In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: April 13, 2026
By: Glenna Collett

We get plenty of queries about new editions of books. Are the changes enough to constitute a new edition? Or maybe a revised edition? Or is it simply a reprint?

The issue is partly a subjective one, but there are some conventional standards that govern the answer to this complex question.

Here’s our non-legal advice, based on experience and a bit of research.

Reprint? New edition? Revised edition?

Before you even ask, fiction does not get new editions. Reprints, yes. Maybe even a revised edition now and then. We heard of a fiction book in which the main characters’ names and parts of the plot had to change for legal reasons, and this resulted in a revised edition.

For the most part, though, we are discussing only nonfiction books here.

Reprint

If you need to fix spelling or grammar issues and maybe update a few facts, you’re dealing with a reprint. There’s no need to mention this on the title page or cover. However, on your copyright page, note that this is a reprint. Or you could call it a second (or higher) printing. Check out our article on copyright issues to see ways to do this.

New edition

When it’s time to overhaul your book, you’ll know it. Depending on the amount of change, you will be developing either a new edition or a revised (or updated) one. Here are some items you might be dealing with:

• Rewriting facts, entire chapters, opinions

• Adding substantial material (chapters, key paragraphs, illustrations)

• Restructuring

• Redoing the design, typography, and/or layout in combination with any of the above

These changes basically make a new book, don’t you think? So give it a new edition number. And make at least some minor changes to your front and back covers (and don’t forget the spine), or change them completely.

Revised or updated edition

On the other hand, you might simply need to add a foreword, or redo your preface. You might decide to include an index. Or you might even revise your conclusion or your main point. You can even change the title of your book, since an official copyright doesn’t cover the book’s title at all. In these cases, you are probably dealing with a revised edition.

An updated edition would include new, fresher data. Or, perhaps in a cookbook, ingredients that are more nutritious. You get the idea.

There is little difference between a revised edition and an updated edition. Use the phrase that suits you best.

A new edition’s copyright page

ISBN

A new edition requires a new ISBN. We hope you purchased a block of ISBNs when you started on your publishing journey so that you can now simply assign a new number. (And it’s less expensive that way, too.)

Whether you already have your new ISBN or not, please read our article on how to obtain and assign ISBNs.

Copyright

Your original copyright protects the original edition. Your new edition will need protection, too, so please reapply for a new copyright in your country. This new copyright will cover the new elements of your book while keeping the original bits under protection at the same time. Both copyrights will expire at the same time, which is your lifetime plus 70 years.

On the copyright page, list your copyright dates in order, with the new edition first, as in this example for a third edition:

Copyright © 2026, 2021, 2018 by Author Name

As a reminder, you get your official copyright in the United States from the U.S Copyright Office. In Canada, it’s through the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

A revised or updated edition’s copyright page

There’s no need to assign a new ISBN or apply for a new copyright.

It’s smart to add “Revised Edition” or “Updated Edition” on the cover and title page. And maybe redesign your book cover. The back cover copy could be rewritten or redesigned, too, to discuss the new features. Take advantage of this good opportunity to revitalize your marketing campaign and give your sales a boost.

On the copyright page, try something like this:

Revised edition 2026
First edition copyright © 2021 by Author Name

or

Copyright © 2021 by Author Name. Revised edition 2026.

We hope this clears up these issues for you at least a little.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: January 10, 2026
By: Fiona Raven

It’s easy to synchronize your paragraph and character styles using InDesign’s Book feature (done after the documents are added to your Book panel). We’ll explain how to do that, and also how to transfer styles from one document to another (this method can be used before the documents are added to your Book panel).

Synchronizing styles using InDesign’s Book feature

If you create a new paragraph or character style in any chapter, that style can be added to some or all of the other chapters in your Book panel quickly and easily.

Synchronizing ALL styles throughout the book

Suppose you’re typesetting chapter 3 and you create a new paragraph style. You can easily add that new style to all the other chapters in your book. Here’s how:

In your Book panel (see pic), the left column is called Style Source. One of those boxes (usually the one at the top by default) has an icon in it, and that “Indicates the Style Source” (if you hover your mouse over it, that’s what it says). All the other empty boxes in that column say “Set the Style Source.”

Let’s say you want to update all the chapters with the paragraph and character styles of Chapter 3. Click in the Set the Style Source box next to Chapter 3 (that little icon will move to this box), then click the Synchronize Styles and Swatches icon at the bottom left. It may take a while, depending on how many styles and chapters you have, but this will make all the chapters have the same styles as Chapter 3.

You may get a message that reads “Synchronization will cause some text in filename.indd to become overset.” If so, make a note of that chapter, then click OK to continue. You’ll want to check every chapter very carefully to make sure that all the text is displaying as expected.

Choosing what to synchronize

Talk about choices! Click on the Book panel’s fly-out menu and choose Synchronize Options. You’ll see all the choices shown in the Synchronize Options dialog box (shown here), and can choose any that you’d like to synchronize. It’s a good idea to synchronize swatches with your paragraph and character styles if the latter include colors for the text, paragraph rules, etc.

Choose all the options you want, then click Synchronize.

Synchronizing only selected documents in the book

It’s very handy to be able to choose which documents to synchronize in the Book panel. In Book Design Made Simple, our front and back matter documents have completely different styles from our chapter documents. We didn’t want the numerous styles for the Contents, Index, Glossary and so on to be cluttering up our chapters, and vice versa. So selective synchronizing worked well for us. (Plus, to check 500 pages for reflowed and overset text every time we added a new paragraph or character style would’ve been too time consuming and potentially introduced new errors!)

Suppose you’ve created a new paragraph style in chapter 3, but you only want to synchronize the chapter 3 styles with two other chapters and not the whole book. Here’s what to do:

Click in the Set the Style Source box next to Chapter 3. Then select the documents you want to synchronize the Chapter 3 styles with:

• select a number of documents in a row by clicking on the first one, holding down the Shift key, and then clicking on the last one

• select individual documents by holding the Ctrl/Cmd key and clicking on different documents

• to deselect all the documents, click in the gray area below all the documents.

Then click the Synchronize Styles and Swatches icon at the bottom left and watch the magic happen! InDesign will open each of the selected documents to synchronize the styles, and you’ll see the “open book” icon to the right of each selected document.

Use a template as a control for styles

Another way to keep a handle on your styles is to create a standard document for your book and save it as a template. Create each new document for your book based on that template. When you combine all your documents into the Book panel, add a blank document made from the template at the end of the book. Set the template as your Style Source (see above), and then synchronize its styles across all the documents in your Book panel. When your book is ready for publication, simply delete the template from the Book panel.

Transferring styles from one InDesign document to another

Suppose you haven’t yet compiled all your documents into the Book panel. Being able to transfer styles between documents outside of the Book feature can save you a lot of work! Use the method described below to transfer paragraph and/or character styles to another document. Paragraph styles are used as an example, but the steps are the same for both.

1. Open the document you want to transfer paragraph styles into. Go to the Paragraph Styles fly-out menu and choose Load Paragraph Styles (or Load All Text Styles if you want to transfer character styles at the same time). In the dialog box, find the document you want to get the styles from, and click Open.

2. You’ll see a dialog box like the one shown here.

3. If you want to import all the styles, click on the Check All button. If you only want to select a few styles, click the Uncheck All button, then choose the individual styles you want. If you need a reminder of the settings for any particular style, look at the Incoming Style Definition area, where the settings are described. Then click OK.

4. The styles you want will now appear among your new document’s paragraph and/or character styles.

You’ll discover a conflict in style names if you’ve named your styles the same in both documents. You could rename your styles in one of the documents, or you could use one of the methods described below to deal with this situation:

• To replace the existing style with the new one If there’s a conflict, your Load Styles dialog box will look something like the one above. When you highlight the style that has a conflict, you’ll be presented with a menu of choices in the Conflict with Existing Style column. Both style definitions are shown so that you can figure out whether or not to overwrite the existing style with the new style. If you decide to do so, choose Use Incoming Style Definition. Your existing style will disappear.

• To keep both styles Highlight the style with the conflict, and choose Auto-Rename in the Conflict with Existing Style column. This will simply import the new style and add “copy” to the end of the style name. You can decide later which style you want to keep, or you can rename or repurpose one of the styles.

Which method of style synchronization is best?

The Book feature has some very handy qualities and we use it a lot! Now that you know two different methods of syncing styles (before and while using the Book feature), choose whichever one suits you the best.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: July 11, 2025
By: Glenna Collett

Learn how to make a simple book signature (group of pages) by hand and have some fun at the same time. Once you try this, you’ll understand how book signatures are put together. And you’ll quickly see how a stack of signatures can become a complete book.

Printed books can have various numbers of pages in their signatures, depending on the book’s trim size, the size of the paper stock, and the size of the printing press. (The one you’ll make here has 16 pages.) Common page counts for book signatures printed on offset, large digital, and web presses are 8, 16, 24, 32, and 48.

Print-on-demand printing can use “signatures” as small as 2 pages, but they use a different system. We’re not talking about them.

And please note that if or when you use InDesign or any other book design software, you don’t have to worry about the process you’ll learn below at all. The book printer turns and flips the pages for you on the big sheets of printing paper once they receive your PDF. This process is called “imposition.”

Instructions for making the book signature

The simplest method is to download and print both the letter-sized signature PDF (print double-sided) and the step-by-step instructions, and proceed as directed.

Booksignaturepages

12.1KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Booksignature Instructions

27.7KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

But if you want to start from scratch, follow the directions below. You will need a blank sheet of paper (any size), scissors, and a stapler.

Placing the page numbers

On your blank sheet of paper, write page numbers on the front, using this layout:

Turn the paper over, flipping on the long side. Then write page numbers on the back side, using this layout:

Folding, trimming, and binding

Turn and/or flip the paper until you see page 14 at the lower left. Fold the paper in half from left to right. You will then see page 13 on the lower right. Crease the fold.

Fold the signature in half from top to bottom. You will now see pages 8 and 9. Crease the fold.

Fold the signature one more time, from left to right. You will see page 1 on the front and 16 on the back. Crease the fold.

Carefully peek inside to make sure that the pages are numbered in order. Do not unfold the signature.

With the scissors, trim the top and right sides of the folded signature just a little bit so that the pages are no longer attached to each other except at the spine.

Use the stapler to bind the signature together at the center. Use just one staple or as many as you like. Make sure the pointy parts of the staple(s) are in the middle of the signature and not on the outside.

Voilà! You’ve made your own book signature and bound it using what’s called a saddle stitch.

Optional book cover

You may use page 1 as your front cover, and page 16 as your back cover. (This is called a self cover.) If you want to add a cover, simply wrap your cover around it all, trim it to size, and staple.

Book signature variations

Now think of all the different things you could do the next time. Perhaps you could sew the signature together instead of stapling it (using colorful thread, string, or even ribbon). Try shaping the corners or tearing the edges. You could leave off the page number on page 1. Experiment with a different paper size. Challenge yourself by writing your message on the paper before you fold and cut it.

You could even make a stack of these signatures and bind them into a book. For this, you’ll need to be very clever with the page numbering, starting with 17 on the second signature, 33 on the third signature, and so on. And then you’ll want to attach the book signatures together.

We hope you enjoy this little exercise. Impress your friends! Entertain children! Make memorable greeting cards! Have fun and go wild with it.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: April 7, 2025
By: Glenna Collett

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.

