Finding the best nonfiction book cover artists for your book project is essential for your success, because as book discovery has migrated to the world of search engines you’ll need to be competitive with established titles produced by traditional publishers.

When your book shows up side by side on a search with a bestselling title in your niche, the contrast between both covers will be immediately apparent. So it’s imperative that you aren’t tempted by low cost operators and hire instead an experienced nonfiction cover artist.

You Don’t Need Just a Good Cover Artist, You Need the Right One

If you do a Google search for book cover designers you’ll find pages upon pages of potential candidates showcasing many beautiful covers. However, you’ll also find that 99% of the covers you see are for fiction books.

The reason is that the vast majority of the millions of books that are self-published every year are fiction titles.

As a nonfiction writer, you need to find a specialist in your genre because the skills of a nonfiction book cover artist are diametrically opposite to those of fiction cover artists.

A fiction designer’s goal is to capture the essence of the story in the cover imagery. In other words, to create a visually appealing representation of the book’s characters and their journey. Fiction covers are about the book, not about the reader.

Nonfiction covers, on the other hand, must always be about the reader and not about the book. Their goal is to show a visual representation of the life of the reader after they put into practice the solution conveyed throughout the pages of your book.

While a fiction cover focuses on the character or characters in the book, a nonfiction cover focuses on the reader and their deep desires.

For this reason, you must find a book cover artist who understands how nonfiction works, who understands the needs of your target audience and who understands your reader’s aspirations.

Don’t Look for Cover Artists as a Commodity

In the age of the gig economy, exemplified by websites where you can find cover artists that’ll work for under $20, it’s easy to treat book cover designers as a low-cost commodity.

While this approach may prove valuable for fiction books, where you might want to keep your overall costs down in order to  test the book in the market before you commit more resources, it could prove disastrous for nonfiction.

The reason for that is that nonfiction titles are expected to be written by subject matter experts and as such your book will become a projection of your professional reputation.

Therefore, you can’t afford to cut corners and hire anyone but the most experienced nonfiction book cover artist that you can budget for.

Ask to See Lots of Nonfiction Cover Samples

Once you find the right candidate, ask to see as many nonfiction cover samples as possible – this will be proof of their length of service in the trade.

Then compare these covers with the book covers of bestselling nonfiction books in your niche to see how they measure up.

Ask How Many Sample Covers They’ll Make Available for You to Choose From

Another important question to ask is how many different covers they’ll include in their fee in order to give you greater freedom of choice.

Typically, you want to have at least three different covers to choose from, and by different I mean unique concepts, not the same cover with some twists.

Ask How Many Revisions Are Allowed Before Extra Charges Are Triggered

Once you decide on the main theme of your cover, you’ll want to be able to make tweaks to get it right where you want it to be.

So you need to ask the designer how many revisions their standard fees will allow before extra charges kick in.

Ask to See Their Contract, Fees and Terms of Payment

Always work with an artist who has a clear contract that details the services that they’ll provide, the fees, the terms of payment and, more importantly, how they’ll handle and charge for change requests.

The world of design is highly subjective and experienced book cover artists will not offer unlimited changes (beware of those who do).

What you’re looking for is a fair amount of changes to be covered by their standard fee and then reasonable charges for additional changes beyond that number.

Ask for Their Expected Timeline Based on Their Current Workload

Something else that must be stipulated in your contract is the expected length of time required to produce your cover design.

This must include the initial timeline from capture of your requirements to production of the initial set of covers plus the time between a change request and its execution.

These times will vary based on the designer’s workload, so you must ensure that their time frames fit the schedule of your self-publishing project plan.

Ask to Provide You With 2 or 3 References

Although having access to book covers produced by the artist in the past is a necessary first step, you’ll also want to talk with their clients so that you can learn details about the working relationship.

To this end, ask for two or three references. Any reluctance to provide you with references is a sign of inexperience (i.e. lots of sample covers but few actual clients).

Check for a Good Rapport

Finally, make sure that there’s a strong rapport in your interactions with the designer during the interview stage.

Creative endeavors require that professionals that you hire be good listeners and empathetic to your needs. After all, they may work with you for a few weeks, but you might have spent years on your book project.

If you feel you have to walk on eggshells when you communicate with your designer no matter how talented they may be, then that’s a sign to take a pass and go down the list.

Creative relationships demand openness and vulnerability and you must ensure that you can always work with your book cover artist on a basis of mutual respect and understanding.

In Conclusion

Nonfiction book covers are a critical element in your book’s potential success in the market and require a deep understanding of the needs of your target audience.

