What
Indie Authors Need to Know About Book Design
As
an indie author, you’ll know you’re not just a writer.
You’ve got to handle all sides of designing, producing, and
marketing
your book yourself
— which is why you need to understand the basics of exterior and
interior book design.
In
an ideal world, readers wouldn’t care about what’s on the cover
of your book, or how your text is formatted; they’d concentrate
exclusively on the prose. But book appearance does
matter because it can act as a magnet for new readers. That’s not
to say that a beautiful book without substance would succeed on the
basis of appearance alone. Still, if you’ve written a great book
and paid little attention to the design, you may be doing yourself a
disservice.
As
manager of your
own author brand,
there are two sides to book design you need to be aware of. We’ll
start with the first thing readers will see: your book cover design.
Book
Cover Design
Your
cover is super important! It doesn’t just
make your book aesthetically pleasing — it contains a lot of
implicit but crucial information about what kind of story a reader
can expect.
Ideally,
you want your cover to clearly communicate your genre. This can be
done through typography (like a serif/sans serif font or hand-drawn
lettering by a professional), the cover art itself, and the “copy”
on the cover —
in other words, the promotional blurbs.
To
test the effectiveness of your cover, you can show it to
acquaintances who don’t know what the book is about and ask them to
take an honest guess about the genre and story. They don’t have to
pick up on every single detail. But if you’ve written a romance
novel and they think it’s a crime thriller, you’ll know you need
to make some serious cover adjustments.
The
best place to start brainstorming about cover design is, of course,
the Internet. Look up authors writing in your genre and take some
notes about the appearance of their covers — you’re trying to
appeal to the same
audience,
so you can take inspiration from how another professional has
attracted readers. Depending on whether you’re planning to sell
print copies of your book or ebooks only, you’ll also need to look
into the different dimensions demanded by your chosen format.
No
matter which decisions you make, remember to aim for a balance
between a sparse and a hectically busy cover. Not every bit of blank
space has to be filled. Similarly, unless you’re going for a
purposefully minimalist look, your cover should include something
beyond
the title and your name.
I
know, design concerns are a lot to take in. If you can afford to, the
best thing you can do is consult
or hire a professional designer,
who will ensure that your book looks professional enough to compete
with well-established authors. (They’ll also take charge of various
important practical matters, e.g. the cover’s file format and
resolution, as well as color requirements for printing).
Finally,
remember that the exterior of your book isn’t just the front cover:
you’ll have to factor in the spine and back of the book as well.
The back cover is an excellent place to curate reviews along with a
quick synopsis. This shouldn’t give too much away, and its tone
should reflect that of your story. You’re a writer, so use your
craft to make this copy pitch-perfect!
Interior
Design
Of
course, it’s not all about the cover. Book
design,
when done well, should maintain a consistent level of professionalism
on both the outside and the inside of your book.
Make
sure nothing
distracts your reader from the words on the page. Unlike on the
cover, the focus with your interior designer falls on the text
itself. You don’t want your audience to be squinting at a loopy
Monotype Corsiva font, or wondering why there’s so much empty space
between words.
To
achieve that, you’ll want a clean font and a professional-level
typesetting software (something better than Microsoft Word) to ensure
that your font, spacing, margins and pagination are all flawlessly in
place. A professional typesetter can also help with this, but for
most authors, research and a solid piece of DIY software will suffice
— and if you only have the budget for a pro cover designer or
a
pro interior designer, you should choose the former.
There’s
nothing more satisfying than holding a flawlessly designed book and
knowing that your hard work paid off. Now that you understand book
design a little better, your project will open up to so many new
possibilities! Assuming you’re finished editing the prose, your
next focus in the process of publishing
your book
should be marketing it to the best of your abilities. Do that, and
you’ll be on your way to becoming a successful author in no time!
Join
Joey here on the blog on Fridays for interviews, reviews and guest
bloggers. If you'd be interested in doing any of those, you can contact
Joey here.
