When you put together your manuscript for publishing, it’s important to consider industry standards. There is a proper place for each section of the book, and if your book strays from the usual order, then it can reflect poorly on your message.

The pages that are in the beginning of a book before the chapters begin are referred to as “Front Matter”. The pages should be numbered with lower case roman numerals. There is often a blank page on the left-hand sid...

Until you publish a book, you may never have thought about how much goes into the cover design. You may already have an idea in mind about what the cover might look like and how to visually portray your book. You will bring this idea along with any other information like the genre, target market, budget, and schedule to your designer before the work begins. They will take all of this and more into consideration to put together a cover that best represents your book and compels people to buy i...

I've written before about the importance of typography in book cover design. While a book cover is designed to attract attention, the interior is the opposite. It should be so readable that you don’t even notice the typography. Good editorial design is inconspicuous and allows the author’s words to be communicated directly to the reader without distraction. There should be synergy between what the words say and what the design says. It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

I frequently have clients that provide images for their books, and many times they are not high enough resolution for printing. “But it looks fine when I print it at home,” they say, “why won’t it look good in my paperback?” The reason is that printing presses do not use inkjet printers.

If you look at a picture in a book with a magnifying glass, you will see that it is created out of little dots, and printers require there to be 300 of those l...

When you call a designer for a consultation, it is important to have all of the relevant information on hand. One of the obvious questions the designer will ask you is how long is the book and what type of book is it? Is it a non-fiction book with tables and charts, or a novel with text only? Will there be illustrations or photos? If it is a textbook, what is the organizational structure? When is your launch date? The more information you can give, the more accurate your estimate will be.

Your book is written, your editing is complete, now you just send the word doc to the printer, right? Well, you could, but if you want your book to be taken seriously you will need to learn the ins and outs of book design, typography, and prepress. Spending a little extra time and money to work with a professional designer could save you a lot of extra time and money as well as produce a more professional-looking and better-selling book...