Therefore, you must hire a book cover artist who’s not only skilled in the visual arts but who also understands the psychology of readers in your niche so that they can tailor your book cover to their aspirations.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

This article will show you the best practices to make a book cover for your nonfiction title in five simple steps.

The Importance of Nonfiction Covers

The cover of a nonfiction book is absolutely critical for its success. If you’re writing a nonfiction book, changes are that you’re doing so to solve a problem for your target audience.

Your unique solution needs to be reflected on your cover in a way that’s clear and unambiguous. Since problems have a strong emotional component, your solution and the imagery of your book cover must clearly reflect this fact.

Your best approach is for your cover to pictorially reflect the outcome of your solution, which is the most desired state that your target audience seeks to achieve.

For example, the book “The 4-Hour Workweek” provides strategies to escape the rat race and gain personal and financial freedom. Now, the title doesn’t explain how this is achieved and neither does the cover – clearly, you must read the book to find out.

However, what both the title and the cover do is to show the outcome of having put this yet unknown solution into practice. Specifically, this book’s cover depicts the outline of a person lying on a hammock between two palm trees with a sunset in the background.

This cover achieves a direct emotional connection with the source of its audience’s problem (living in a financial rat race) while offering an aspirational outcome that symbolizes personal and financial freedom.

Why It’s Key to Hire a Professional

When it comes to nonfiction, your self-published book will be competing head to head with traditionally published titles.

When your book comes up on a user search, it’ll be flanked by other books in your niche that have professionally produced covers. Anything less will look amateurish by comparison.

This is the reason why you can’t afford to farm out this important task to family or friends, or even do it yourself (unless you all make a living as professional cover designers).

Don’t cut corners in the most important aspect of visual marketing for your book. Also, keep in mind that your nonfiction book will establish you as an expert in your field and as such it’ll become an extension of your professional reputation. Any sign of amateur design will poorly reflect on your professionalism.

Now, even when you hire a book cover artist, it’s important for you to be familiar with the basics of cover design so that you can both have an intelligent discussion.

To this end, here are five steps to making a nonfiction book cover that can move the needle:

Step 1: Research Covers in Your Niche for Ideas

The first step is something that I recommend you do before you hire a professional.

Do a Google search for the most popular and critically acclaimed nonfiction books in your niche and create a list of titles and authors.

Then search Amazon for those books and copy and paste the covers in a document on your computer – you can use PowerPoint or similar so that you can easily manipulate the images.

Place three covers side by side per page, then print them and make notes on the margins about the features that you find appealing, or that you would like your designer to emulate.

Then take pictures of each page with your phone and email them to your cover designer so they can read your handwritten comments. They’ll use this research to inform their design choices.

Step 2: Choose the Right Trim Size

The next step is to choose your trim size. Now this is a decision that will be made jointly by your layout artist and your book designer and it’ll take into consideration the following two criteria:

• Using the trim size that is most favored in your nonfiction niche – the goal is to match the expectations of your target audience. For example, a financial investment guide printed in a small 5×8 trim size may give the appearance of a lack of gravitas as many mass-market novels are printed using this size.
• The number of words in your book. The larger the trim size the larger the number of words that can be fitted onto each page and the fewer the number of pages that will be required. Now, a book that’s too thin might give the perception that it’s not thorough enough for specific niches. Again your designers will arrive at the best compromise.

Paperback Format

For your paperback format, your cover will consist of a front cover, the spine and a back cover. Your front cover will include the main graphic elements, your title, sub-title, your name and if available a key testimonial from a highly trusted source.

Your spine will include your title, sometimes your subtitle in small print (but not always) and your name, and your back cover will include a sales blurb for your book, your bio and additional testimonials.

Hardcover Format

Your hardcover’s book cover will be slightly different. The information in your front cover and spine will be identical as your paperback edition, but your back cover will be different, plus the hardcover format introduces a new element: cover flaps.

Your back cover will now only show testimonials and no book blurb. This information will be shown instead on the front-cover side flap. The back-cover flap will contain your bio.

Step 3: Choose the Right Fonts

The next step for your book cover designer will be to choose the cover fonts. This is a critical choice since there are thousands of font families to choose from.

Here are some of the guidelines that your designer will use:

Font Selection “Do’s”

Use Fonts That Look Good When Enlarged

Cover fonts tend to be narrower than body fonts due to the natural limitations of book covers.

Since standard size book covers have a portrait orientation, fonts must be narrow in order to fit your title without having to use too many lines of text.

Use Fonts that Match The Expectations of Your Niche

Some nonfiction niches may call for more “artistic” fonts, while some may call for more “formal” font designs. Your book cover professional will be able to advice you on this important choice.