Practical reasons for special signature inserts

Cost

Artwork reproductions and historical images need to be clear and crisp. The main reason to use a multipage special signature insert is to print these images in color or on better paper than the rest of the book. In traditionally-printed books, the pages are produced in groups of 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, or even 48 (these groups are called signatures). So the text of the book can use standard paper while a special signature insert can use higher quality paper. (We explained more about signatures and book binding in a previous article, Book binding basics.)

Also, if the images are your only elements of color, sprinkling them throughout the book (and paying for color printing throughout) would be an expensive way to go about it. Grouping them all together to print separately might be smarter.

No matter how many pages the signatures are in the rest of the book, the special signature inserts can have a smaller number. Eight pages is common.

A special signature can decrease the overall cost of printing while also enhancing the quality of the images. Discuss the possibilities with your printer before you commit to the best approach.

Layout

Another reason to use a special signature insert would be to help with the layout process. If you’re not certain whether you’ll get permission to use some of your images, you’ll have trouble laying out the pages. (Should you leave space for those images on the relevant pages, or not?) In a book with a lot of uncertainty about the image permissions, you could reserve a certain number of pages, leave them blank for now, and fill them later once you find out which photos and artwork you’ll be working with.

Obtaining permission to use images

Wondering how to get permission to use images in your book? There are lots of articles online, but you could start with this good introduction from Stanford University in the US, or this one from Authors Alliance.

How to set up your book for a special signature insert

If you’re planning to print your book on an offset or digital (non-POD) press, talk to your printer first about your ideas for the insert. They will advise you about paper choices and how many pages you can work with.

Your insert signature will be slipped in between other regular signatures when it’s time to bind the book, so figure out with your printer ahead of time exactly where it will be placed.

Most books do not use page numbers on these pages. So for instance, your text might stop on page 224, then your insert would appear, and the next text page after the insert would be 225. Because the insert will be printed on noticeably different paper, the reader should have no trouble locating the next text page. Do your best not to end page 224 in the middle of a sentence or even a paragraph.

On the insert pages, keep your normal margins but omit the running heads or feet, and as we mentioned above, don’t bother to number the pages. See the examples to the right.

When grouping images together on pages, use all the space! Or, if you’re displaying one image per page or spread, leave enough white space around each piece to make it look special. Alternatively, you could simply bleed images off the page if you have permission to do that. Always include captions to remind readers what they’re looking at.

A fake special insert in a POD book

Perhaps you simply like the idea of the special signature insert even though you plan to print with POD. That’s perfectly fine. You can place your “insert” anywhere you like and use any number of pages that works for you. If you want, you can even skip page numbers (see above) the way you would in a traditionally printed book. The only difference is that all of your book pages will be printed on the same paper, with no increase in print quality for your images. Depending on your readership, it’s possible that almost no one will notice.

We encourage you to at least consider creating a special insert signature for your book, if it’s appropriate. The result can be effective and possibly also save you money. After all, people like to look at the pictures first, so placing them all together in an easy-to-find location will satisfy everyone.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: January 13, 2025
By: Glenna Collett

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.

Required elements for a title page

You must include the following, in this order:

• Book title

• Book subtitle, if any

• Edition, unless it’s the first edition. This can appear either above or below the title (and subtitle).

• Book author(s)

• Book publisher or publisher’s imprint. Some self-publishers don’t have these.

A few more title page elements

You may add the following elements as well, if you wish:

• Author’s affiliation (graduate degrees and/or university), if relevant to the topic

• Publisher’s location

• Publisher’s logo (sometimes called a colophon)

• Illustration(s) or graphics

• A frontispiece, which is an image that appears opposite the title page

And that’s it. This is not the place for marketing blurbs, quotes from inside the book, or anything else that will add clutter. Even children’s picture books, with illustrations everywhere, must abide by these rules.

But now that we’ve set out the rules—or maybe we should call them guidelines—let’s discover what folks really do.

Adult trade book title pages

These are the title page designs that you’re probably most familiar with. Just a few examples will suffice, but you’ll note a couple of minor variations on the guidelines.

These are fine for novels and nonfiction, and not much more is needed or expected. Let’s move on to adult books with higher design ambitions.

Coffee table book title pages

The title page or spread in a coffee table book should draw the reader in and prepare them for the wonderful views in the rest of the book. Check out the creative designs below.

In some cases, the illustrations show something that appears later in the book, as in the middle example above. Sometimes the image is unique to the title page and is described in a caption on the copyright page.

Children’s picture book title pages

Here’s where the fun really begins. Variations are endless, but all of the required elements are included in every case. The number of book pages is limited, with 32 or 48 being the norm. Usually there’s not enough space to devote an entire page to the copyright, so it is often tucked into the left side of the title page spread, or on the final page or back cover or even the jacket.

With a board book, the page count is usually 16 or 24, including the cover. These limits require some creative thinking about where to locate both the title page and the copyright notice. Sometimes the front cover acts as the title page, as shown below.

Experimenting with the design

In all the books shown above, the title, author, and other elements are nicely balanced on the page or spread. Sometimes before you begin to design the page or spread, the empty space can seem intimidating. And sometimes there’s almost nowhere to fit the type in. (If this happens, ask your illustrator to create space for you.) Either way, use type, colors, and perhaps graphics or images from the overall book design—both the cover and the interior—so the page will lead harmoniously from the cover into the rest of the book.

We hope these examples will inspire you to do the most with your title page!

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: October 7, 2024
By: Glenna Collett

Are you ready to find a self-publishing service for your masterpiece? In this article we hope to help you discover the right one for your needs, whether it’s a full-service shop, simply a printing press, or an ebook conversion. Even though—as we always say—you can do it yourself, everyone needs at least a little help getting their book out there. Possibly the majority of new publishers go straight to KDP, but many folks prefer to avoid Amazon for their own reasons. We will focus here mostly on other well-known self-publishing services. Aside from the ones we mention, there are many more to be found online and even advertised on television. Please read our words of caution at the end of this article about all self-publishing services.

Analyze your distribution needs first

It’s true that editing, typesetting, and cover design are exciting and really make you feel that you’re inching closer to being a published author. But what you really should consider first are marketing and distribution. Because what good does it do to produce a book that nobody will discover and read?

Previously in this blog we’ve written about pricing your book, book distribution, and marketing to libraries. Now—before you print your book—is the time to get serious about how you want it to be noticed among the millions that are published every year. And how you want to physically get it into people’s hands or onto their devices. You, the author, are going to be responsible for marketing your book. Even the biggest publishers do very little to promote books these days, especially for new authors. So get your plan going ASAP, even as you are writing, editing, designing, and proofreading, because self-publishing service companies are not going to help you very much. However, they do have distribution schemes. Okay, now we’ve said it. So when you read the descriptions below, look first at the distribution opportunities that are offered by the various self-publishing services. Will they meet your needs?

Self-publishing services

Here is the list, in alphabetical order. If you’d like to see more detailed information in the form of a table, download the PDF below. We do not list prices for services (unless they are free) or royalty percentages, as these all depend on circumstances.

Self Pub Services Comparison

528KB ∙ PDF file

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Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)

We include the Amazon self-publishing service mostly so you can compare the others to it.

• Worldwide distribution of print and ebooks exclusively through their own channels.

• POD (print on demand) book printing for sales on Amazon.com is available, or you can print elsewhere and ship books to them for distribution.

• Free ebook conversion.

• Marketing is through your own skillful use of keywords and purchased advertising schemes.

• Book production help is available on the site and through videos, webinars, and articles. There is no list of resources such as editors, designers, etc.

• Do not use for personal books that you don’t plan to sell.

Barnes & Noble Press

B&N Press offers relatively high author royalties.

• Distribution is through bn.com and Barnes & Noble bookstores in the United States.

• Marketing packages are available for purchase.

• Print books (both POD and in bulk) and ebooks.

• Online author tools and tips, and a list of third-party book production and marketing resources.

• Personal books are welcome.

Blurb

Blurb is known chiefly for photo books but also prints trade books, magazines, notebooks, journals, and wall art.

• Trade books are sold through Blurb’s online store and Ingram (the biggest wholesaler to thousands of bookstores).

• Photo books are sold through Blurb and Amazon.

• Marketing is through a personal Blurb “storefront” (web page).

• Books are printed either POD or in bulk (100+).

• No ebooks, but books can be produced as PDFs.

• You are required to use one of four software options (including an InDesign plugin) for design and typesetting. Other resources, such as for editing, are not offered.

• Personal books are welcome.

Bookbaby

Bookbaby is popular with first-time authors and may be more affordable than other self-publishing services in this article.

• Trade books are sold through a large number of wholesalers and retailers, including Amazon.

• Various marketing packages are offered for a fee.

• Three levels of self-publishing packages can be purchased, or you can use Bookbaby simply for printing.

• Ebook conversion.

• Help is offered through a resources list, guidebooks, a blog, and a Help desk.

• Book interior and cover templates are available.

• Personal books are accepted.

Bookvault

Bookvault is a British self-publishing service. Its greatest strength is relatively affordable POD printing.

• Global distribution is through The Great British Book Shop.

• Sell directly through your own website by integrating with one or more fulfillment services such as Shopify or Wix.

• No ebooks.

• A list of trusted editors and designers is offered.

• Members of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) can upload titles for free and receive other discounts.

• Bulk printing is available and personal books are welcome.

Draft2Digital

In 2022, Draft2Digital merged with Smashwords. There is no upfront cost when using this self-publishing service for printing or ebook conversion.

• Ebooks can be distributed through just about any retailer, including Amazon and Apple Books.

• Book promotion consists of an author page on their site and other online tools for book discoverability.

• Print books can sell wholesale through Ingram and retail through Amazon. (Read the fine print for limitations.)

• Convert your manuscript to an ebook with their design templates.

• Outside book production services are listed on their site.

• Six print trim sizes for paperbacks.

• Personal books are not specifically mentioned on the site, but you can list your ebook for free (except on Amazon).

IngramSpark

IngramSpark is a major self-publishing service and is part of the Ingram book distribution company, the largest in the United States.

• Distribution to 45,000 retailers worldwide.

• Can be used in conjunction with other self-publishing services, or simply as a printer for personal books or to use as proofs or book review copies.

• Ebook conversion.

• You do your own marketing, but guides are provided.

• Setup costs are relatively low, and sometimes free during a promotion period. Also look for discounts through some of the publishing associations.

• 32 trim sizes for print books.

• Free cover and layout templates plus guidelines.

• Free online courses on many self-publishing topics.

Kobo Writing Life

Kobo is for ebooks and audiobooks only. Popular fiction is more successful than other genres.

• Worldwide ebook distribution is through Overdrive (to libraries) and the Kobo Store.

• Aside from free ebook conversion, no production services are offered. Use Reedsy for editing, design, or marketing if you need assistance.

• 68 world languages are supported.

• Author payments vary according to the amount of time readers spend reading your book(s).

• For audiobooks, you create your own, then Kobo will distribute it for you.

Lulu

With Lulu.com, you are well guided through the process of publishing print books and ebooks.

• Global distribution of both print books (Amazon, Ingram, Hachette) and ebooks (Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, and more).

• Sell through a Lulu store, your website, or with POD through retailers.

• 16 trim sizes for print books. Several binding styles.

• Ebook conversion to EPUB and PDF.

• Languages are limited to those using Latin script for print books, and English only for ebooks.

• They have lots of book production, marketing, and distribution guidebooks to download. Design templates, too.

• Professional book production resources are listed.

