hire someone to do it for you? What did you learn from the experience?