Your Title Must Always Be Bigger Than Your Name

This is always the case unless you’re a well-known author.

Also your font title must be large enough to be easily legible in a small thumbnail image of your book, since this is what will appear on search results.

Font Selection “Don’ts”

Never Use Gimmicky Fonts for Your Book Cover

This will distract from your overall theme and message and will also make your cover design look amateurish.

Don’t Use a Lot of Graphic Elements

Stick to a single main image if at all possible. You designer will likely produce multiple cover samples with different images for you to choose from. Multiple images in a cover can become distracting and confuse the reader.

Don’t Use Too Many Colors

The goal of a cover is to convey the main theme of your book while relating to your readers aspirations. The use of too many colors will be distracting, may look garish and may be perceived as amateurish.

Don’t Use Too Many Font Types

Consistency is key. Once you agree on the main font family for your front cover with the help of your designer, you should stick with it.

It’s okay to use a different font family for your front and back covers (e.g. a sans-serif font for your front cover and a serif font for the text-heavy back cover) but try to stick with a single font family on the front cover.

Step 4: Choose the Right Images

Photographs

If you’re using a photograph, stay away from stock photos because they tend to be overused. You want your book to be unique and not to reuse photographs that may appear on people’s blogs, or worse yet, on another book cover.

The solution is to use a professional photographer that you hire for the occasion. This will guarantee your uniqueness and also ensure high production quality.

Make sure that your contract stipulates that the copyright transfers to you on payment of the photographer fee without any limitations.

Images or Drawings

You’ll also have to hire a graphic artist for your cover image. Don’t use stock images for the same reason as stated above.

Your book and the solution that you’re offering to your target audience are unique and so must be your main image.

Also, make sure that the copyright to the image transfers to you on full payment as well.

Step 5: Choose the Right Colors

Nonfiction books demand very specific color palettes, and they are driven by the expectations of your target audience in your niche. For example, cookbooks require colors that people will identify with based on the food theme of your recipes.

If you use colors that don’t reflect your theme, it’ll be confusing to your audience, and perhaps even unappetizing. Colors trigger an emotional response so you must ensure that they are in line with your subject matter.

This is another area where your cover designer will be able to advise you. They’ll know from experience the colors that work well in your niche and what colors you need to stay away from.

In Conclusion

By following the above five steps, your professional designer will produce a great cover in consultation with you that you’ll be very proud of, and also a cover that’ll compete effectively with traditionally-published nonfiction books in your niche.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

In this article I’ll show you 9 book-cover ideas to take your nonfiction cover design to the next level. In this competitive age of digital shopping habits, your book is more likely than ever to appear side-by-side with traditionally published books than ever before.

By implementing the nine ideas below, you’ll be able to level the playing field with your competition, making your book cover more compelling as you’re able to match the expectations of readers in your niche.

All Books Are Judged by Their Covers

While it’s true that all books are judged by their covers, this is of particular importance for nonfiction books.

The reason is that while fiction book covers only need to reflect the story and characters in the book, nonfiction book covers need to show a reflection of the reader’s hopes and dreams.

In other words, what readers of nonfiction titles want to see on their covers is who they stand to become if they read your book. Nonfiction covers are aspirational.

So if you want your book to be picked up, you’ll need its cover to reflect a mirror image of the future your reader can expect if they were to implement your solution.

In this article, I’m going to share nine ideas or tactics that’ll help you get this done right.

Book Cover Idea 1: Browse Covers of Bestsellers in Your Niche

Before you hire a professional book cover designer, you need to learn what the state of the art is in your own niche.

Begin by doing the following search on Google: Amazon bestseller books. Then, select the category the best aligns with your niche in order to display a list of bestsellers sorted numerically.

Click on each cover and when you get to the book detail page, right-click on the larger cover image and save it to your computer – you might want to create a new folder on your desktop and save them there since you’ll be pulling down lots of covers.

Finally, using PowerPoint or a similar tool, create a new file and insert three images per page side by side. Print this file and then use the margins to make handwritten notes about what you like most about each cover.

You’ll be passing these notes later on to your book cover artist when you discuss your design.

Book Cover Idea 2: Speak to an “Audience of One”

A very important aspect for nonfiction book writers is to understand the motivation of your readers.

While fiction readers are motivated by a need to be entertained, by the need to find a respite from the daily realities of life, nonfiction book readers are motivated by the need to solve a pressing problem that’s afflicting them.

Therefore, the question that nonfiction readers will ask themselves at every step as they go through your book’s content is: What’s In It for Me? (It’s often said that the only radio station nonfiction readers are tuned into WIIFM).