• Personal print books are welcome.

PublishDrive

The strength of PublishDrive is worldwide book distribution of your ebooks, audiobooks, and print books.

• Global distribution through multiple channels, all automated on one site.

• Book promotion schemes are available for a modest fee.

• After the first book (initial ebooks are free), a flat fee is charged monthly. No other charges or percentages are taken.

• 30 trim sizes for print books.

• Ebook conversion.

• Tips are provided to help authors produce their own audiobooks.

• Help is not offered for editing, design, proofreading, etc. No listing of these service providers.

• Not recommended for personal books, as the main service is distribution.

Xlibris

Xlibris is one of the oldest self-publishing services and still offers several flexible options. Depending on the package that you buy, you can receive:

• Distribution worldwide through Ingram, Amazon, Google, Baker and Taylor, etc.

• Social media and website setup assistance.

• A marketing guide PDF.

• Print-ready files for bookmarks and business cards.

• 7 trim sizes for print books.

• Ebook conversion.

• Interior and cover design, editing, cover copy polishing are included. No proofreading.

• For personal books, this would be a very expensive way to go.

Small book publishers

Please don’t forget that there are lots and lots of small or tiny publishers out there. Probably at least one of them would be a great fit for your book, and they would take the self out of self-publishing. Take a look at this directory from TCK Publishing and this one from Poets & Writers. Or find another online list that matches your country, language, or genre.

Words of caution

As we mentioned above, marketing and distribution should be your first consideration when choosing a self-publishing service. But also:

• Read the fine print.

• Review all of the details of a company’s services. Never assume that they will take care of anything they do not mention.

• Does the company offer the trim size that you want? If not, how much will it cost for a custom size?

• Read the customer reviews.

• Figure out how much you’d pay to receive a certain number of printed copies. Does that price include items such as editing, design, indexing, proofreading as well as printing? Is this amount worth it to you?

• Some self-publishing services accept large sums of your money, send you a few copies of your book, and that’s about it. Additional copies can cost you a lot of money. We used to call these companies vanity presses, but nowadays it is quite difficult to see much difference between self-publishing services and vanity presses. Use any service with caution.

We’ve done some of the work for you, and now you know what to look for. We hope you’ll find the right self-publishing service for your book, even if you need to expand your search beyond the list above.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: July 8, 2024
By: Fiona Raven

Book edge treatments include anything that is applied to the edges of a book’s pages. This includes paint or gilding, or even patterns cut into the paper. Some treatments are done during a book’s production at the printer or bindery, and others are applied manually after a book is printed and bound.

We’ve compiled some ideas to inspire you about creative and fun ways to jazz up your books.

A special book edge treatment is an art form in itself, whether it’s done at a commercial printer or by hand. Sometimes a special treatment creates more interest in the book than the text itself! First, let’s look at some book edge treatments that are done by commercial printers or binderies during a book’s production.

Book edge treatments done at the printer or bindery

Deckled edging (aka ragged fore edge)

When paper was handmade, the page edges were never the same perfect size for each page, and this produced a deckled look. Nowadays, book pages are trimmed to size, leaving a smooth edge. A deckled edge gives a book a vintage or handmade look. To create a deckled edge, the fore edge of the book block (all the pages put together) is run along a router bit that gives the edge this uneven finish. Deckled edging works best on thicker, uncoated papers rather than thinner, glossy ones.

Edge staining

A dye, ink, or stain is applied to all three edges of the pages by either spraying, brushing, or dipping. This technique is more often done on business cards or wedding invitations, but some printers offer this edge treatment for books as well. You can choose to color just one edge or all three edges. Or, consider applying a different color to each edge.

Gilt edging

Gilt edging is a time-honored tradition whereby metallic foil is applied to the page edges. The edges must be perfectly smooth and the foil applied carefully. Gilding provides a classic look to a book, and is used for special volumes. Metallic foil comes in different colors though, so you’re not limited to just gold.

Book edge treatments done by hand

Fore edge painting

There are two types of fore edge paintings: 1) fan the pages to see the image, and 2) close the book to see the image. Fore edge painting started in the 17th century, but it’s still going strong. Etsy has illustrators who do this work, and you can also do it yourself. The Awkward Book Blogger explains an easy method of painting book edges with one color, and the National Sporting Library and Museum’s video shows how to paint fanned fore edges and gild them afterwards. There are lots of tutorials online if you’d like to give it a try!

Marbled edging

Marbling is a treatment found on books going back as early as the 12th century. Part of the appeal is that no two marbled edgings are ever alike. Marbled edging can be done as a monochrome (see pic), or using several different colors. Marbling for Fun’s video makes marbling a book’s fore edge look easy. And one from DIY Book Binding shows you how to marble all three book edges as well as a sheet of paper to cover the book or to use as endsheets. I totally want to try this!

Have fun customizing your books

You can include book edge treatments during the production of your book, or add them by hand later (by yourself or hire someone) as an added touch for a special volume. Search for any of these terms online and you’ll find a wealth of information about custom book edge treatments.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: April 8, 2024
By: Glenna Collett

Does your printed masterpiece deserve a special creative book cover treatment? Maybe some silver or gold, or the book title sticking up? How about the title pressed below the surface of the cover? Or some parts of the cover design being shinier than other parts?

We’ll explain how the printer produces all of these creative book cover treatments, and more, for hard (casebound) covers, book jackets, and paperbacks. We’ll also mention how you could actually fake some of these effects yourself.

The metal foil stamping book cover treatment

Metal foil stamping is how you go shiny. It works on either flat, debossed, or embossed (see below) printed book covers.

Here’s how it works: Picture a stack of materials. On the bottom is your book cover. Next, a very thin and narrow strip of metal foil stretched across the area to be stamped. And on top a heated plate (often copper) with a reversed version of your type or design sticking out of the flat plate just enough to make an impression on the cover. This metal plate is called a “die.” The die comes down and presses the foil onto the surface, and voilà, you’ve got real metal on your cover. A very light touch with stainless steel will brush off any excess metal dust.

More than one color can be stamped at the same time, as long as the two colors are about ½ inch apart.

And don’t neglect the book’s spine! Remember that the spine is often the first thing a potential reader will see.

Using metallic ink as an alternative

You can get a very good metallic effect by using ink instead of foil. The Pantone Color System has special shiny inks just for this purpose, and in most cases, that special ink would be treated as a fifth color in addition to the CMYK inks. It’s simpler and cheaper than foil, and there’s no reason you couldn’t combine it with the 3D effects of debossing or embossing (see below).

A benefit to metallic ink is that you can use it all over the design—as opposed to a limited area for foil. See the design below on the left with golden stars and floral decorations everywhere. And they continue onto the spine and back cover, too. Using foil for such a design would have been prohibitively expensive.

The debossing book cover treatment

Debossing simply means that the type or design will be below the surface of the rest of the cover, with or without metal foil. When no foil is used, the technique is called “blind stamping” or “blank stamping.”

If you’ve read the section above about metal foil stamping, the process will be easy to picture. In the stack of materials: your cover on the bottom. Above it the (optional) foil and then the metal stamp (die) with a reversed version of your type or design sticking out. The die presses down onto the cover, enough to make a distinct dent. (The depth of the impression would vary depending on the thickness of the cover material.)

The embossing book cover treatment

Embossing is a 3D effect in which the type or design is raised above the rest of the book cover. The embossed area can be stamped with foil, printed with regular ink, or left blank (“blind embossing”). You most commonly see embossing with metallic ink on mass market paperbacks.

The way this works is very similar to debossing or foil stamping. But in order to make the book cover or jacket material stick up, two dies are needed: one above the cover (the female die with the design facing down but sunken in) and another (the male die with the design sticking up) below it.

Lamination and varnish book cover treatments

Chemicals! They can do wonders for a book cover. You can choose between lamination and varnishing.

Book cover lamination

There are so many ways to use laminates that it’s hard to know where to start the discussion. But basically, a laminate is a shiny, transparent, plastic coating on the cover. Picture a drop of water sitting on a nonporous surface.

(Do not confuse this kind of coating with coated paper stock. The terminology can sometimes be bewildering.)

Basically there are three levels of shininess: gloss (very shiny), matte (subtly shiny), and soft touch (sometimes called peach skin). Laminates can be applied on an entire cover or only on some areas that you want to highlight (spot lamination). All lamination provides a measure of protection against rubbing, scraping, fingerprints, and general wear.

Some printers offer a range of UV-treated background textured patterns to choose from, too. They can add pop to blank areas of your design, or the entire surface.

Book cover varnish

Varnish is another way to get shine on your book cover, and it may be less expensive than lamination. The two levels of varnish shine are gloss and matte. As with lamination, the varnish provides protection and can be applied all over the cover and spine or as a spot treatment.

Both lamination and varnish require a finishing treatment—usually heat or exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light. Some treatments are more environmentally friendly than others, so speak with your printer about the process that they use.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, even the shiniest laminated and varnished book covers and jackets can be recycled—after that copy has been read by hundreds of people, of course.

Neon colors for your book cover

Sometimes all you need is an extra bright color or two. And for that purpose, Pantone offers a range of standard neon colors. Of course, in most cases these would be treated as additional ink colors, so it’ll cost a little extra. If you combine neon ink(s) with embossing and/or lamination, your cover will truly attract attention.

But guess what? We searched everywhere for an example of a book cover that was printed with Pantone neon ink, and each time we saw something truly bright, it turned out to be merely cyan, magenta, and yellow (but no black) ink. The individual inks are quite intense, and you can do most anything with them. Here’s the brightest, most luminous example that we found.

The die cutting book cover treatment

Holes! These can create an exciting effect that is especially effective for children’s books. Holes can be cut in paper or cardboard covers.

Discussing book cover treatments with your printer

If you want any of these creative treatments for your book, be sure to think ahead and choose a printer that can provide them. Ask to see some samples, discuss the options and cost, and find out how to prepare your files to their specifications. Usually, a simple black-on-white PDF showing the area(s) to be treated is all you’ll need. Also ask about what book cover (or jacket) material will work with the treatment(s) you want to use.

Faking book cover treatments

All of this sounds exciting, right? But perhaps beyond your budget. So why not try faking it?

Adobe InDesign offers all kinds of special effects to make a design look as if the type is raised or lowered from the surface. Once you get started, you might not be able to stop!

But as always, we advise you not to go overboard. To be most effective, stick with one or two consistent effects.

Faking the special treatments for book covers might be all you need for your cover to look its best. We hope that whatever solution you decide to use, your book cover looks as perfect as you can make it.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: January 8, 2024
By: Glenna Collett

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.

What text to include in your running heads and feet

In Book Design Made Simple, we devote chapter 27 to running heads, running feet, and folios (page numbers), along with several interesting design examples. See a short excerpt from that chapter below.

Text to include in book running heads

In a novel, the book title usually goes on the left and the author’s name on the right. In nonfiction books, the book title usually goes on the left and the chapter title on the right. These are just guidelines, and you can put whatever you like in the running heads. Look at several books and you’ll see a variety of options.

When choosing text to include in your running heads, always consider your readers first. How will they make their way through your book? In novels, often there are no chapter titles or table of contents, so the book title and author’s name is sufficient. In nonfiction, readers navigate from the table of contents or index, so it’s helpful to see chapter titles in the running heads. In this book [Book Design Made Simple], the book title and part title are on the left and the chapter number and title are on the right. Choose running heads that will be most helpful for readers navigating your book.

