In 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…]
Is your image high enough resolution for printing?
How can you determine whether an image file is high enough resolution to use in your book? That’s a question I get asked all the time! Images should be at least 300 ppi (pixels per inch) at the size they’ll be printed at— and that’s where most people need help. How do you figure out the size of an image, and whether or not it’s suitable for printing? [Read more…]
Preparing a screenshot for print
Have 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…]
How to price your book
Practically 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…]
Your field trip to the bookstore
Before 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…]
Is book design REALLY simple?
If 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…]
How this whole thing started (for me)
For my entire professional life, since the mid 1970s, I have been a book designer. But back in 2008, my two best textbook publishing clients suddenly stopped using freelancers, and the bottom dropped out of my business just like that. So I scrambled for a new way to make some money as a book designer. [Read more…]
Design your book and get it to press with confidence—even if it’s your first book!
Do you want to create your book cover and/or pages yourself using Adobe InDesign? Well, now you can! Follow easy step-by-step instructions to create your own book design and typeset your pages. [Read more…]
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