Designing an ebook – the design aspect
There’s a lot of people writing ebooks and publishing them in various different formats but once they are written you need to turn to the design and style of the book.
You need to present it well and make it engaging especially if you are selling the book.
The book needs to be well thought out in terms of layout so the reader can navigate through easily. The way that I would approach this is to set up a 
template that you can adapt to contain a variety of subject matter.
Your front page should consist of your title, you may also wish to add the author and a brief summary or strap line of what the book is about. You can add an image to your front page, but make it relevant and don’t just take a picture and plonk it in the middle – take a look at other books and see how they have laid out front covers, how they engage with their audience, think of your ebook on a bookshelf – would it entice you to read it?
Next create the look of the main book, you may choose to use a header and/or a footer, these can contain the book title and/or the section title for ease of navigation and page numbers. The headers and footers could be in your company colours or in colours that reflect the content of the book and will create a consistent look from one page to the next. Depending on the length of the book you may want colour coded sections and to indicate these in a table of contents at the front of the book.
Decide on what font you are going to use in the book, I would restrict it to a maximum of two fonts, one for headers and sub headers and one for the main body text or the same font throughout. As you are more than likely making a pdf of the book, you don’t need to stick to computer friendly fonts, which enables you to use your corporate font, or something you feel is relevant to the content of the book.
Make sure that it is legible as people read ebooks in a variety of ways including something as small as a phone.
Think about how you are going to position any images, tables or graphs in your book.
- Do they always appear down the right or the left of the page?
- does the text wrap round them?
- do they have a border and a caption underneath? if so how thick is the border and how is the caption different to the body copy?
You need to make sure that your images compliment the content of the book, if you don’t have any images that do this you could put one consistent image in the header or a series of graphics or icons instead, there are many ways to brighten up a book without flooding it with random imagery.
A point to note on images, make sure you have used images that you have bought or can be used if you quote the source, don’t risk using anything you’re not sure about, believe me, people do get caught out and for the extra investment which nowadays can be very little from certain stock sites when buying a low resolution image for screen use - it’s just not worth the risk.
Keep stepping back from the design of your book and judging it on your own standards
- would it keep you engaged?
- does the copy flow as it should?
- is there enough paragraph breaks and section headers to keep the sections in manageable sizes?
- Remember people will read ebooks on screen so breaking it up is paramount.
You may want a back page to your book, this can include, information about the author, or an ideal space to make people aware of other ebooks you have written or in the same series or copyright, disclaimers and other important information you need to include. This would usually take on the style of or a complimentary colour to the front page, with the text laid out on it.
I hope this helps you think about the design and style of your next ebook, remember to check out what has been done previously and find examples that you might like and shape them to your own needs, or as a lot of my clients do, come to a designer who will design a template for you and flow all your copy in and if you need specific graphics or bespoke illustrations these can be created for you.
A well designed ebook will outsell a plain PDF every single time.
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Because of the different methods of reading eBooks, I personally favour using a very traditional font for the main body text – something boring like Arial or Times New Roman, and at least 12 point if not 14 point. It could be, though, that I'm still judging it by the criteria used for eBooks a few years ago! What would you recommend given current technology?
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
Emily has been advising me on my soon to be launched ebook and there are easier to read fonts, I don't know if I am allowed to say or whether they are 'trade' secrets but when I tried it, it made a big difference from Arial which I always use.
Also some I know in a forum, has a great site called the “Big Brand System” where she shares a wealth of information about ebooks http://www.bigbrandsystem.com/ and she offers templates via a membership scheme.
After faffing with my ebook for 4 weeks and not getting anywhere, I decided to just hand it all over to Emily to sort out
I had reached the point of knowing that my limited skills where not enough, and just wanted shot of it!
I must say that having bought and downloaded many ebooks in my time, and then seeing what Emily puts together, I was blown away by the difference. Sarah had been raving about an ebook and I'm ashamed to say that I was rather dismissive (sorry Emily) until I saw the results – it makes a massive difference – leagues beyond any home-made efforts, and so the author will of course also be perceived as such too.
Twitter: babssaul
Arial or Times New Roman don't have to be boring, it's how you present it as a complete document that makes it interesting. I think you can afford to go a bit more 'creative' with a headline or book title that might tie in with the content of the book, but above all the fonts need to be legible. 12 pt should be fine, I wouldn't go any bigger, most people will zoom in on a pdf to read or will have an ebook reader so it doesn't need to appear on their screen as a large font, if they are viewing an ebook on a phone they will definitely have to zoom in, whatever the font size you've set it at.
Hope this helps
Don't worry Sarah you haven't given away any trade secrets. Using different fonts and playing around with your template can be beneficial and you get to see what you like and dislike and what's working for you.
Although handing it over to me is the easiest option : )
Thanks Babs, some ebooks can really benefit from a good layout as the information contained in them might be quite factual or informative and perceived as a bit boring so you need to bring it alive with the layout. I have read ebooks on things that I need to know but the subject matter isn't exactly riveting and a well presented and laid out book has been far better to read and has made me absorb the information better.