Running heads in fiction

In fiction, designers use running heads (let’s call them RH) about 99% of the time, as opposed to running feet (RF). Look inside any novel and you’ll see that this is true. On the verso (left-hand) pages, the author’s name appears, and on the recto (right-hand) pages the book title appears.

In a collection of stories all by the same author, put the book title on the left and the story name on the right.

In a collection of stories by different authors, try the book title on the left and the story author and title on the right. Or the story title on the left and story author on the right. You may do it either way, or come up with something that works better for you.

Running heads in nonfiction

In nonfiction, there are lots of options:

• Book title left, chapter number (optional) and title right

• Part number and title left, chapter number and title right

• Chapter title left, current main heading right

• Essay author left, essay title right (in an anthology)

• Book author left, book title right

• Or any other combination that you think will help your reader

It all depends on what you want to emphasize and how you want your reader to be able to navigate. Figure out the best solution for your book.

Designing running heads, running feet, and folios

Running heads or running feet?

First of all, let’s remember that folios (page numbers) are a necessity, a vital part of your design scheme. Include them in all your design decisions.

Consider the overall design and layout of your book. Running heads and feet can support your layout needs just as much as your margins and type area.

• Do you need to save space to fit everything in? If so, put the RH or RF on the same line with the folio.

• Do you need to stretch it all out? Then put the RH at the top and the folio at the bottom.

• Is each page a distinct unit (as in a workbook, cookbook, or poetry book), with no set amount of white space at the bottom of each page? In a workbook, you could use a running foot plus folio at the bottom. In a cookbook or poetry book, you could use a running head plus a folio at the bottom. This will even out the appearance on each spread.

Examples below, with the RH or RF plus the folio in red.

Where to place folios and running heads and feet

Here’s a direct quote from Book Design Made Simple:

Folios and running heads are placed at the top of pages, two baselines above the main text. In other words, there is one blank linespace between the running heads/folios and the main text.

Running feet are placed at the bottom of pages, two or three baselines below the main text so there are one or two blank linespaces between the main text and the running feet and folios.

(If you’re confused by the term “baseline,” here’s a book excerpt that explains it.)

This tells you just about everything you need to know. There is at least one exception, though.

In poetry books, you might want extra space above the poetry to the running heads/folios because at a glance, there’s probably little visual difference between them. You don’t want the reader to become annoyed by reading the darned RH every time they turn a page.

Alignment: centered or away from the spine?

Usually, folios are aligned away from the spine, on the outside of the text area. And running heads are most often centered. This is the most common design in fiction. But there are many other ways to arrange them.

First, consider the rest of your design. Are the headings centered throughout? If so, you should probably center the RH also. Are your headings on the left? Then consider placing the RH or RF on the inside above the text area, toward the spine. Or group the RH/RF with the folio away from the spine. If your printed book is going to be thick, remember that any type near the spine will be harder to read than type that’s on the outside of the page.

Here are examples of some of the possibilities:

Decorations for running heads

Why not decorate? Sometimes a page could use a tiny bit of color or interest, so consider using a dingbat between the folio and running head or surrounding the RH.

Or a vertical rule that bleeds off the page might work well. The rule can align with the top or base of the type or extend a bit beyond it.

More creative placements for running heads

You may have seen books with folios on the very outside of pages, just about halfway between top and bottom. Or running heads that are vertical, reading up or down. These look like fun to design, right? But always remember to match your folios and running heads to the rest of your design. By the end of your design career, you will probably have many creative ideas that you never got a chance to use because they didn’t fit your projects. (And then you can write a blog post about them!)

What typeface and size to use for running heads and folios

This is not the place to introduce a new typeface into your design. Use your main or secondary text typeface. Never use a script font. Feel free to try italics or small caps for running heads and bold for folios.

Running heads are always at least one type size smaller than the text—or small caps of the same size as the text. Folios can be smaller, too, or the same size as the text; in a reference book, they might be larger than the text. You want folios to be very readable. If you’re going to print the RH/folios in color, they might stand out enough on the page so that they can be smaller. Try every possibility you can think of.

Pages without running heads or folios

Some pages of your book should never show a running head, running foot, or folio:

• Blank pages

• Half title page(s), title page, copyright page, dedication page. Other front matter pages can show folios if you like (usually following the Contents), but remember to start on the correct page number and use lowercase roman numerals.

• No running heads or feet on chapter or part opening pages. Do show folios on these pages, at the bottom. (In Book Design Made Simple we broke this particular rule, though!)

We mean for all of the above to serve as guidelines and to get you started. Some rules can be broken, but never forget to blend your running heads, running feet, and folios into your overall design so that they help the reader without getting in the way of the text.

Now you’re on your way to coming up with the best solution for your book. The variations are endless!

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: November 11, 2023
By: Fiona Raven

Having a style sheet for your book helps to keep spelling and punctuation consistent throughout. It usually includes a section for each letter of the alphabet, and a space for notes at the bottom. It’s easy to create one while you’re writing your book, and you’ll be able to use it for your book’s website, marketing materials, and everything else you’ll be producing as an author. Below is a template to get you started.

View our style sheet as an example

We created a style sheet for Book Design Made Simple and we also use it for this website and all our book marketing materials. View it by clicking on the link below. You’ll see that we’ve made decisions about how certain words are to be spelled or hyphenated and how we’ll use punctuation. Every time we update Book Design Made Simple or add a new page to this website, we refer to our style sheet to make sure the spelling and punctuation remains consistent throughout.

Book Design Made Simples Book And Website Style Sheet

102KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Create yours using our template

Style sheets are easy to create and use. Get started by clicking the link below to download our Word template:

Download a Word style sheet template

Start working on your style sheet while you’re writing your book. Every time you look up a word or make a decision on spelling or punctuation, add that to your style sheet. Then keep it as a reference for any future writing you do, including your book, website, press releases, marketing materials, and everything else you create in support of your book. Share it with your editor(s) and proofreader, too.

What should your style sheet include?

In the alphabetical section, include:

• Spelling. As you go through your manuscript, jot down any unusual words on your style sheet under the appropriate letter. If you have to check the spelling of a word, add it to your style sheet—then you won’t have to look it up again.

• Abbreviations. List the abbreviations you’re using so that they’re consistent throughout your book and website. Make a note of any words you have a choice about using. For example, you could write “United States” or “US” or “U.S.” or “USA.”

• Special terms and words. Include any words that aren’t in the dictionary, such as jargon or industry-specific terms. Add your choice to your style sheet and use it throughout your whole book.

• Names and titles that you’ve already verified.

In the notes section, include any rules you plan to use:

• Language. Will you use Canadian, American, British, or Australian spelling, for example?

• Numbers. Will you spell the numbers out or use figures/digits?

• Punctuation. Will you add spaces before and after ellipses/dashes? Periods inside quotation marks?

• Commas. Will you use serial commas?

• Acronyms. Will you put periods between the letters?

• Capitalizing titles. Will all words in titles start with a capital letter?

Check in books similar to yours to help you decide what the rules for your book will be.

Consistency looks professional

Being consistent throughout all your written materials makes you and your book look credible and professional. Plus, the next time you need to make changes or additions, you can simply consult your style sheet and know you’re on the right track!

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: September 11, 2023
By: Fiona Raven

Back cover copy is the text that goes on your book’s back cover. Everyone judges a book by its cover (you know that!), and your front cover only gets a few seconds to grab a reader’s interest. However, once a reader picks up your book and flips to the back cover, this is your big chance to sell that book. You need to convince that reader to buy using compelling back cover copy.

Back cover copy sells books

Front covers attract … back covers SELL! Your back cover is a powerful marketing tool, so be sure to make the most of it. Take off your author hat and put on your marketing hat for this very important task. Think of your reader and how your book can benefit them.

Write a catchy tagline

Grab your reader’s attention with a catchy tagline. Don’t just repeat your book’s title on the back cover. Your tagline can be a short phrase, a whole sentence, or it can pose a question. Just make sure it’s easy to read and to the point to draw your reader in.

Tell your reader what a great benefit your book will be. It’ll be easy to use, or fast to use, or it’ll keep your reader up-to-date. It’ll simplify your reader’s life, or make them an authority on the subject.

Here’s an example from Book Design Made Simple. Our target readers are self-publishing authors and novice book designers. The benefits are in the headline:

Design your book with confidence—even if it’s your first book!

List the benefits (for a nonfiction book)

Now write a paragraph or two (or create a bulleted list) setting out the benefits of reading your book. What will the reader gain by reading your book?

Does your book conveniently divide material into sections? Is it the most up-to-date reference? Will it save the reader time? Does it provide valuable advice?

For example, here is our list of the benefits of reading Book Design Made Simple:

If your nonfiction book has competition in the marketplace, check your back cover copy against theirs and then make yours distinguish itself in some way. Perhaps yours offers additional material, has a different perspective, is more up-to-date, more compact, or something else.

A summary or blurb (for a fiction book)

Don’t give away the entire plot, just offer an enticing taste of what’s inside. Not many people are going to read the whole thing and wish for more, so one or two paragraphs should be enough. And remember that this is not the same style of writing as inside the book; this is ad copy.

Testimonials, endorsements, reviews, blurbs

If possible, include a few testimonials or endorsements. Ideally, your testimonials will be from well-known people in the subject area of your book. Be sure to include their credentials after their name.

Someone may want to give you a testimonial, but be unsure about what to write. In this case, write a good testimonial yourself and ask permission to use their name with it.

Here are a couple of examples from Book Design Made Simple:

Author bio

A page about the author is often placed on the last page inside a paperback book. However, a few sentences about the author (with an optional photograph) can be included in the back cover copy. If you choose to use a short bio on the back cover, make sure the author sounds like the ultimate authority on the subject. (The back flap of a hardcover book jacket usually includes an author bio, so there’s less of a reason to add another one to the back of the jacket.)

Publishing information

Your publishing information is usually placed at the bottom of your back cover. This includes:

• bar code with ISBN number and price

• publisher’s name

• publisher’s logo (optional)

• website URL

• QR code (optional)

Bookstore categories

List one or two categories so that bookstore staff will know where to shelve your book. The categories are usually shown at the top left corner of your back cover, but can also be placed at the bottom with your publishing information or bar code. The Book Industry Study Group website provides official book subject categories.

Keep your back cover copy simple!

When deciding what to include in your back cover copy:

• Ask what the main benefits are to your target readers. Leave out everything else.

• Don’t clutter your back cover with too much information or a distracting background.

• Present less information in an easy-to-read type size. Don’t cram in too much by using a small type size.

Edit your back cover copy down to the bare essentials. A crowded space repels casual readers. Then design a back cover that clearly separates the types of information, coordinates with the front cover, and generally invites readers to learn more about your book. Chapter 64 of Book Design Made Simple is filled with design variations and examples.

Remember, your back cover copy can be just as powerful a marketing tool as your front cover. Be clear about the benefits of buying your book, and you’ll deliver an irresistible message!

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: January 8, 2023
By: Glenna Collett

Crop marks and other printer’s marks appear in the PDFs you send to the printer. In Book Design Made Simple, we mention crop marks exactly once and never define what they are, so we think it’s about time that we did so.

Simply put, crop marks are chop marks—they indicate where the printer will chop around the edges of the stack of printed pages to make them the correct size, and a nice, neat package for binding.

Whether you’ve been using InDesign or some other graphic design software, you’ll finally get to the point when it’s time to set up your PDF to send to the printer. To start, go to File > Export. First, choose the Adobe PDF for print setting (shown below). (All of our examples are from InDesign, but in other applications the options are pretty much the same.)

