Years ago my wife and I went to a wedding at a very prestigious “club” here in San Francisco. My wife looked gorgeous as always, and I wore a very nice light gray English wool suit that seemed suitably low-key.
When we walked in the door I realized that I “hadn’t received the memo” because every one of the hundreds of men in the room was wearing a tuxedo.
Needless to say, the next couple of hours were “interesting” and a real “character-building” experience. But don’t let this happen to your book, if you’ve taken on the responsibility of doing your own layout, or if your cousin Wendell has offered to help because he knows how to use Microsoft Word.
Don’t Jeopardize Months of Work
You’ve worked for months to research and write your book. You know that to get a reviewer’s attention or to get noticed by book buyers and editorial writers your book has to look “professional.” But all too often, in learning how to publish a book the many details of book design and layout can get lost in the rush.
Self publishing gives you the opportunity to do many jobs that used to be done by dedicated professionals, but in some cases you may not get the results you want. If part of your plan includes book reviews, media attention and sales through traditional book publishing channels like chain bookstores, be sure to avoid these pitfalls, so you don’t “stand out from the crowd” in all the wrong ways:
- Blank Right-Hand Page Many books have blank left-hand pages and there is nothing wrong with that. If your chapter openings are always on right-hand pages, about half the chapters will have a blank before the chapter opening. But if your chapter openings are on facing pages (a left and right together, for instance with illustrations facing the chapter opening page) you run the risk of the blank right. Adjust the typography or have quotatations or artwork on hand that will augment the message of your book, and put those on the otherwise blank right.
- Folios Everywhere Of course we need folios (page numbers) most places, but remember to turn off page numbering for the title page, the copyright page, any blank pages, any “display” pages like part-openers, and any advertising pages at the end of the book.
- Running Heads on Blank Pages If a page is blank, technically it is not part of the text, because there is no text on the page, is there? So a blank page should be just that, blank, with nothing on it at all.
- Odd-Numbered Pages on the Left When you open your book, the first page you see is page 1. There is no logical way that page 1 can be on the left, because then it wouldn’t be the first page. All odd-numbered pages in your book are right-hand pages.
- Rag Right Composition There are some books that can be typeset in a rag right (unjustified) style, but they are rare. Whatever the merit of rag right composition, book are not generally a good place to use it. Stick with justified copy.
Check Your Outfit Before You Walk Out of the Door
Of course there are a lot of other ways you can inadvertently alert people that you are an “amateur,” but these errors, once you know about them, are easy to avoid. Make sure your book stands out for the great writing, the thoughtful arguments, or the tremendous value it brings to readers, not because it looks unprofessional.
Remember, you want buyers and reviewers to take your book seriously. It’s important that you take the design and layout details of your book just as seriously. In the end, the best investment might be to hire a professional book and cover designer, someone who knows how to properly construct the book, and who will look after all the details for you.
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Thank you for posting all these helpful tips and reminders about layout. As we all know, layout is crucial especially in retaining the attention and comfort for the readers. We look forward to more superb posts!
Sincerely,
Bookwhirl.com
You have the book…We have the Marketing Resources.
Thank you! With so many things to keep track of it makes sense for many self-publishers to turn these details over to a professional. One less thing to worry about.
One other major one – full tabs for paragraphs. Should be three spaces or so. SO many self-published books have full tabs without justified margins. It’s like people don’t look at trad published books before putting theirs together.
Another quick way to spot an amateur is leader dots in the Table of Contents from the end of a chapter title ro the page number it starts on.
Nice blog, by the way. I think I’ll add you to my blogroll. I invite you to take a gander at mine-although I’ve been blogging on book design for over two years, I was hacked into earlier this year and haven’t gotten my archive back up yet, so there are just the few current postings up.
@Henry, yes, that one’s good too. Although traditionally we never used “full tabs” or “three spaces” since all these measurements are best done in “ems.” The other measurements are directly from typewriter nomenclature and don’t have that much utility in the context of typography. And yes, so many errors could be avoided if people just looked at the books on their shelves.
@Stephen Thanks for the visit. I’ve admired your blog and its design for several months. I’m glad to hear you are getting the archive back up because I’d love to see more of your work.
You mentioned earlier in the post:
When you open your book, the first page you see is page 1. There is no logical way that page 1 can be on the left, because then it wouldn’t be the first page. All odd-numbered pages in your book are right-hand pages.
Now, do you mean that page 1 is on the first page of text (like a preface) or the page 1 is on the first chapter of the book?
My book has a dedication, preface, then chapter 1. Where would “page 1″ be located?
Thanks!
Alisha, I was trying to make the point that the very first leaf is on the right, because we start books by opening them from the right, and the first page pretty much has to be page 1, making all right-hand pages odd pages.
When books are paginated, the designer or editor may decide to start with roman numerals, then switch to arabic numerals for the body of the book. In this case, page “1″ could be many pages after the beginning of the book’s frontmatter.
There’s a complete article on how to paginate a book in my archive, which you can read by clicking the link. Hope that helps!
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