Book Smart: How to Make a Professional-Looking Book

Ignore the phrase, people do judge books by their covers. To make sure your book is an attractive offer, there is a range of things to consider; from cover image to typesetting, your book needs to have the ingredients to spark an interest. 

Luckily, there are now more ways than ever to make your book stand out from the crowd. Check out the following steps to ensure your book is at the front of the shelf. 

Wear a stylish jacket 

The jacket design (front and back cover) is perhaps the most important ingredient when trying to sell a book. It is, after all, what encourages a reader to make that vital first step in taking the book from the shelf. For this reason, you should probably spend time making sure you have the right design for your cover. There are many book cover designers for hire to design a perfect and attractive book cover.

It’s important that the overall tone and feel of the design fits with the contents of your book. This applies to both the design of your cover image/illustration and your choice of font. “Your book cover should send a clear message”, says Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur. 

Is your book a murder mystery? Darker colours and a starker font design may be more appropriate for your cover. If your book relates to your business, a brighter colour palate and a more stylised font might be a good choice. If you set the right tone, a reader can get a feel for what your book is genuinely like before they pick it up. 

Another area often carelessly overlooked is the spine. If your book is on a full shelf, this might be the only part that a potential reader sees, so make it stand out. If your book’s spine just shows another in a line-up of dull fonts, it will go ignored. Think about how yours can stand out. 

Get it together, have a good layout

The layout of your book is also important. A tidy, well-formatted book signals an author committed to their work ora business that will deliver a quality product. “If you don’t want to get bad reviews, you need to make sure your book layout is professionally designed”, advises TCK Publishing’s article ‘6 Keys for Book Page Layout’. 

Having a well-formatted contents page, a font that fits with the content of your book, and consistent line spacing are some of the crucial things needed for a well-constructed product.

Use the right materials

Readers are drawn to books with a premium feel. When printing, make sure you use the right paper and card. If the book falls apart weeks after purchase, or if the pages are constantly giving readers paper cuts, readers are less likely to give your book a good review and you could have lost quite a few potential future customers. 

Again, it’s worth spending a little more money on materials to give the right impression. Purchasing a high-quality book binding machine from Duplo International will help reduce printing costs and give you confidence that your book has a premium bind.