This takes you to the dialog box that shows all your choices. You’ll be following your printer’s directions at this point. (On the top couple of lines, circled in red, your entries may very well be different, depending on your instructions.) When you click on the Marks and Bleeds tab, you’ll see the following:

If you select All Printer’s Marks, every Marks option shown above will be checked automatically. We’ll explain each printer’s mark for you even though your printer may not want you to use them all.

But first, let’s look at the Bleed and Slug section.

Bleed and Slug

Bleed

When you originally set up your document, you may have indicated a bleed amount. A bleed is ink that appears to run up to the edge of a page—but in actuality, it runs right over the edge a certain amount (normally 1/8″ or 0.125 inches).

When setting up your PDF, you’ll simply select Use Document Bleed Settings and the fields will fill in automatically. Check to be sure they are the same values that your printer specifies.

Note that many books, such as novels, have no ink at the edges of the pages, and thus no bleed at all. In that case, the Bleed fields will all be zero.

Slug Area

What the heck is the slug area? It’s simply the space around the edge of the PDF pages or spreads that shows the printer’s marks—crop marks, bleed marks, registration marks, etc. In most cases, you do want to show the slug area.

Crop Marks

Books are always printed on paper that’s oversized. (And yes, there’s a good amount of waste, but as you read along, you’ll understand why.) And so, as we explained in the intro, the crop marks are guidelines that show where the printer is going to chop with a big guillotine around the outside of the stacked, printed pages to make them the correct size, and to give the book a neat outer edge. If you have a bleed, this is when it’s cropped off.

Once you specify the crop marks and then view the PDF, you’ll see crop marks at the outside corners of each page or spread:

The image above is going to appear in the upper right corner of a book page. It will be cut off where the crop marks are.

The printer always requires single-page PDFs, but if you decide to make one of two-page spreads for your own viewing, you’ll notice another mark at the center top of the spread showing the dividing line between the pages. (The printer would either cut or fold there. We explain the reason for this in our article on book binding basics.) And read on for more.

Okay now, hang in there because here comes the possibly confusing bit. Let’s say you place an image across a spread, as shown in InDesign below.

So what do you think is going to happen when you make single-page PDFs of these two InDesign pages? Look at the inside upper corners of the two PDF pages below. See how the left page has a bit of the image from the right page, and vice versa? (The green and yellow flag appears twice.) But also notice that the repeated bits are outside the crop marks. This is completely normal and there’s no reason to worry when you see it.

Now let’s continue with the crop mark settings. In the right column of the dialog box, you see three options for the crop marks and bleed marks: Type, Weight, and Offset. Here’s what they mean:

Type

This refers to the kind of crop marks to use; in Japan, for instance, they look different. Stick with the Default option here unless you hear otherwise from your printer.

Weight

The weight option describes the thickness of the crop mark lines. 0.25 pt weight is perfect.

Offset

The offset is illustrated to the right. The given amount of 0.0833 inches is fine.

Bleed Marks

Bleed marks simply show the outer edge of the bleed area. So when you see two sets of marks (as below), the outer ones are the bleed marks.

Registration Marks

Registration marks are very useful to the printer and pretty cool once you understand them. You already know that full-color printing requires four ink colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). Before a color page can be printed, the printer separates it into four separate pieces of film—one for each color—with a registration mark for each color. Then the press applies the inks one after the other, and the aim is to get each color in precisely the right locations so that the printing looks nice and neat. We’ve all seen instances of ink that’s out of register, and it looks unfocused and just wrong.

So when a book is being printed, the press person constantly watches the registration marks as the pages come off the press to make sure that all the colors are lining up perfectly on the little target marks above and below every page.

Color Bars

A color bar is a row of samples of black at various tints (percentages) and the CMYK colors. The printer can examine each sample to see if too much or too little ink is being put on the page. A careful press person will keep a close eye on the little samples to make sure they look correct.

Page Information

The page information simply shows your PDF file name, the page number (14 in this case), and the current date and time at the bottom of each page.

Now that you understand crop marks and the other printer’s marks, you should feel more confident and knowledgeable as you prepare your PDFs for printing.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: November 7, 2022
By: Fiona Raven

InDesign’s live index includes some great advanced features: you can add italics to the index, add bold page numbers for illustrations, and even create a live index across several documents using InDesign’s Book feature.

Be sure to first read our earlier blog post, Create a live index in InDesign, to learn the basics of creating a live index.

Many books contain Latin names or other words that will require italics in the index entries. Bold is preferred for index page numbers that indicate illustrations. And, if you’ve used InDesign’s Book feature for layout, you’ll want to create a live index across all the documents. We’ll explain here how you can incorporate these advanced features into your live index.

Adding italics to a live index entry in InDesign

When you create a live index, the paragraph style Index Level 1 is automatically applied to index entries. There is no built-in way to italicize an index entry, as a character style can’t be applied to individual words in a live index.

When creating an index for a book about plants, for example, it’s crucial to include Latin plant names (always italicized) in the index. We found a workaround shared by Patricia Neyman through CreativePro.com that neatly provides a solution for italicizing index entries using GREP. (Don’t worry, you don’t need to understand GREP to use this workaround.)

To italicize an index entry, you’ll first need to: 1) create two new character styles, 2) adjust an existing paragraph style, and 3) use periods in your index entries. Let’s get started.

1) Create two new character styles

To create the first character style, click Window > Character Styles to open your Character Styles panel. Make sure that the default style [None] is selected, then click the fly-out menu at the top right and choose New Character Style.

The first character style is called Index L1 Italics. Type Index L1 Italics in the Style Name box as shown below.

Then click the Basic Character Formats tab on the left. Choose Italic from the Font Style drop-down menu, then click OK. Done!

To create the second character style, choose New Character Style just as you did above. This character style is called Index L1 Hide Periods, so type Index L1 Hide Periods in the Style Name box as shown below.

This character style will specify a size of 0.1 points, and a character color of [None]. First click the Basic Character Formats tab on the left, and type 0.1 pt in the Size box.

Then click the Character Color tab on the left, and change the color to [None].

Click OK and you’ve now created the two character styles you’ll need to add italics to your live index.

2) Adjust an existing paragraph style

Click Window > Paragraph Styles to open your Paragraph Styles panel. Double-click the Index Level 1 style to open the Paragraph Styles Options dialog box. Click the GREP Style tab on the left, and then click the New GREP Style button under the big box on the right. Here’s what you’ll see:

Click to the right of Apply Style on the word [None], and you’ll see a drop-down menu listing all your character styles. Select the Index L1 Italics character style that you made earlier.

Click to the right of To Text, then copy and paste in this formula:

(?<=\.)(.+)(?=\.)

Now click the New GREP Style button again. Click to the right of Apply Style on the word [None] again, and this time select the Index L1 Hide Periods character style.

Click to the right of To Text, then copy and paste in this formula:

\.+

Now you should see this in your GREP Style tab:

Click OK, and you’re ready to add index entries in italics.

Note: If you have second-level index entries as well (i.e., have an Index Level 2 paragraph style), you’ll need to follow the same instructions to nest those same two character styles in your Index Level 2 paragraph style.

3) Use periods in your index entries

In your book’s main text, select the text for your index entry, then press Ctrl/Cmd+7 to get the New Page Reference dialog box with your highlighted text showing at the top of the Topic Levels column on the left. Copy and paste that text into the top of the Sort By column on the right. Now go back to the Topic Levels column and insert a period before and after the text, like this:

Click OK and the entry will be added to your index. Look in your Index panel and you’ll see the entry there with the periods before and after. Now generate the index, and the entry will appear in italics without the periods. Voilà!

We were so grateful to find this workaround, as it must’ve taken hours to figure out! It seems like a lot of work to get set up, but once you’ve created the two character styles and nested them in the paragraph styles, you’re good to go.

Adding a bold page number to indicate an illustration

Illustrations, figures, and photos are often denoted in an index with a bold page number. You’ll need a character style for bold. If you don’t already have one, create a new character style by opening your Character Styles panel, and making sure that the default style [None] is selected. Click the fly-out menu at the top right and choose New Character Style. Type Bold in the Style Name box. Select the Basic Character Formats tab on the left. Choose Bold from the Font Style drop-down menu, then click OK. Done!

To create an index entry with a bold page number, select the name of the illustration or figure in the text, then press Ctrl/Cmd+7 to open a New Page Reference box. Your selected text will show at the top of the Topic Levels column on the left.

To make the page number bold, check the Number Style Override box, then choose the Bold character style from the list, as shown below, then click OK.

Now generate a new index and you’ll see the page number (page 130 in our example) in bold:

Simple, right?

Using live index with InDesign’s Book feature

A live index works just fine with InDesign’s Book feature. You can create index entries in any or all of the documents in the Book; just be sure that all the documents have the same paragraph and character styles for the index. If necessary, you can synchronize all the documents with one that has the index styles set up (do this in the Book feature as we explained in Synchronizing styles using the Book feature).

To generate the index, first open the Index panel and check the box next to Book at the top right (see below). Then click the Generate Index icon at the bottom to open the Generate Index dialog box. Be sure to check the Include Book Documents box, and then click OK.

Now your cursor will be loaded with text and you can flow the index onto a page. You’ll see that the index includes entries from all the documents in the book.

Advanced live index features work well

The workaround for italics takes a bit of setting up, but once in place it works just fine. And we had no issues with adding bold page numbers or using a live index with InDesign’s Book feature.

We hope your experience with live index is positive too!

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: September 12, 2022
By: Fiona Raven

It’s easy to create a live index for your book in InDesign, and there’s a major benefit to doing so: If you move any of your text, the index markers stay with the text and the index automatically updates!

In Book Design Made Simple, we explain how to create paragraph styles for indexes, how to import an index from Word, and how to typeset an index. Here, we’ll explain the simplest way to create a live index in InDesign.

Adding first-level live index entries

All indexes include first-level entries. These are the main entries placed in alphabetical order in the index. (Your index may or may not include second-level entries, and those are explained below.)

To start, make sure you’re working in Normal view in InDesign by either selecting the Normal View button (at the top of your screen or at the bottom of your Toolbox) or by pressing W. Then make sure you can see hidden characters by selecting Type > Show Hidden Characters. That way you’ll be able to see the index markers you’re creating.

With your document open, select Window > Type & Tables > Index, to open your Index panel.

Select the Reference button on your Index panel, and now you’re ready to add a first-level index entry. Select the text (in our example, we’ll select “Gooseberry”), then click the Create a New Index Entry icon at the bottom of the Index panel (circled below). This will open the New Page Reference dialog box with your selected text showing at the top left under Topic Levels. Choose Current Page from the Type drop-down menu.

Click OK or hit Enter/Return to create a live first-level index entry. Voilà! You’ll see an index marker just to the left of the text you selected, showing that the text has been added to the index entry.

When adding your index entries, you’ll find it quicker to use a keyboard shortcut rather than clicking the Create a New Index Entry icon at the bottom of the Index panel every time. Simply press Ctrl/Cmd+7 to get the New Page Reference dialog box with your selected text showing at the top.

Adding second-level live index entries

Second-level index entries are the indented entries that appear indented below first-level entries.

To create a second-level entry, start the same way you did for a first-level index entry: Select the text you want for your second-level entry, then either click the Create a New Index Entry icon on the Index panel or press Ctrl/Cmd+7 to open the New Page Reference dialog box. Your selected text will show in the top left box under Topic Levels.

