We all expect to see a copyright notice in every book. But where the notice appears and how it appears can vary tremendously. In this article we present a gallery of creative copyright notices for you to admire and maybe emulate. We’re hoping to inspire you while also saving you hours of browsing time at the library! [Read more…]
Book Page Design
Below you'll find links to all the information about book page design that’s available on our website, book, videos, and blog.
Get started with Part I of Book Design Made Simple, where you’ll learn how to lease and install Adobe InDesign, create a document, and import your manuscript from Word. Download Part I for free by subscribing to our blog—simply use the form below.
Excerpts from Book Design Made Simple
- Basic principles of good design: what are they?
- Front matter — what to include in the front of your book
- Back matter — what to include in the back of your book
- Running heads — what to include in your novel or nonfiction book
- Typeface vs font: what’s the difference?
- Book trim size: how to choose the right trim size
Video tutorials about book page design
- InDesign basics: navigating, selecting, and using layers
- Using columns to change your layout
- Typesetting a poetry book
Blog posts about book page design
Below are all the blog posts in the Book Page Design category, starting with the most recent post.
Special signature inserts in books
Have you ever wondered why some books gather all of their photos and other images together into a few pages in the middle? These groups of pages are called special signature inserts. We’ll explain why this is practical in traditional printing on paper, and why there are also reasons to do it even with print-on-demand. Plus we’ll show you how to set up your own book this way.
Designing a book title page
Every book needs a title page. Whether it’s in a printed book or an ebook, the title page shows the official title, author, and publisher that will go into the Library of Congress database—or the equivalent database in your country.
Also, it’s supposed to be the first, or almost the first, page that a reader sees. As such, it has the potential to set the tone for the rest of the book, and with a good design, add marketing value.
So here are some ideas, starting with the basics. [Read more…]
Designing book running heads
What are running heads, anyway? And running feet? And should you care about how they are designed? Yes!
You might know a running head as a “header,” and a running foot as a “footer.” In fiction books, the running heads announce the author and book title on each spread. In nonfiction and anthologies, they help readers find their way around. [Read more…]
What type size should I use?
In Book Design Made Simple, we suggest type sizes that should work in most situations for adult readers. But there are so many other situations! What about children’s books? What about large type books? Reference books? In this article we’ll suggest solutions for these kinds of books. And we’ll only discuss printed books; with ebooks, the reader can enlarge or reduce the type size to whatever works for them. [Read more…]
Design a coffee table book
Coffee table books. Are they a blast from the past? No, actually, folks are still publishing them, and you can, too. Do you have an idea for a coffee table book of poetry and photography? About a specific artist or a place you love? About your local history, or something completely different? With good planning and design, your book could become very successful. [Read more…]
Using a layout grid in book design
Do you use a layout grid? A few months ago, I saw a survey on Twitter for designers. The one multiple choice question went something like this:
- I always use a layout grid.
- I sometimes use a layout grid.
- What’s a layout grid?
I had to laugh, but then I began thinking that some of our readers could benefit from learning about this topic. [Read more…]
Optical margin alignment
Some InDesign functions have names that you would never be able to guess, and that makes them really tough to discover and learn. One of these is Optical Margin Alignment (I’m calling it OMA), which is InDesign’s formal name for hanging punctuation. I used to see this effect in other people’s work and then try to imitate it, but I couldn’t because I had no idea what it was called. So this article explains what it is and how to do it. [Read more…]
Calculate book page count using word count
Wondering how many Word pages equal a book page? You can easily calculate book page count using the word count from your Word document. We’ll explain two easy methods to calculate book page count: 1) use one of our simple formulas as a book page count calculator, or 2) use our InDesign template to experiment with book trim size and type size to accurately determine a page count for books. Use whichever method is easiest for you. [Read more…]
Converting multiple images to CMYK in Photoshop
Need to convert to CMYK in Photoshop? Let’s say you’re designing and typesetting a book with lots of images. You’ve finished laying out all the pages, and your last task is to prepare the images for print. All of your images have either been scanned or photographed, and therefore they are all RGB color (not CMYK color, as required by most offset printers). And most images are JPGs, although you might have a few PNGs too.
It’s a monumental task to convert each image to CMYK individually. Suppose you have 50+ images, or even 1,500+ images! I found myself in this situation recently, and am sharing with you a quick and easy way to convert all of your images to CMYK at once by batch processing actions in Photoshop. (It sounds complicated, but isn’t.) [Read more…]
