interior book design
Packaging Mistakes That Will Keep You Out of Bookstores: Interior Layout
August 12, 2010
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by Katie Steigman
Stop the presses! Before you print your book, make sure you’re not committing a major packaging faux pas that will diminish retail buyers’ interest. We’ve all heard the statistic: 2,000 books are published every day. That means the competition for shelf space is fierce, so as an author, you have to make sure the physical presentation of your book is flawless or you don’t stand much of a chance.
We receive so many submissions that, despite having great content, have one part of the packaging off, which makes it hard for us, or any distributor, to effectively sell the title. Interior layout is one facet of packaging that can be easily overlooked but remains essential to the professional presentation and readability of a book. I spoke with managing designer Sheila Parr, who’s won numerous awards for her book designs, about common layout errors, and she offered some simple advice to anyone looking to produce a book on their own.
Font and Typography
For fiction and general nonfiction, serif fonts are easier to read on the printed page than sans serif fonts. Size depends on font, but in general text should be somewhere between 10 and 12 points. Stay away from bold type, underlined type, all-caps type, and exclamation points to emphasize a point—this can come across as unprofessional.
SP: When picking a serif font, don’t use Times New Roman. Times has become a sort of default font,and it can have an unfinished look about it when printed. For a more polished, professional look, try something like Caslon or Garamond. To emphasize a point, italics can be a better solution than bold or underlined text.
Margins
In general, margins are about .75 inches on the bottom and sides, and about 1 inch at the top of the page, though the .75-inch margin can be as small as .5 or as large as 1 inch. For longer books, the margin along the spine, known as the gutter, may be larger. Leading, the space between lines of text, should be several points larger than the text itself.
SP: Margins and leading are usually determined by factors like genre and page count. For example, a dense business book may have a looser layout with wide margins and leading to help the reader better absorb the material, while a novel typically has a tighter layout that keeps the reader moving and engaged.
Words per Page
Too much or to little text per page makes a book difficult to read. Like margins, the number of words per page varies based on genre and page count, but there are usually about 35 lines of text.
SP: In general there should be about 350 to 440 words per composed page. Nonfiction and books with illustrations and graphs are on the lower end of that scale, and novels are on the higher end.
Chapter Headings and Running Heads
Chapter headings and page breaks should match the book’s genre and style and should be appropriate for the target audience. A business book, for example, should have fairly simple chapter headings as opposed to the headings of a fantasy novel, which may have more elaborate fonts or design. When there are other headings within the chapter, create a hierarchy by using varying sizes.
Running heads are the text at the top of every numbered page of a book. They often consist of a combination of the author’s name, the chapter title, or the book title. The important issue here is to be consistent—if you decide to use author name on the left and title on the right, stick with it throughout.
Graphs and Illustrations
If you are using graphs or illustrations, make sure they are high resolution and easy to understand. Try to keep visually presented information simple and relevant to the text around it.
SP: There are whole college courses based on information design—illustrating complex information in a way that is easily understood. My advice: hire an experienced professional to design your charts, graphs, and illustrations.
Front Matter
All of the information that comes before the first chapter of your book (e.g., your foreword, preface, or introduction) is called front matter. There are varying styles of organization depending on the genre or publisher. This content is frequently paginated with lower-case Roman numerals, while the pages that begin your first chapter—the content of your book—are where the Arabic numerals begin, though introductions frequently get page 1, not Roman numerals.
Thanks to Sheila Parr and our production and design teams for all of the great information.
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Book Design: The Font That Makes You Look the Lamest
April 20, 2009
by Aaron Hierholzer
In a previous post on Fonts That Make You Look Lame, we included Comic Sans in a list of five typefaces that are either played-out or just downright atrocious. And who doesn't hate the goofy, amateurish font? The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story about the man behind Comic Sans, Vincent Connare, and the couple who founded Ban Comic Sans, an organization with "global ambitions" to eliminate this ominpresent affront to aesthetic sensibility. Fortunately, Connare seems to have a sense of humor about his creation—according to the article, he and the founders of Ban Comic Sans are considering doing a picture book together. Good idea! I'd buy it.