To change this entry to a second-level entry, follow the three steps pictured below:

1. Click on the down arrow (circled below) to move the entry down one line.

   

2. Once the entry is on the second line, look in the lower box to find the first-level entry you want on the first line. Double-click that entry and it’ll appear on the first line.

3. Click OK or hit Enter/Return, and you’re done!

   

Attaching a range of pages

So far we’ve explained how to add a single page number to a live index entry. However, if a subject is discussed over a range of pages, you’ll want to add that page range instead of a single page number to the entry.

To add a range of pages, follow the same steps as above to create your entry. Then, in the Type drop-down menu, instead of Current Page, select Next # of Pages, and enter a number of pages that includes the current page.

Checking your live index entries

As you continue adding first- and second-level index entries, check the entries by keeping your Index panel handy and scrolling through the entries.

Click on the arrow to the left of an entry, and it’ll expand to show you which page(s) that entry appears on. And, if you happen to move any text containing an index entry, the index will automatically update to show the new page numbers.

Ensuring proper alphabetization

Let’s say you have an index entry that doesn’t alphebetize the way you’d prefer. For instance, one of the index entries in our example is a reference to Sam Thayer’s first book, The Forager’s Harvest. We’ll include the whole title in the index entry, of course, but want it listed under F for Forager’s, not T for The.

To correct the alphabetization, first add the entry as you normally would. Then, in the Sort By box to the right, type the entry starting with the letter you want it alphabetized under. In our example below, we typed “Forager’s Harvest, The” so that the book title will be listed under F. However, note that when you generate the index, this entry will still show as it appears in the left box (The Forager’s Harvest), not the way you typed it in the Sort By box, and it will appear under F.

The example shown here is for a first-level entry; if you need to change a second-level entry, you’ll add the amended entry to the box to the right of the second entry, and so on.

Generating your live index in InDesign

You can generate your live index anytime you want. We prefer to generate the index after adding just a few entries, and then regenerating it regularly to make sure all our entries are displaying as expected.

To generate your index, click the Generate Index icon at the bottom of your Index panel (see right). Then you’ll see the Generate Index dialog box (see below). All the settings you see will be InDesign’s default settings.

Note that there are several paragraph styles listed in the Generate Index dialog box: Index Title, Index Level 1, Index Section Head, and so on. InDesign will create new paragraph styles for every type of entry you’ve used.

Click OK and your cursor will be loaded with text. Click anywhere on a new page, and your live index will flow in a text frame on the page. The new paragraph styles will all be based on your Basic Paragraph style, and will probably need some adjustments. Here’s what our index looks like so far:

Now is the time to check whether any entries need correcting. Make any needed corrections in the Index panel by simply double-clicking the entry and making the change. In our index, we noticed that the entry “Gooseberry” shouldn’t be capitalized, and we’ll fix it by double-clicking the entry, changing the G to g, and clicking OK.

Updating your live index

Update your live index regularly to make sure any corrections or new entries are displaying properly.

To update your index, simply click the Generate Index icon on your Index panel again, and you’ll see the same Generate Index dialog box you got the first time (see above), with one major exception: This time the Replace Existing Index box will be checked.

Click OK to update your index with the latest corrections and/or additions. So easy, right?

Live index is a great feature!

The beauty of a live index is that it allows you to make any changes down the road—add, delete, rewrite, or rearrange paragraphs or even whole chapters—and not give the index a second thought. All the page numbers will be reassigned accordingly.

Contemplating a redesign for your second edition? No problem! All the index paragraph styles can be updated to match the new design.

And, if you’re writing in InDesign, add your index entries as you go. Seriously, there’s no bad here!

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: July 11, 2022
By: Glenna Collett

Book endpapers (also called endsheets) are probably the least noticed part of a hardcover book. But the endpapers are literally what hold the pages and the cover together. And they can add value to your book if you use them well.

If you’re publishing a paperback, take a look at the examples in this article for ideas anyway; you’ll find that the same principles can apply.

The function of endpapers

In our previous article about book binding, we showed how a casebound (hardcover) book is held together. Here’s the illustration that shows the parts.

You can see that without the endpapers, the whole thing would fall apart, so every casebound book has them. At the front and the back of the book, the endpaper page that is not glued down is called the flyleaf. Three endpaper pages are visible—and usable—at the front and also at the back, for a total of six.

But what about perfect bound (paperback) books, you might ask? No endpapers are needed to hold them together. But you can simply use the inside front and back covers plus the first and last pages to make spreads that imitate endpapers. It can be just as effective.

Most of the time, the endpapers are plain white and simply not noticeable. This is certainly the least expensive choice, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But let’s discuss using color.

Add color

Your printer will offer you a choice of colored paper stock for your endsheets. If you plan well, you can find a color that perfectly matches your book cover. Or a color that contrasts handsomely. A book with a brown cover could have red endpapers; a pink cover could have clashing orange or red or blue ones; a black cover could have orange ones. You get the idea. Look through the samples you’re shown and think creatively.

Use endpapers to add value

Reference books, especially, can use endpapers to great effect. Here’s an atlas with a world map that serves as a visual table of contents on the front, and world time zones on the back.

Easy-to-find reference material is a huge bonus for the reader. Could you use this space to help your readers? Think maps, a pronunciation guide, a list of characters or a family tree, a timeline . . . .

Now how about this cookbook for a plant-based, gluten-free diet? Before even opening to page 1, you might be convinced to buy the book and give the recipes a try, based on the enticing photos:

Here’s another case of endpapers drawing the reader into the book. The spectacularly dramatic photograph of a car crash is full of action:

Add interest or whimsy

In this book called 1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies (first edition), the enormous ship on the endpapers is a constant reminder of the size of the vessels in the Chinese fleet that sailed around the world in 1421–1423. (Notice the European ship on the lower left.)

Every year, a professional publishing association called Bookbuilders of Boston puts on the New England Book Show. This 2014 book of winners uses a lot of B’s on the endpapers, just for fun.

Children’s books often make great use of the endpapers. Penciled spirals! What could be more whimsical?

And how about this immediately recognizable scene from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer? It simply adds fun and appeal.

The endpapers in this book called One Plastic Bag by Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of The Gambia add a kind of horrifying beauty:

Add content

Many children’s books use the endpapers to extend the story or the lesson. In the beloved Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld, a crane lowers the sun gradually in the four endpaper illustrations. Here are the final two stages of sunset:

In Goodnight, Numbers by Danica McKellar, the lesson is extended on both pairs of endpapers.

In Julián Is a Mermaid, Jessica Love uses every conceivable surface to enhance this imaginative story: the jacket, the hard cover, and, of course, the endpapers, which serve as a visual prologue and epilogue.

Finally, you must see the endpapers in This Is What Democracy Looked Like, written and designed by Alicia Lin Cheng. The book shows a vast array of election ballots that have been used throughout US history. The author noticed the frequent and imaginative use of type ornaments in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and probably couldn’t resist playing with them. This is one of the very few books we know of that uses all available sides of the endpapers on both front and back, for a total of six different designs.

We hope this little display will help you think of creative ways to use the endpapers in your book.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: May 9, 2022
By: Glenna Collett

Back when Fiona started Book Design Made Simple, she decided that writing in InDesign would be easiest. (After all, it was her native habitat.) And now one of our readers has admitted to doing the same. So we thought we’d explore the various reasons why anyone would want to write in a layout program. For us it worked perfectly. How about you?

Reasons for writing in InDesign

Our book is filled with over 200 InDesign screen shots, and most of the pages are a complicated mix of text and illustrations. A huge percentage of the illustrations were produced in the same application. So there are three reasons to write in InDesign right there. Take a look at a couple of our spreads:

Wow, right? Perhaps you can see why we wrote to fit the space.

On the opposite end of the scale of complexity, some self-publishing authors of unillustrated books choose to write in InDesign for different reasons.

First, many people simply dislike using Word. (There are so many Word haters that we couldn’t possibly list all the reasons.)

Also, some find that designing as they go along gives them a feeling of control. They believe that tweaking the design over the long writing period produces a better product.

And a few folks simply find that the InDesign interface is more interesting and perhaps logical to them.

If you’re planning to design and lay out your book in InDesign anyway, this could be the perfect chance to become familiar with the program.

Some hints for writing in InDesign

For the most part, you can simply use most of the tricks you may know from Word. You can copy and paste, use a spell check, find and replace, make lists with the click of a button, and so on. You can also create your index as you write. But along with all of that, there are some special features that make writing in InDesign a bit more interesting and useful.

Adding illustrations as you go

When using Word, you can of course add your illustrations as you progress. But why do it twice? Since you cannot simply copy your Word illustrations into InDesign when you import the text, you’ll save a step by importing them straight into InDesign as you write. In Book Design Made Simple, we devote 7 chapters to importing and placing images, getting your text to wrap around them, and optimizing them.

Also, if your book is like ours, with lots of images and diagrams, you can create shapes and some illustrations to fit your page. In other words, you can watch your book come together as you progress.

Using StoryEditor

Story Editor is a feature that we’ve never used, but we did some research and trials and found out that we probably should have! It’s like having a text doc sitting right next to the InDesign screen so you can ignore the layout when you want to concentrate on the words. As you type in Story Editor, you can watch the changes appear in the layout. For many folks this would be a godsend.

A few of the other advantages include:

• Highlighting changes as you make them

• Seeing all the text in the same font and color of your choice in Story Editor—it could be larger or clearer than the type in the layout

• Having spelling and grammar prompts that look familiar

• Viewing overset (too long) copy that would otherwise disappear from view

To start using this terrific tool, put your cursor anywhere in the text, then go to Edit > Edit in Story Editor. We suggest a couple of lessons to move you further along. First, watch CreativePro’s 5-minute tutorial. Then check out the many other ways to improve your Story Editor experience in this blog post from makeuseof.com.

Setting the Next Style

Once you specify a Next Style (instructions below) in Paragraph Style Options, you can type your chapter number, then type your chapter title, and start your chapter text—and each time you hit Enter/Return, the correct paragraph style will be applied automatically to each. It is pretty cool and saves time, too. Here are the settings we used for this example:

Adding pages

You can ask InDesign to add pages as you type, just the way that Word does. Simply go to File (or InDesign) > Preferences > Type, and check Smart Text Reflow and Delete Empty Pages, as shown below. The program will then add pages automatically as your story gets longer.

When you’ve finished your main text, you can then add pages before page 1 of your manuscript for your title page, copyright page, contents, and other front matter pages. In your Pages panel, highlight page 1, then go the Pages dialog box > Insert Pages, and add an even number of pages Before Page 1. Voilà.

Other tricks you’ll need for writing in InDesign

Word count

If you like to keep track of how many words you’re spinning out, simply put your cursor anywhere in the story, go to Window > Info, and a small panel will pop up showing total word count and character count in the story.

Producing proofs for your editor

The editing phase is the one hiccup you’ll encounter when writing in InDesign. Chances are very great that your editor will not have the InDesign application, but they will know how to work in Word and PDFs. Ask which format is preferred.

To make a proof in Word, put your cursor in the text, Select All, then copy and paste into a new Word document. This is the easiest way to receive the edits, as you can accept each one individually (or en masse) in Word and then flow the text back into InDesign.

To make a PDF, go to File > Export, choose PDF format, and name the file. When you receive your editor’s comments on the PDF, you’ll need to retype each change in InDesign—directly into the layout, or by using Story Editor.

