As readers, we probably don’t think too much about book layouts until something goes wrong.
- The font’s too small and we can’t read it.
- The print goes so close to the inside margins that it’s hard to read.
- The text is so dense on each page that we don’t feel like ploughing through.
I’ve been thinking about some of these issues lately in regard to my own writing. My novel Scattered was traditionally published, but I’m currently working on a poetry collection that will take me down the self-publishing route.
Budget is definitely a consideration. The bigger the book, the more it will cost to print and post, and those costs flow on to customers. If a book is too expensive, readers may be less likely to fork out their hard-earned cash. However, if decisions about design and layout are made purely on the basis of cost, you could end up with a book that people won’t want to read.
I should say up front that I’m not a graphic designer or a layout specialist. I’m learning as I go. However, if you’re on that same journey, here are some things you might like to consider when working on the layout for your book.
Font
Type
One of the first choices to make is whether you want a serif font or a sans-serif font. Serif fonts have little flourishes or projections at the end of a stroke on the letters (e.g. Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia), whereas sans-serif fonts do not have those extra embellishments (e.g. Verdana, Helvetica, Futura). Click here to see examples of the different types of font.
Serif fonts are often easier to read on the page because the serifs help to guide your eye across a line of text. Other style features can also make some fonts easier to read than others. For example, Open Sans is a lot easier to read than Cezanne. However, it depends on how you’re using the font.
For the main text, you want something that’s easy to read. However, you may want to use fonts that ‘pop’ for headings or for pieces of eye-catching text. You may also need different fonts for different types of features within the text. For example, if you’re writing a novel and one of your characters reads a letter or a newspaper extract, you might need a different font to highlight those.
Size
If you use smaller print, you can fit more on a page and lower your costs. However, think about your target audience. If writing for young children, you’ll need larger print of course. However, adult readers still need print they can read without having to strain or use magnifiers.
Also note that some fonts may appear bigger on the page, even if they are technically the same size. For example, 11-point Arial font looks bigger than 11-point Times New Roman font.
Margins
Books such as novels and memoirs typically have the main text centred on the page so that the left and right margins are the same. However, think about the inside margins (i.e. the right-hand side of even-numbered pages and the left-hand side of odd-numbered pages).
Depending on the thickness of the book and the type of binding you have, text may be difficult to read if those inside margins are too narrow. The reader may give up if it’s too hard to see some words, or they may (shock, horror) crack open the spine so they can lay it flat. Not a good option if you hope your book will find its way into libraries or be shared around.
For some types of books, it might be appropriate to have one margin larger than the other. If you have poetry with relatively short lines, it might look funny if all of the text only appears down the left-hand side of the page. In those cases, a wider left-hand margin might be better. However, if you have a poetry collection where the line-length differs a lot from poem to poem, you wouldn’t want to chop and change the margins for every poem as that could be disorienting for the reader.
Of course, don’t forget the top and bottom margins. You don’t want your text to crowd your page numbers and headers.
White Space
While budget considerations may dictate that you get as much text on the page as possible, readers appreciate some white space so that they can breathe and take in what you’re saying.
In a novel, dialogue and scene breaks provide some natural white space. New chapters typically start on a new page which usually leaves some space on the preceding page. There has also been a convention to start a new chapter on the odd-numbered page, which could leave the facing even-numbered page completely blank. However, that might depend on the book as a whole. I recently read a novel that had more than 100 short chapters, and each chapter started on the next new page regardless of whether it was an even-numbered or odd-numbered page. The book was already almost 400 pages long and it would have added a lot of blank pages if each chapter had to start on an odd-numbered page.
If your book is made up of lots of short sections (e.g. devotions), you may also want to start each one on a new page. If it’s a yearly devotional book and you have 366 entries, that can take a lot of space, however it does help the reader.
In one of the devotional books I own, a new page was started for each month, but the devotions within each month all ran on after each other. I know this would have been done to keep costs down, but it meant that sometimes only a heading and a line or two appeared on the bottom of one page. In some cases, a verse or poem would be split across pages, thereby losing some of the impact. The overall content of the book was good, but the layout did affect the ease of reading at times.
