7 Book Layout Errors You Will Want to Avoid

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Joel Friedlander wrote a great article “7 Formatting Errors That Make Your Book Look Unprofessional”, helping self-publishing authors to get to know the in- and outs of book layout. This is not the only useful post, a whole cornucopia of advice for authors who want to create print books can be found on www.TheBookDesigner.com, Joel’s website.  He asks: “Although our books may be self-published, we sure don’t want them to look sub-par, do we?”
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Books Should Look Like from Traditional Publishers
Writers certainly try to launch their books without the long delays or the uncertainty if they get a traditional publisher contract. The best way to have a great book layout is through a professional.  However, some authors don’t want to use a book lay-outer, or don’t want to fork out the costs involved.  Another way to solve a lot of these print book formatting problems while also getting a well-designed, industry-standard book, is to use a book template.  Joel Friedlander created this fantastic solution. Find out more and see the available designs at: BookDesignTemplates.com.

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More and more writers are taking advantage of the new tools of Print-on-Demand and create and publish their own books.  Authors becoming “do-it-yourself” book lay-outers need to avoid an amateurish look of their books.
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Joel Friedlanders List of Errors to Avoid
“Some of the errors I see when reviewing self-published books are very easy to correct, if you only know how:”

1. Putting page numbers on blank pages.
   Blank pages have no text or images on them, and that means they should be truly blank.
2. Using running heads on chapter opening pages or blank pages.
   Just like page numbers, running heads (the type at the top of a page that shows the book title, author name, or chapter title) have no place on a blank page, just leave them off so the pages are truly blank.
3. Using “rag-right” typesetting.
   This means that the left and right margins of your page are straight and all lines except the last line in a paragraph are all the same length. This is what your readers expect to see in your book, so make sure you give it to them.
4. Double spacing between sentences.
   Only one space between sentences.
5. Using both indented AND block style spaces between paragraphs.
   If you add spaces between your paragraphs, make sure you don’t also indent the first line.
6. Putting the odd numbered pages on the left.
   When you open a book, it just makes sense that the first page is page number 1, and that has to be a right-hand page. This rule is absolute, and you should never, ever number your pages with even numbers on right-hand pages.
7. Making super small margins to save pages.
   CreateSpace and other print-on-demand services charge based on number of pages. But that’s no reason to shortchange your readers by making your page margins too small just to save money. Small margins will make your book hard to hold and difficult to read, never a good result.

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He adds: “Paying attention to these details of book formatting will help ensure that your books look and work the way they are supposed to. Your readers will thank you for that, and it’s your readers you should keep in mind throughout the publishing process.”

My advice:  Just visit a bookstore and browse through traditional book titles, or check out the first pages of Amazon print books and you will likely not find any of these seven errors listed by Joel Friedlander. Making it right from the beginning will save you an amazing amount of time and frustration, and your reputation as a self-publisher.
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Understanding Fonts & Typography
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/understanding-fonts-typography/

Understanding Book Layouts and Page Margins
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/08/book-layouts-page-margins/

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Book Cover: You Never Get a Second Chance …

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… for a first good impression!  Always remember : 
Your books’ title and its appearance is the first, and perhaps only impression you make on a prospective reader.  A great image on your book cover will undoubtedly catch your reader’s imagination, wondering what lies beyond it. A fantastic opportunity to draw readers in.

Not that an appealing cover means automatically a great book, but a book that is accurately and even interestingly represented by its cover, is more likely to catch the eye of someone who is going to enjoy reading it.  Interesting covers are going to get more time on shelf-displays, online and off-line.  We are a visual culture; naturally that is going to influence our book-buying habits.
A stunning book cover is one of the best marketing tools for any writer!
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Bali Rai wrote in one of his blogs:  ”In 2002, as one of the judges on the Guardian’s Teenage prize, I remember a book called Thursday’s Child by Sonya Hartnett.  It’s a simple yet wonderful story of 1930′s Depression-era Australia, and it went on to win the award. However, it was not my choice for winner, simply because I thought the cover illustration would deter people from reading it. It was drab and old-fashioned in my opinion and had I not been reading and judging the book, it would have put me off completely.”
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Here are some points you should discuss with your designer.