Stitching your chapters into one book

You might want to write your book with each chapter or section as a separate file. For Book Design Made Simple we did this because we took turns writing and reviewing each other’s work, and the files were huge.

For a book that is straight text, keep it all to one file for the sake of simplicity.

If you’ve been writing each chapter or section as a separate document, you’ll have to put them all together before you go to press. To do this, you’ll need to use InDesign’s Book feature, so please read our previous article for instructions.

A caution about hyperlinks. Is your book going to contain internal links such as “see page 62”? It will be tempting to make those links as you go along, but please don’t. We suggest setting up a temporary character style for the hyperlinks as you write, making the type a bright color so you can spot it later. Wait until your book is completely laid out before actually creating the hyperlinks (and a final hyperlink character style). We learned this lesson the very hard way by linking every entry in our index (about 1000 individual page links) before we changed our sections’ file names one final time. As soon as we changed the names, every single link disappeared, and—guess what—we had to redo the entire index plus hundreds of other internal links.

It’s fine to set up external hyperlinks to websites or email addresses as you write in InDesign or Word.

Will you write in InDesign?

We hope this article will help you decide whether writing in InDesign is for you or not. Just do what’s best for your situation because either way, your book is going to end up looking great.

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We thank our reader Donald Dunbar for suggesting this topic and sending us on an interesting journey of learning more about how to write in InDesign.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: March 7, 2022
By: Glenna Collett

Front covers attract and back covers sell—we’ve said it before. At the same time, a book spine should broadcast.

Most books in stores and libraries are shelved with their spines facing out. If a book has a great title and a well-designed spine, it’ll attract a lot more eyes than its neighbor on the shelf. So here’s how to accomplish that for your book.

What to include on the book spine

The book spine should display the most important information at a glance: author’s last name, title, and publisher or colophon (logo). Normally you don’t include the author’s first name or the book subtitle, though there are always exceptions. Too many words dull the impact.

When the book lies face up on a surface, the spine copy should be right side up. This means that you should arrange the type so it flows down the spine. (In some European countries, it’s done the opposite way, though.)

A spine that’s thinner than 1/4″ cannot hold type because there’s usually a 1/8″ safety area to the left and right of the type. This safety area exists in case your spine slides over to the front or back a bit during binding. How do you know how wide your spine will be? Ask your printer. Most printers will send you a cover or jacket design template to your exact measurements. If not, consult chapter 62 of Book Design Made Simple for guidelines.

A good title

Coming up with a great book title is very important, and it takes some imagination and marketing savvy. We know a good title when we see one, but we’re not experts, so we’ll offer you some helpful articles:

• How to Write the Perfect Book Title [Ultimate Guide] from Scribe Media

• How to Create Good Book Titles from Bookfox

• How to Craft Effective Book Titles (& Subtitles) from Friesenpress

Background color or image

You can design a book spine for a paperback or a dust jacket in two basic ways. Either use it as a space for the front cover to flow over to the back, or make it a distinct piece that divides the front and back designs. Since the main idea is to make the type on the spine as readable as possible, a busy background could completely defeat the purpose. Also, the front and back designs might be different (busy on the front, plain on the back), so the spine is usually the most logical place to make that break.

In the examples above, the images and colors flow from front to back in a logical way that unifies the designs.

Choosing a color or set of colors for the spine background shouldn’t be too difficult. Assuming that your front and back covers are attractive, simply pick up eye-catching ones from there, or maybe find a contrasting color instead.

Because book binding is automated and not every single spine comes out perfectly centered, it can be smart to wrap a bit of color around from the front and back to the spine, or vice versa, as in the examples below. This way, any imperfections are less noticeable.

Design a book spine for impact

Visibility is your main goal. Make the type as large as you can while staying within the designated type area. The type should contrast with the background to boost visibility, too.

The type on a book spine can be arranged in so many ways! Here’s an illustration from Book Design Made Simple (page 440). Notice that the publisher’s name is always at the bottom in these examples. If your book will be appearing in libraries, the catalog number will be shown on a sticker at the base of the spine—so don’t let the title or author’s name stray down too far.

And here are some real life examples.

Big. Bold. But still in keeping with the rest of the cover. For the title type, match what you used for the title on the front cover. If you discover that it’s unreadable at a small size, make it bolder or pick a different typeface from somewhere else on the cover.

Designing covers and spines for a book series

Advance planning is the key here. Notice in the books below how the spine elements line up with each other for maximum impact on the shelf. Check out our article on designing a book series in this blog for more advice.

For such a small space, the book spine has enormous possibilities. And enormous potential to help sell your book.

We hope this article will get you started designing the spine for your own book with confidence.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: January 10, 2022
By: Glenna Collett

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.

Understanding typefaces and type sizes

First, let’s look at the parts of a typeface that are related to its size.

The x-height and other aspects of a font can make a big difference in how much type will fit on a line or a page. Here’s a small example to illustrate this:

The example above shows only one word. Imagine if you extended the copy to a paragraph or an entire page. So when making your choice, keep the type size plus the x-height in mind and note how condensed or expanded the individual characters are. You want your type to be readable (not squintable!), but blocks of type must also fit your overall space requirements.

In addition, you might want to read up on the color of type pages in this excellent article by Joel Friedlander (The Book Designer). In the case he discusses, the color refers to the density of type on a page.

Comparing with competing books

We are always sending you out to compare your book with others! This time, though, maybe you can stay home and look through your own book collection.

Either in the library, the bookstore, or at home, find books that are comparable to yours: the same audience (academic, general public), the same genre (romance, reference, picture book, etc.), and the same general age group.

Gather up your comparison books and start measuring. The easiest way to measure type is with a point and pica gauge or a pica ruler. You can buy one on Amazon.

Here’s what to measure:

• The height of the capital letters, which are usually 2/3 of the type size.

• The leading (pronounced “ledding”), which is measured from the base of one line to the base of the next. The base is the red line under the word “Example” in the illustration above.

• The width of the block of type on a typical page.

• While you’re at it, you might as well make note of the number of lines on a full page. That will help you later on if you want to calculate how many characters appear on a full page.

Other ways to measure

You can also measure without a ruler by using InDesign, or even Word (with a lot more effort). Simply find 2 or 3 lines of type in your comparison book, and measure the line width. In InDesign, make a text frame of that width and type out those same lines of text, using the same font. (To identify a font, try this online tool from MyFonts.) Then try different type sizes until you find the one that makes the two samples match. In InDesign, you may play with tracking also, if you think the letterspacing in the comparison book looks a bit squished or stretched out.

Next, figure out the leading in your sample. Add some lines of nonsense type so you have a large enough sample: maybe 10 lines of type. Or fill a whole page that’s the same height as in your comparison book and then count the lines. To fill a text block with type quickly in InDesign, put your cursor where you want the text, then choose Type>Fill With Placeholder Text. The text frame will fill with lorem ipsum to the bottom in whatever paragraph style is selected. Alter the leading in the entire type sample until you match the original. You will probably have to print out your samples to make side-by-side comparisons.

Matching the typeface

It takes a lot of practice to identify a font successfully by eye, especially now that new ones come out every week. But these days you can get help online. Try this online tool from MyFonts.

Also, sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you’ll find a note (called a colophon) in the last pages of a book telling you exactly what typeface was used. Yessss!

Next we’ll give you a practical range of type sizes for various kinds of books.

Type sizes for adult trade books and textbooks

First, what is a trade book? It’s one that’s sold to the general public, including paperbacks, hardcovers, fiction, and nonfiction. Textbooks are not trade books simply because they’re sold to a specialty market. So in other words, trade books are normal, everyday books.

Generally speaking, the maximum width of a line of text should be 5 inches (30 picas) for a textbook or adult trade book. Exceptions can be made in coffee table books and art books.

Here’s the commonly used range for adult trade books:

• 11–12.5 point type on 14–16 point leading.

Here’s the commonly used range for college textbooks:

• 9.5–11 point type on 11–13 point leading.

Other textbooks—for elementary or middle school level, for instance—use the same sizes as trade books for those ages. See below.

Type sizes for children’s books

The range of type sizes for children’s books is huge. I used to wonder why the type for younger children—who probably have perfect eyesight—is so big. But now that I’m a grandma, I think it’s because the person reading the book aloud is usually an adult who might be pointing out every word as they go along. And who might also be holding it a great distance away in order to fit kids on their lap. Whatever the reason, the type sizes for kids of all ages seem to work quite well.

Here’s the commonly used range for picture books:

• 12–48 point type on 16–48 points leading

The enormous differences in sizes and spacing is quite striking. Older, classic picture books seem to have smaller type and sometimes more words for the adult to read. Some picture books teach early sight reading and use large type to help with this. Some are best read aloud for a pleasurable aural effect (rhymes and alliteration, for instance), so type size might depend more on how much type fits on a page. Think about who is going to read the words in your book and what you want the children and the adults to experience.

Here’s the commonly used range for the early reader:

• 14–18 point type on 18–36 points leading

Here’s the commonly used range for middle grade books:

• 11–13 point type on 16–27 points leading

Here’s the commonly used range for middle school to high school:

• 11–12 point type on 14–16 points leading

Type sizes for large print editions

Not many self-publishers think to produce a large type edition of their book. In fact, there are several publishing companies that specialize in doing this, so if your book becomes popular, you might contact them to see if they’d create a large print edition for you. After all, they already have marketing schemes and teams in place, and they know their audience well.

If you want to do it yourself, here’s the commonly used range:

• 15–18 point type on 17–20 point leading.

16 point type on 18 point leading is the most common. Hint: The big publishers seem to use Times Roman most of the time; it’s a good space saver but also very readable.

Type sizes for reference books and directories

When you need to squeeze a huge amount of material into a manageable amount of space, you have to go small. Consider using two or more columns; it can save you space while also saving the reader’s eyes. Be sure to choose a really clear typeface. Hint: Try Helvetica.

Here’s the commonly used range:

• 8–9 point type on 9–11 points leading.

We hope this guide helps you decide on a type size for your book, but don’t stick to it religiously. There are many other kinds of books, and lots of hybrids, too. We’ve written about cookbooks, workbooks, and coffee table books in other articles on this site.

Best of luck with your publishing adventure. Type size is just a small piece of the whole.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: November 9, 2021
By: Erika Sharma

The advent of the internet has changed the landscape of books. Self-publishing is getting easier all the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The biggest hurdle you’ll face as an online bookseller is marketing. Every self-publishing author in 2021 needs to know how to do keyword research! We’ll explain the basics of Amazon KDP ads and then show you how to find the most effective Amazon KDP keywords that will sell your books.

Self-publishing with Amazon KDP

There are various ways to publish your books online, but one of the easiest by far is through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, KDP for short.

With Amazon KDP you can publish a book in 5 minutes flat; really all you need to do is sign up. There’s also little to no wait time, and after about a day your book will show up as a listing on the Amazon Books storefront. Royalties are quite generous at 70%, so it really is one of the best methods to get your books published fast.

Amazon KDP advertising

One thing you’ll absolutely need to do is use Amazon KDP advertising. Publishing a book on Amazon is a breeze, but then you need to make sure you’re marketing it. Because there’s an abundance of self-published e-books on Amazon for every genre under the sun, running some paid ads is essential. Amazon KDP advertising lets you run ad campaigns for your book listings.

