Book Design Made Simple

You can do it yourself.

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • BOOK
  • VIDEOS
  • BLOG
  • READERS’ BOOKS
  • MEDIA
    • About the book
    • Resources
  • SHOP
You are here: Home / Archives for Glenna Collett

Book award contests: Are they worthwhile?

June 15, 2016 By Glenna Collett 17 Comments

award medals displayed on bookLast fall and winter, we entered Book Design Made Simple in some independent publishing book award contests. In mid-April, we got word that our book had won gold at the Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards. Nine days later, we won another gold medal, this time at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: book marketing

The value of an editor

May 8, 2016 By Glenna Collett 4 Comments

red pencil sharpener to be used by an editorDear reader, let me repeat something that you’ve probably heard before: Nobody likes a poorly written book. It doesn’t matter if the message of the book is valid or even excellent or groundbreaking. If it is not well written and constructed, people will not read it.

So please get yourself an editor. Try to find one who has experience in your general topic (science or romance, for instance), or in your form of writing (short stories, screenplay, novel). Ask for samples of work they have edited. Naturally the pieces should be readable and error-free. You’ll find editorial resources at the end of this article. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: editing

What your dog can teach you about book design

April 11, 2016 By Glenna Collett 8 Comments

dog on cover of Book Design Made SimpleFor some reason I never fully noticed this before. But when I helped out at two book sale events this past fall, it became all too clear: People love dogs more than anything else. Dogs are cute. Dogs attract. Dogs are cuddly and lovable. Dogs rule. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: book marketing

Typesetting math in InDesign

March 7, 2016 By Glenna Collett 6 Comments

collage of colorful math typesettingHave you ever tried to typeset any kind of math and driven yourself almost mad? And have you ended up setting each part of the equation in a different type frame, then piecing it all together and grouping it? I confess that I have done both. But with a little perseverance I figured out a way to do it properly in InDesign, and I’m hoping that this article will prevent you from suffering as long and as hard as I did. [Read more…]

Filed Under: InDesign Tagged With: typesetting

Developing an eye for good design

February 8, 2016 By Glenna Collett 4 Comments

eye_openerIn Book Design Made Simple, we have given you samples and instructions that serve as foundations for your own book designs. And if you follow them, you can be certain that you have produced something very good. But are you confident about your work? Do you think it looks good? Do you wonder if anyone else will think it’s good? Do you worry that if you come up with ideas of your own they might be “bad”? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: color, typesetting

Designing a cookbook

January 11, 2016 By Glenna Collett 5 Comments

­­Typical cookbook photoIn Book Design Made Simple, we mention cookbooks a few times but never sit you down and explain in detail how to go about designing one. Once you’ve had some experience with designing and laying out other books, you’ll see at once that you’ll need to apply some extra effort to make a good-looking, readable cookbook. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Page Design Tagged With: text frames, typesetting

Preparing a screenshot for print

March 19, 2015 By Glenna Collett Leave a Comment

Sample InDesign screenshotHave you ever tried to add an image on your screen to your printed materials? And noticed that it looked terrible in print—all blurry and pixelated? We had the same problem! Our book has a lot of screen shots in it. We mean a LOT. We use them mostly to show you InDesign dialog boxes—each view of the screen saves many words. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Page Design Tagged With: images

How to price your book

November 14, 2014 By Glenna Collett 2 Comments

barcodes showing prices on book back coversPractically every author thinks and wonders about this a lot. How do people come up with just the right price for their books? Well, maybe the prices that are printed on their books are not actually working for them, and that might be because they used the stab-in-the-dark method of pricing. Let’s see if we can figure out the best, most rational, price for your book.

There are two main factors at work here. One is to set a price that is comparable to similar books. And the other is to set one that will give you enough returns to pay your expenses. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: book marketing

Your field trip to the bookstore

September 30, 2014 By Glenna Collett Leave a Comment

variety of books on shelfBefore you start designing your book or cover, you really need to take a trip to a bookstore to check out the competition. (Yes, you will have competition!) Visit the section of the store where your book will be placed and take notes on the following: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: book marketing

Is book design REALLY simple?

July 11, 2014 By Glenna Collett Leave a Comment

open book with strong colors to indicate good book designIf you are a book designer reading this, you have probably just put a huge question mark at the end of our book title, Book Design Made Simple. “There’s nothing simple about it!” you say, and I have to admit that I agree with you. Especially when typesetting and page layout are added into the mix with book cover design elements. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Next Page »

Categories

  • Book Design (25)
    • Book Cover Design (8)
    • Book Page Design (11)
  • InDesign (16)
  • Publishing (23)

Tags

Amazon book binding book marketing book printing children's books color contents copyright ebooks editing footnotes/endnotes images InDesign updates ISBN paragraph styles Photoshop tables text frames typesetting

Connect with us online

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Book endpapers: A gallery of ideas July 11, 2022
  • Writing in InDesign: Why and how May 9, 2022
  • Designing a book spine March 7, 2022
  • What type size should I use? January 10, 2022
  • Navigating Amazon KDP ads and keywords November 9, 2021
  • Amazon updates for book authors November 8, 2021
  • What does a children’s book editor do? August 31, 2021

Join our book design community! Download chapters 1 to 9 of the book for free and receive book design updates via email.

Buy the book

Book Design Made Simple
Paperback: Amazon
Ebook: Kindle, Apple Books

Blog awards

Copyright © 2022 - Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett

Read our privacy policy here.