I Can Tell Your Book was Self-Published 2: Electric Boogaloo
More Ways to Improve Your Book Design
This past September, I wrote a newsletter called “I Can Tell Your Book Was Self-Published.” Y’all seemed to like it.1
Since then, I have thought of even more visual indicators of a self-published book. There are many details that make a professionally-designed book.
Like I wrote previously, self-publishing a book is essentially starting a little business.2 It is wise to invest in professional design for your business. But I am aware there is not always capital for such an investment. Books, published traditionally or independently, are so often passion projects that take years of toiling on the sidelines of work, family and other obligations. Books are dreams, and dreams are not easily funded.
While I want a world with good design, there should be room in it for scrappy small businesses, and books, that can’t afford to hire designers. These need not be mutually exclusive.
Standard disclaimer: Just because I can tell your book was self-published, it doesn’t mean I think it shouldn’t exist or be self-published.
Putting a book you care about into the world in any fashion takes enormous effort, money, and willpower, and I respect the hell out of that no matter what your book looks like.
Your book doesn’t need to look like it was published by the Big 5. But maybe some smart design decisions will help you build credibility with potential readers.
Here is a list I hope helps you produce a better-looking book.
I can tell your book was self-published because:
There is a stroke, or outline, on the cover type when there is no good reason for one.
Your book cover uses the Brush Script typeface on its cover (and wasn’t published in the twentieth century).
Either on the outside or inside, your book used Arial. Arial is Microsoft’s knockoff of Helvetica and unless your book is a biography of Bill Gates, a good book designer wouldn’t use it.
You used a free font from dafont.com. I can’t tell for sure (I’m not that good), but fonts from dafont are generally less professional. Major indicators of this is poor default kerning and an overly-stylized aesthetic.
You put “Amazon bestseller” on the cover. Do you know how many stupid categories Amazon has for books? This means next to nothing.
One line of type in your title is bigger than the others and you didn’t adjust the leading to compensate. Now there is uneven line spacing despite the settings being set to the same number. Graphic design is often about optical balance rather than “perfect” math.
You left a right-hand (aka recto) page blank. Maybe this is one of those traditional things that should be left in the past, but it just isn’t the done thing. Blank left-hand (or verso) pages are OK, though. Don’t ask me why. I think I knew, but I forgot.
The first paragraph in your chapters are indented. Indents exist to alert the reader to a new paragraph—you do not need one if it is the first paragraph.
The paragraphs in your book are both indented and have space between them. Choose one or the other.
Your book text uses straight quotes instead of typographer’s (or curly) quotes. Typographer’s quotes. Typographer's quotes. See the difference?
Some text on your cover has wide letterspacing (tracking) and other text has little to none. They don’t need to be the same,3 especially if different point sizes, but they should look related.
Your book’s interior text has too long a line length. This is influenced by the margin size I mentioned in part one, as well as the point size of your text. You’ll see different advice from different places, but a line of book text should probably be somewhere in the 50–75 character range.
The cover has stretched type. Don’t you do it. Find a condensed or wider font instead. We can tell—and it looks bad.
Widows and orphans abound.
The chapters in your ebook butt up against the end of the previous one.
There are two spaces after each period. You only need one.
Your book text is justified, but hyphenation is turned off. Hyphenation is essential to a clean text block without rivers.
The blurb attributions on your back cover use hyphens, not em dashes.
There is an over-reliance on transparency in your cover art.
It says “by” before your name on the cover.
The spine text is in the wrong orientation—it should read top to bottom. (Note: Apparently this is only true in the U.S. and U.K. and is often the opposite in other European countries. Thank you Flagrare ️🔥 for the information!)
I’m starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel here—what do you think? Did I miss any? Do you have some revisions that need to be made?
While we’re on the topic of improving our book design, I want to point you to a couple of resources.
Reading:
Book Design Made Simple: This is a great blog that also exists in book form. Even as an experienced designer, I learned a ton about interior book design from this book. Prior knowledge of InDesign is useful.
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton: This is one of my very favorite books that will teach you many important fundamentals about typography in an accessible way. I convinced John Ward to buy it and you should too.
The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature by Peter Mendselsund and David J. Alworth: An incredible analysis and history of book covers by one of the best to ever design them.
The Design of Books An Explainer for Authors, Editors, Agents, and Other Curious Readers by Debbe Berne: I haven’t personally read this one yet, but it’s on my list. It is intended explicitly for non-designers.
Fonts
Did you have dafont.com fonts in your book? Here are some other places to get some high quality free fonts.
Brandon Nickerson (free upon release for a few days, usually. Check his Instagram for announcements.)
As always, thanks for reading. I appreciate it. If you find value in this post, or my newsletter in general, consider buying my a coffee, leaving a like, or sharing with a friend interested in book design and self-publishing.
Colophon
A Book Designer’s Notebook is a newsletter about books, design, and creative practice from the desk of Nathaniel Roy.
It uses the typefaces Merriweather, Futura, and whatever fonts Substack has chosen. Merriweather is a Google font designed to be a text face that is pleasant to read on screens. Futura is geometric sans-serif designed by Paul Renner in 1927. It is on the moon.
Nathaniel Roy is a book designer, collage maker, photo taker, self publisher, and a few other things in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
You can see his work and hire him here. If you want to support this newsletter, you can buy him a coffee here.
Is this a classic Hollywood sequel cash grab? Absolutely. But I do have more to say.
Unless you don’t really care about selling copies. Which is totally valid.
See above paragraph on leading settings.
These are great. They take me back to my graphic design classes.
I would highly recommend, “Book Typography: A Designer’s Manual” by Mitchell and Wightman to anyone looking to dive into book design. It’s a thick tome of a book that is itself beautifully designed and it has everything.
In the end, I do think that many of the rules can be semi-arbitrary but it’s still good to have a working understanding of them. I say that as someone who has designed a handful of books but it has never been the focus of my design work.