• Use bold or complementary colors
• Use light on dark for dramatic effects (if it fits to your book content)
• Test the cover in thumbnail size to make sure it looks good at Amazon’s website
• Use not more than different two fonts in total
• Use not too wide vertical spaces between lines of text
• Use few shadow, bevel, gradient or glow – keep it subtle
• Align the cover text – centre, left or right
• Place text on plain background to stand out
• Use the same fonts for all your books and readers will be able to identify them easily
• People read left to right, top to bottom. Position your elements in appropriate levels of importance.
• Never, ever, use a white background for your book! White on white is barely visible and on websites your book will not stick out, as the sites’ background are almost always white.

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E-books are bought online, usually displayed on a page with many other books. Therefore clarity, simplicity, brightness and information must jump off the screen.  A simple and arresting graphic element and bold clear text for the title and the authors’ name must be easy to read on the tiny online image.
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A book that is brilliantly written, but lacks a good quality cover design will remain unnoticed and undiscovered.  It is absolutely crucial to have a book cover that grabs the attention of readers and book buyers and shows the heart and the soul of the book in one single image

Read more:

Lousy Book Covers
http://lousybookcovers.tumblr.com/

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“23 Creative Book Cover Designs and their Story” is a showcase of creative book cover designs, indicating the typefaces used for the title or text:
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/creative-book-cover-story
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Joel Friedlander wrote a great blog about brilliant book titles in one of his blogs:
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2010/06/how-to-write-book-titles-for-people-robotsJoel
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“40 Extraordinary Photoshop Text Effects” shows detailed tutorials, how to create amazing book title effects, step by step and using lots of screen shots.
http://www.problogdesign.com/resources/40-extraordinary-photoshop-text-effects

Fonts for book titles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface
http://www.dafont.com/themes.php
http://www.1001freefonts.com
http://www.identifont.com

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/ to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 960 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
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Secret of Great Book Cover Design and Layout

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In a former blog: “Becoming Your Own Publisher” the book production process, you can find lots of tips and links for your book layout, cover and formatting process.  Many new authors are complaining about the pre-print process at CreateSpace, other POD service companies or the printing company they use for larger quantities of paperbacks and books. They are suddenly confronted with fonts, typography, page and other book layout requirements. However, not only for printed books, but also for e-books it is essential to know a bit about the possibilities and rules.
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To familiarize yourself with this (often) completely new field, read Joel Friedlander’s beginner
articles

Understanding Fonts & Typography
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/understanding-fonts-typography/

Understanding Book Layouts and Page Margins
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/08/book-layouts-page-margins/
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Joel Friedlander explains the basic building blocks that books are made of, and the typography:
type fonts and they way they are arranged on the page. He says: “There are so many tiny details
and decisions that go into formatting a book that you pretty much have to be someone who enjoys
working on that scale to appreciate book design. It may involve differences of a hundredth of an
inch one way or the other. That’s true for the decisions you make about margins, too.”
He cautions for example that “the “minimum” margin of .25″ that CreateSpace refers to is too small for most books. This margin measurement is meant to create a “safe area” so that nothing on your page is in danger of getting trimmed off.”
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Michael N. Marcus explains why book margins are so important: “One of my basic rules of thumb
is that the a book’s outside margins must be large enough to comfortably fit human thumbs without
covering up any text. It’s really annoying to have to constantly re-position pages while reading
through a book.” His blog is another great reading for new author-publishers how book-layout works. He also wrote a great cautionary book “How to NOT Get Screwed by a Self-Publishing Company“.
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Want to read and learn more about book design? If you are a writer working with a publisher (large or small) or if you are a small or first time publisher, these books will help you to understand the book production process and the principles of good cover and interior book design.

Book Design and Production
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Design-Production-Pete-Masterson/dp/0966981901

Basics Design Layout, 2nd edition
http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Design-02-Layout-Second/dp/2940411492/

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $ 179 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-Book-PR.com/book-promo to advertise your new book, specials or KDP Select Free Days.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 900 of them : ) – if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

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How to Choose A Bestselling Title