However, Comic Sans is merely the most visible in a huge group of stale typefaces. Papyrus is a personal pet peeve and also has its own mockery cult. For an interesting debate on Comic Sans, other lame fonts (Souvenir is a "crime against humanity"), and whether anyone even cares about fonts, be sure to read some of the WSJ article's comments.
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Hey! What's the Matter?: Understanding the Basic Sections of a Book
May 25, 2006
by Jay Hodges
Does the foreword belong before the preface? When do the page numbers start? What’s the difference between a preface and an introduction? If you need answers to demystify the front matter of your book, read on.
Books are generally divided into three sections: front matter, principal text, and back matter. Front matter is the material at the front of a book that usually offers information about the book. The principal text is the meat of a book. Back matter is the final pages of a book, where endnotes, the appendix, the bibliography, the index, and related elements reside. Though the front matter may not be as sexy as the main text or as information packed as the back matter, it’s an opportunity for authors to set the tone for their readers’ experience.
Barebones front matter may consist of only a half-title page, full-title page, and copyright page in a work of fiction, and these elements plus a table of contents in a work of nonfiction. A really extensive front matter section might contain the following components (listed in the order preferred by The Chicago Manual of Style): half title, series title or frontispiece, title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph, table of contents, list of illustrations, list of tables, foreword, preface, acknowledgements (if not part of the preface or in the back matter), introduction (if not part of the principal text), list of abbreviations (if not in the back matter), chronology (if not in the back matter), and second half title.
The name of each component is generally descriptive of the information it provides. For example, a table of contents is a list of the contents in a book, and the half title page consists only of the main title (sans subtitle). The kind of information that goes into a foreword, an introduction, or a preface, however, is less obvious. As a result, many authors choose not to include these elements in their books, which is unfortunate because each of these components could enhance a reader’s experience with a book.
The front matter is the only section where a page can be easily added once the book is in page proofs (printed typeset pages that show all elements as they will appear in a printed book). Because of this, the front matter has a separate page numbering sequence from the rest of the book. All pages in the principle text have arabic numbers, and the first page of actual content is page 1 (this may be chapter 1 or an introduction or prologue). Front matter pages are numbered from 1 through whatever page is necessary, but the page numbers appear as lowercase roman numerals. Some front matter pages do not include page numbers—blanks, half title, title, copyright, dedication, and epigraph—although they are counted as numbered pages.
Be Foreword
A foreword is a substantial introduction or statement about a book by someone other than the author of the book. Since someone else is giving your book props just by agreeing to write a foreword and sign his name to it, it’s almost like a very long endorsement of the work minus the gushiness about how great you are. The better the author of the foreword is known, the more helpful the foreword will be in generating interest in your book and increasing sales. Imagine the readers a foreword by Jack Welch or Steve Jobs would attract compared to a foreword written by your neighbor (unless your neighbor happens to be Jack Welch or Steve Jobs, of course). But don’t sweat it if you don’t have access to the big names; it’s unlikely that a foreword by Author’s Neighbor will hinder your sales.
Tell ’Em All About It
A preface could be described as a book’s profile. It includes material about the book that is separate from the book’s subject matter, such as why the author decided to begin the work, the scope of the work, and the work’s intended audience. Sometimes authors use the preface as a place to discuss research methods and to acknowledge assistance, though the latter is usually included in a separate front matter element, the acknowledgments.
Introduce Yourself
Though introductions vary in the type of content they present, they generally should identify the book’s audience, establish a clear sense of the topic and angle the author will develop, tell the reader why the topic has value, and set the stage for the rest of the book by establishing the necessary context and language. Some introductions will describe the function of each chapter in a book, which could help readers decide if they want to read the entire book or only parts of it.
The introduction should be more closely connected to the book than any other component in the front matter. Ideally, an introduction functions as the first couple of paragraphs in a chapter should, by drawing in readers and making them want to keep reading.
Either the author or someone the author deems appropriate and capable to write about the subject can write an introduction. Keep in mind that though introductions can be written by the author or a contributor, someone other than the book’s author must write the foreword.
A big bad review of the order in which the top 10 most common front matter elements should be presented:
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Half-title page
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Title page
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Copyright page
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Dedication
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Epigraph
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Table of Contents
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Foreword
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Preface
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Acknowledgements
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Introduction
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