If you do need to ‘run on’ different sections, be sure to check the overall design so that page breaks don’t occur at awkward places.
Other Layout Considerations
It’s beyond the scope of this blog to cover every design feature. That would be a book in itself (or dozens of books). However, there will of course be different considerations depending on the type of book.
- If you have a lot of photos and illustrations, will they be black-and-white or colour? Will they be big enough and of high enough quality to see clearly? Are they all necessary?
- If you’re writing a workbook or Bible study book, will you include lines or space for the reader to write down insights?
- If you’re writing a non-fiction text, such as a self-help book or a how-to book, will you have breakout features such as case studies or pithy quotes in a box? Will you have separate information in the margins? Will you use footnotes or endnotes?
- And of course, eBooks have their own considerations. But that’s another blog for another time.
It’s All About the Reader (Mostly)
If you believe you have a message or idea to get across, whether that be in a novel, a devotional, a memoir, a poetry book, a picture book or any other genre you can think of, you owe it to yourself and the reader to make the reading experience as straightforward and enjoyable as possible.
For Christian authors, your calling can be a huge part of this. If God has laid something on your heart to share with a wider audience, it’s good stewardship to present that material in the best way possible. This will often mean balancing reader expectations with budgetary considerations, but it’s worth the effort to get it right. After all, there’s no point in producing a book with brilliant content that no one will read.
What types of things do you particularly like or dislike in book design? I’d love to hear your examples.
Photo Credit
Featured photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash. Free for use.
I enjoyed reading this, Nola. It is very interesting. Thank you.
I edited our church magazine in Ballarat for seven years until Bob retired. I really enjoyed this. We asked for people to share stories, poems and events. I always wrote a Children’s Story page, mainly about well known Christians over the ages, a recipe or two and so on. There were four issues a year. I mainly used TNR but did vary it throughout for interest. This is a serif, but at one stage I did hear there were some people who had difficulty reading serif scripts. I can’t remember the reason now but for a couple of editions I changed the main script to a sans serif script. However, I felt the overall effect was better with the TNR as the main script, so went back to that.
Thanks for that, Heather. That must have been a great experience putting that church magazine together and I’m sure you learned a lot over the years. Decisions about font can be tricky, as different people may find different kinds of font easier or more difficult to read. I’ve only just started looking at this, but I know there are different fonts that are regarded as easier for children to read or easier for people with reading challenges such as dyslexia. And of course a person’s eyesight plays a big factor. I’ve been able to see small print much better since getting my new glasses! It’s always a balance between the look and feel of the text and the readability. I’ve just bought Affinity Publisher, so am looking forward to dabbling more into book and magazine layouts. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I learned a lot from self-publishing my first book and getting some of these design elements wrong! My second book will have, for example, wider margins, especially the inner margins, as my first book had inner margins that were too close and it meant the reader had to force the book more fully open to read it. I have also encountered some debate when it comes to using serif vs sans serif in print. Some believe in serif all the way, while others believe fiction should be serif and non-fiction should be sans serif. We learn a lot from these experiences!
Thanks for that, Steph. It’s all a learning curve, isn’t it? That’s great that you’ve been able to learn from those experiences. Ahh, the font debate. I’m looking forward to grappling with that one. I’ve only just started looking into it, but there is a wealth of knowledge out there about what types of font might be better for different purposes. Some of it is based on research, but sometimes it comes down to personal preferences regarding what looks and feels right for the type of book and your audience. I’ll look forward to seeing what you come up with for your next book. Thanks for commenting.
I haven’t self-published so am not up to date with all this. But one thing I find – a current tendency to publish longer books in a small size ( less than A5 I think) so the book is very thick, I find annoying, as the book is harder to hold when I read in bed. ( It improves after a good read when the book gets older!)
Also, I once abandoned a theoretically good book because the small print was a strain on my eyes. So yes, I think all these factors are important to consider.
Good post, thanks, Nola. If ever I self publish, I’ll bear these things in mind.