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Oxfordwriters published a great article: How to Choose a Bestselling Title and they give examples how, by only changing the title, the authors’ sales numbers skyrocketed.  They asked: “What if you could sell ten times more books just by changing your title? OK, that‟s believable.  What if you could sell nearly a million more books just by changing your title?”
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“This is exactly what happened to author, Bob Morrison, when he self-published his book. When it first went on sale as “The Entrepreneurs’ Manual” it sold only 12 copies. Disillusioned by these sales, and thinking the title needed an overhaul, he renamed it  Why S.O.B.s Succeed and Nice Guys Fail in
Business. The book has since sold over 800,000 copies!”
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Amazing Results
“In a world where we‟re bombarded with information, an attention-grabbing title can make all the difference between success and failure. If you‟re still having doubts, here‟s a handful of other manuscripts that have been successfully re-titled:
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  The Squash Book was tested as a title versus The Zucchini Cookbook. The first title sold just 1,500 copies. The second sold 300,000 because it was more specific.
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• John Gray didn’t get much attention with his book What Your Mother Couldn’t Tell You and What Your Father Didn’t Know.  He shortened it to Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.  The rest, as they say, is history…”
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  How to Choose a Bestselling Title
• Oxford Writers advice:  “Top titles create anticipation, excitement and enthusiasm. They express the passion of your message. They connect emotionally with your reader. This is what you are aiming for.”

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Get eleven tips how to find the most intriguing title for your book. Top titles create anticipation, excitement and enthusiasm. They express the passion of your message. They connect emotionally with your reader. This is what you are aiming for…  Read the whole article 

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 880+ of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

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How to Write a Brilliant Blurb for Your Book

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Blurbs are the second most important selling tool you have for your book, so you want this short description to grab the reader’s attention. Learning to write a short blurb for your book can be fun, but it is also a helpful practice for writing promotional short articles of any kind, especially for online copy, which should be always short and concise.  
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Writing a blurb for your books’ back cover is not the only way you can make use of it:

• as part of a proposal for a publisher
• for your e-books online sales page on Amazon, Kobo, B&N etc.
• as content for your website page or your blogs’ “About” page
• for your submission for a contest
• for your application as a “Writer in Residency”
• editors or journalists need a blurb for an article on you and your book
• as your book blurb for the person introducing you in an interview or a writers’ panel

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Remember the blog article about the “elevator pitch“, You Never Get a Second Chance…the 30-60 second description of your book?  Writing a book blurb or a very short synopsis of your book is almost the same task of explaining your book in a few short sentences.
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What is the difference between a book blurb and a short synopsis?
A books blurb does NOT have a spoiler! It stimulates interest and curiosity and wets the readers appetite to buy / read the entire book.
A synopsis is a summary of the whole story – the beginning, the middle and the end: What happens throughout the story, at the end, how everything is resolved.
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What’s in for your reader? Tips on writing a blurb

Blurbs can range from a few lines to a few short paragraphs. A book blurb does not provide answers, but rather spark the reader’s curiosity.

• First, you must determine the market for your story.
• Most of your success will depend on your opening line, the hook or the headline.
• Write your blurb in a way that shows your potential reader how you will deliver.
• End with a reason for the reader to buy / read your book. It can be in the form of a statement or a provocative question.
• Study lots of back cover blurbs in your own or a library’s shelves.
• If it’s a novel, it should promise a fabulous, entertaining read.  A Non-Fiction or self-help books blurb should promise a solution or appeal to the reader’s interest.
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Blurbs for Fiction
Book blurbs tend to pitch to the emotional side of fiction readers. The character’s experience is “spooky, utterly devastating or heart-breaking”. The blurb might talk about a mystery to be solved. Add questions into your novel’s blurb.
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Blurbs for Non-fiction
These book blurbs promise answers and strategies, such as “chock-full of information“ or “gives you the solutions you where looking for.”
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Five basic elements
American Bestselling Author and writing teacher Mike Wells writes in his blog:
Each and every story is composed of the same five basic elements: a (1) hero who finds himself stuck in a (2) situation from which he wants to free himself by achieving a (3) goal. However, there is a (4) villain who wants to stop him from this, and if he’s successful, will cause the hero to experience a (5) disaster.
Read his worthwhile blog where he explains in detail how to write a synopsis of your book, under “Advice for Writers“.
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Writer short and shorter
How to shorten what has already been trimmed and trimmed and more trimmed? Learn it from Marilyn Byerly.
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Get testimonials
Once you mastered writing your own book blurb, you might want to get testimonials from celebrity writers in your genre. How you can achieve this, explains Marcia Yudkin and offers great tips on getting testimonials.
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Phrases with instant appeal
Sarah Kettle, copywriter for Penguin: “Note words and quotes and phrases with instant appeal, atmosphere, an air of mystery, a sense of character, a sense of place and put them all together in a coherent and exciting way.”  So, whoever picks up the book and reads the blurb, thinks “I must read this book”.

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 830+ of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

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