To run Sponsored ads at the top of a search page as in the screencap above, you first need to create a campaign. It’s easy. You set up a campaign, select which book listing you’re advertising, set a campaign budget, enter in a bunch of keywords to rank for, set bids for each keyword, and start running your ads!

While you’re creating the campaign, you’ll get three choices: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Lockscreen Ads, each with its own placement on search pages.

Types of Amazon KDP ads

Sponsored Products ads show up like the ones above, on the search results page with a “Sponsored” label on them.

They’re not always limited to the top of a search page; they also show up in a carousel on product pages. These are actually product-targeting ads, where instead of targeting a keyword or search query, you’ve targeted someone else’s book to promote your own book on their page.

Meanwhile, a Sponsored Brands ad is more of a “store spotlight” or in this case “author spotlight.” As in the screencap below, you can see a header for author Jenna Hendricks’s store.

Similar to Sponsored Products ads, Sponsored Brands ads can also use product targeting. They’ll show up as a little box next to the carousel on the listing page.

A Kindle Lockscreen Ad is unique because it will show up only on a Kindle or Fire Tablet device. These are actually really effective, because the Kindle user can tap on the screen and immediately be redirected to the listing page for the book.

Targeting Amazon KDP keywords

Enough about the ad types. The key goal of any ad campaign for your books is to convert those ads to sales. For this, you need to understand how to target Amazon KDP keywords and know the best ways to find relevant keywords to run your ads for.

Automatic vs Manual

First, you should know what these two types of targeting do. On Amazon Advertising, you can use automatic targeting or manual targeting. The simple explanation is that automatic targeting is good for when you want Amazon to compile an initial set of keywords for you, meanwhile manual targeting is what you need to do for your best keywords to really get the most bang for your buck.

Both targeting types have their advantages and disadvantages, but manual targeting definitely gives you much more control over your ad campaigns. For a deeper understanding of each targeting type, you can read this guide on the key differences between an Amazon PPC manual campaign and Amazon PPC automatic campaign. (Amazon Advertising has the same fundamental functionalities, so reading about Amazon PPC ad campaigns will help you with your Amazon KDP ad campaigns.)

Finding Keywords

There are a couple of ways to find a good set of keywords. The best place to start is the Amazon Search Bar. You can get some common search queries right away, so put in some keywords about your book and find a few keywords to branch off of, as shown below in the search for “self help.”

Naturally, the search bar on Amazon is not enough. This is why we recommend using keyword research tools. Some free tools that work really well are Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends and ahrefs.

In Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends, you can get the search volume over time for keywords. Input a “seed” keyword—for example, one of those search queries from the Amazon search bar—and voilà! You’ll get a whole list of similar keywords, with search volume over time.

Meanwhile ahrefs is just as robust a keyword research tool as Google Keyword Planner. On ahrefs you can even filter out your data to JUST Amazon, rather than searching Google and other search engines. Ahrefs does a similar job to Google Keyword Planner. It is a paid service.

One alternative method that works well is to use Amazon PPC automatic campaigns. We touched upon this earlier, how automatic targeting essentially lets Amazon collate a bunch of keyword data for you.

We recommend setting aside some budget for automatic campaigns, and letting the campaigns run for about a month. After a month, collect all those keywords, filter out the ones with the highest relevancy and highest conversion rate, and pop them into a manual campaign.

Keyword Relevancy

You have a set of keywords, but how do you know if they’re relevant? This is where you need to use some critical thinking. Here’s a good guideline to follow:

For the best results from your ad campaigns, you should be looking for above 90% keyword relevancy. On a market as saturated as the Amazon Bookstore, 50% relevancy just isn’t going to cut it.

Remember to collect keywords and search queries first, then sort by relevance and discard the ones that just aren’t relevant enough. Once you’ve used those tools to harvest keywords, you can export all that search volume data into a spreadsheet to go through the keywords with a fine-toothed comb. We recommend quickly assigning % relevancy to each, and then filtering out any that fall below 90%.

Conclusion

We hope you see now that finding Amazon KDP keywords for your books isn’t too tough after all. It is definitely time-intensive, though! Keyword harvesting is half the battle. The next hurdle to overcome is bid optimization. To learn more about keyword and bid optimization, try reading this blog post from SellerMetrics first, and then this one.

Thankfully, there are even more resources available on Amazon PPC management. If you want to save time, you can use Amazon PPC software to manage your Amazon KDP ad campaigns!

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About our guest author

I am Erika Sharma, a Content Creator at SellerMetrics. Our mission is to help Amazon Sellers navigate Amazon PPC by offering them the knowledge and tools to kickstart their Amazon PPC optimization process without hassle.

SellerMetrics is a next-generation Amazon PPC Software. Our software supports both Automated and Bulk Manual bidding workflows that allows complex campaign strategies to be deployed with ease.

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase.

While this is incredibly bittersweet news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here.

Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Originally Published: November 8, 2021
By: Fiona Raven

Trying to keep up with Amazon updates? So are we! There’ve been a few changes lately, so we’re discussing them here to keep you up to date. The main Amazon updates for book authors are: 1) EPUBs are replacing MOBIs for reflowable Kindle ebooks, 2) hardcover binding is now an option, and 3) A+ Content is available for your book’s product page on Amazon. Let’s break it down for you.

MOBIs replaced by EPUBs for reflowable Kindle ebooks

Yes, you read that right! We no longer have to struggle with the ever-problematic MOBI format for reflowable Kindle ebooks. EPUB is now the preferred format across all devices including Kindle. So much easier, right?

Here’s what Amazon has to say about the MOBI format:

We listened to your feedback and are making it simpler to publish eBooks on Kindle. Starting June 28, 2021, we will no longer support files in MOBI, PRC or AZK formats when publishing new reflowable eBooks or updating the content for previously published eBooks. Instead, we ask publishers to use EPUB, KPF (Kindle Create files), or DOC/DOCX (Microsoft Word files) files for reflowable eBooks. Please note MOBI files are still accepted for fixed-layout eBooks.You don’t need to take any action for reflowable eBooks already published unless you are updating the eBook files.

So, just to be clear, EPUBs are now accepted by Amazon for reflowable Kindle ebooks. The MOBI format is still fine for fixed-layout Kindle ebooks (comics, picture books, etc.).

Are you managing two different ebook formats?

If you’re like us, you already have two different ebook formats to manage: EPUBs and MOBIs. Now what?

Your already-published reflowable MOBI can carry on as usual on Amazon with no action required on your part. However, if a time comes when you need to make changes, you’ll need to upload the new file as an EPUB, Word doc, or KPF (Kindle Create file). Amazon prefers EPUB now for reflowable ebooks. The MOBI format is still fine for comics and other fixed-layout Kindle ebooks.

Replacing your MOBI with an EPUB will not affect the availability of the title, ranking, or product page on Amazon.

ISBNs for ebook formats

Did you assign one ISBN for all your ebook formats, or a separate ISBN for your EPUB and MOBI files? Amazon only cares about the ASIN for your Kindle ebook, so as long as the ASIN doesn’t change, your ebook retains all of its sales ranking, history, etc.

The best practice moving forward is to submit multiple ebook formats (if you need them) under a single ISBN. Fixed-layout Kindle ebooks can still use the MOBI format, otherwise all ebooks will be EPUBs. We now recommend assigning one ISBN for the EPUB, PDF, and MOBI formats of a title.

Hardcover binding is now available

Now you can publish your book in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle formats! All three editions will be listed on your book’s product page to give readers a choice.

What’s included with hardcover binding?

Amazon KDP’s hardcover binding includes a printed laminate cover over 2 mm boards. There are five available trim sizes, and the page count must be between 75 and 550 pages. You’ll have a choice of gloss or matte laminate, and white or cream endsheets (to match the pages). Not included at present are dust jackets, cloth wrap, and printed or colored endsheets.

Is the formatting different?

As long as you keep the same trim size, the pages for a hardcover edition will be formatted exactly the same as for the paperback edition. The cover, however, will be a slightly bigger size to allow the printed cover to wrap around the hardcover boards, and therefore the cover template for a hardcover book will be bigger than it was for the paperback cover.

Do I need a separate ISBN for the hardcover edition?

Yes, you do. Each different edition of your book requires a unique ISBN. So if you’re planning to publish your book in three editions (paperback, hardcover, and ebook), be prepared to assign three ISBNs, one for each edition.

If the trim size of the pages of your hardcover book will be the same as your paperback, list all three ISBNs on the copyright page. That way, the same PDF can be uploaded for the pages of all three editions. Plus, it alerts your readers to the fact that other editions are available.

Add A+ Content to your product page

You can now add A+ Content to your book’s Amazon product page! We’re excited about this, as it gives publishers a chance to appeal directly to their own audience and to elaborate on the standard data that is always listed for every book.

What is A+ Content?

A+ Content is additional content that you can create for your book’s product detail page. It lets you improve your book’s listing and expand on its brand by providing additional details and images. This helps your customers understand the features and benefits of your book. Not every publisher is using A+ Content yet, so it really makes your book stand out from the competition.

As an example, check out our product page for Book Design Made Simple. Scroll down to the From the Publisher section, and you’ll see that we’ve added a big colorful banner, a front cover image next to reasons why our book is unique, bulleted lists describing what you’ll learn about designing, printing, and publishing, and finally, a pic of our awards together with an endorsement. Our A+ Content has given viewers more confidence to buy our book (as shown in our book sales since adding the A+ Content), so we’re big fans!

Here are a few more examples of A+ Content to give you some ideas for your book’s product page:

• B is for Baller: The Ultimate Basketball Alphabet

• Diver’s Paradise

• Dazzling Travis: About Cardinal Rule Press

How to add A+ Content to your product page

Start by going to the A+ Content intro page, where you’ll find instructions on how to proceed, plus answers to FAQs. There are three links on this intro page:

1. A+ Content Guidelines. It’s important to read this page, as the Guidelines set out all the restrictions. For example, we mustn’t include pricing details or wording like Free, Bonus, Affordable, etc. There’s a maximum number of quotes/endorsements allowed, and no customer reviews are allowed. So take a look through the Guidelines and make sure to follow the recommendations so your A+ Content will be approved when submitted.

2. Create A+ Content. Here are step-by-step instructions for creating your A+ Content. You’ll sign in to your Amazon KDP account, go to the KDP Marketing page, and get underway using the A+ Content Manager. The A+ Content is created in modules, and you’ll choose which modules you need for your content.

3. A+ Content Examples. See examples of how other KDP authors have designed their A+ Content, and what different modules they’ve used. Your A+ Content can include:

• Custom headers with text and images

• Unique image and text layouts

• Product comparison charts

• Bulleted feature lists

• Click-to-enlarge images

Uploading A+ Content to Amazon

Via Amazon KDP

If you published your book with Amazon KDP, then you can upload your A+ Content via Amazon KDP and there is no extra charge for adding it to your product page.

Via Amazon Seller Central

If your book is listed on Amazon through a Seller Central account, you can still create and upload A+ Content BUT be aware that you have to have a Professional Account in order to add A+ Content.

Via a book distributor

If, like us, you self published and use a distributor that liaises with Amazon, your distributor can upload your A+ Content to Amazon.

Three great Amazon updates for book authors

We found these Amazon updates to be very helpful for our book creation, marketing, and sales, and we hope you do too! Using EPUBs for Kindle means that you only have to manage one reflowable ebook format for all devices now. Having a hardcover edition gives your readers another option. And the A+ Content provides a great way to present your book and brand to what is probably your largest audience.