Thanks for that, Jeanette. Yes I know what you mean about those smaller books that end up thicker. I’m not sure if it’s to aid in postage or some other reason, but it can make reading tricky, especially if the margins and print are also small. I was really excited to win one of Anthony Doerr’s books on Goodreads, but it was a smaller volume with tiny print. Unfortunately, it’s still sitting on my shelves unread. I’m still getting my head around some of these things, but I’m learning it pays to do some research beforehand. Though I guess that’s true of most things in the writing/publishing world. Thanks for commenting.
Such great advice. Thank you.
Thanks Jane. I’m glad you found it helpful.
Thanks, Nola. This is a great rundown from the dual perspective of reader and producer.
I feel like I spent a million hours researching all this stuff, sorting through conflicting opinions, and working out how to create the best balance for my own book layout – made all the more complex by the need to find complementary fonts to use within the body. Oh the joy of finding two fonts that work well together, are both very readable, have similar heights and kerning, and appropriately reflect reader expectations of the genre. Fun! (Not.) And of course, genre and target audience also influences choice of book size and font size.
Given the impact of printing costs, wholesale discount expectations, (even postage costs) as significant influencers of price-to-public costs and author remuneration, it truly is a balancing act to find the sweet spot which provides the best of all worlds.
Given my personal reading preference, I’d love to offer a large print version of my novel as well as a standard version that’s still reader friendly. Having worn glasses since I was a child, I think it presumptuous to only consider older target audiences for large print versions. However, large print exacerbates the price/remuneration balance problem but I’ve thought it might be a great option to offer, particularly for libraries.
Thankfully, these days re-flowable ebooks offer a wonderful alternative where readers can choose the print size.
One last thought re serif vs sans-serif fonts; I discovered that if you ask an avid fiction reader which font they like best, they’re more likely to choose the serif whereas if you ask someone who’s always reading textbooks and/or information online, they gravitate towards a sans-serif font. When it comes to readers, it would seem that familiarity breeds comfort.
Thanks for those insights, Mazzy. You certainly have a wealth of knowledge to offer from your experience. I’ve seen a number of posts that suggest types of fonts that go well together, but I think they’re mainly looking at what types of fonts work well as a heading and main text. I hadn’t thought of the additional problem of needing two different fonts of about the same size etc.
And yes it certainly is a balancing act to find the sweet spot. I’d love a large print copy of my novel, as I do have some older readers. But like you, I wear glasses and I find I have trouble with small print. But large print books cost a lot more. I guess some people overcome that issue with audiobooks, but they would have their own set of issues to consider. For novels, I find Kindle is a good solution as I can set the font as big as I like, but you sometimes miss the nuances of scene breaks, different fonts for different purposes etc.
Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Hi Nola
Thanks for your interesting article.
I’m currently about to start formatting my first book of writings and poetry that I will be self-publishing. I’m keeping it simple and using Book Antiqua for the text and headings except for the chapter pages, book title and scripture verses which will be Monotype Corsiva.
I visited the printer I’ve chosen to work out paper, margins, binding etc which was really useful. While I had a fair idea on what to do having done some desktop publishing and editing, I wanted to be sure I had it right from the beginning to avoid any screams of anguish half way through, or Heaven forbid at the end!!!
I’ve also set up various styles e.g. scripture, headings in a Word document which is the program I’ll be using. Yes, I know some people don’t like it but I don’t have any options and I’m comfortable using it.
As far as fonts go, when I was working in publishing in the mid to late 90s and also doing a creative writing and editing course, the rule was sans serif for headings (as it was clearer) and serif for text (as it tends to guide the eye along). And definitely NO underlining – that went out with the typewriter. I always cringe when I see underlines!
Anyway, God bless all His creatives.
Helen
Thanks for that, Helen. It sounds like you’re well up on it. That’s a great idea about checking with the printer first regarding margins etc. Definitely better to find that information out first rather than after you’ve laid out the book. I’ll check out those fonts you’ve recommended. Best wishes for your publishing journey and thanks for commenting.