For your book and by extension for your cover to be effective, you’ll have to tailor them to an audience of one. Each reader will want your book to be addressed specifically to them. Not to a group of people, not to a “generic” reader, just to them.

In fact, whenever you read a great nonfiction book to solve a problem you’re having you’ll invariable feel that the writer is talking to you, and by the end of the book you’ll feel that the author is like a friend who’s trying to help you.

That’s your goal with your nonfiction book and especially your cover: making your readers feel that you’re there for them.

Book Cover Idea 3: Less is More

As stated before, nonfiction book covers have a simple mission: to reflect the aspirations for your readers. In order to be effective in your visual messaging, you need to eliminate any type of distracting elements that can clutter up your cover.

In this context, less is more. The fewer elements that you use in the design, the more impactful that your cover will be. This is an area that your professional nonfiction book cover designer will help you nail down.

They are experts in reading the psyche of nonfiction audiences and in knowing how to capture their hopes and dreams in a visually compelling way.

Book Cover Idea 4: Use Professional Photography that’s Unique

Nonfiction books must be professionally executed from the ground up, because they will become a proxy for your expertise and your level of excellence. This includes any photographic images on the cover.

Your photography must also be unique. If you choose to go with a cover photo from a stock photo site you run the risk of overexposure – perhaps other books have used it before or perhaps it appears repeatedly on various websites and blogs.

So, make the investment to hire a professional photographer in order to create the required photo art for your cover, and make sure that you have a written contract that stipulates that the copyright of the photograph will transfer to you on payment.

Book Cover Idea 5: Use Professional Illustrations

The same applies to cover illustrations. Don’t but images from public sites, even it they’re professionally produced. Instead hire a graphic designer to create unique art the represents the aspirations of your readers in relation to the topic of your book.

As is the case with photographic images, make sure the copyright transfers to you contractually and make sure this document contains your graphic artist’s signature.

Book Cover Idea 6: Use Colors That Resonate With Your Niche

Nonfiction book covers need to use a color palette that’s in line with your niche. Different niches have different expectations when it comes to colors. For instance, many wealth management titles favor the use of green and gold.

To find out what works in your niche, observe the color schemes on the book covers you captured in Idea 1. Also consult with your cover designer to find out what works best based on their experience.

Using the wrong colors for your niche may have negative consequences for your sales. For example, most wealth management books tend to stay away from the color red.

Book Cover Idea 7: Make Your Book’s Title Your Cover’s Focal Point

Unless you’re a widely recognized author coming up with a new book, your title will have to take center stage on your book cover.

Always reserve the biggest font size for your main title and make it the focal point of your cover. This is of particular importance as shopping continually moves from the desktop to the mobile world, where real estate is very limited.

Make sure that your book title is highly legible and compelling enough to get your readers to click on your book’s thumbnail when doing a search.

Book Cover Idea 8: Make Your Title a Single Word

This is an idea that has been gaining in popularity as some one-word titles have achieved blockbuster status, such as Quiet, Outliers, Becoming, Blink and Fury.

The goal with single-word titles is to choose a word that evokes the desired feeling from your readers based of the subject of your book, which can then be expanded upon by your cover’s imagery and your sub-title.

Book Cover Idea 9: Make Your Cover Impactful Even as a Thumbnail

Since book discovery migrated from the world of physical bookstores to the online world, covers have been reduced to the size of a thumbnail.

As a result of this seismic change in shopping behavior, book covers have had to adapt to the real-estate limitations of this tiny digital representation of your book.

So publishers have had no choice but to adapt to this new reality by making important adjustments to how book covers are designed.

For example, in the past book titles could be long enough to explain the entire thesis of a book while the sub-title was there as an afterthought – e.g. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.

Nowadays, titles need to be short and intriguing, often three words or less, and a much longer subtitle is needed to complete the thesis – e.g. The Mindfulness Code: Keys for Overcoming Stress, Anxiety, Fear and Unhappiness.

In the world of thumbnail covers, you title has to be shown in a very large font so that it can be fully legible in the tiny image, whereas subtitles will be illegible until readers click on the thumbprint to expand it.

3 Book Cover Mistakes to Avoid

The nine ideas shown above take care of many of the variables that come into play when designing a nonfiction book cover, however, there are three key design areas that you must stay away from at all cost:

Book Cover Mistake 1: Using Pixelated Images

Many cover designs use photographs and images that are made to wrap around the entire book, so they must contain a very large amount of fine visual information to cover the front and back covers plus the spine.

But the fact that those images look sharp on the computer screen doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll show well in print form.

The advanced digital printing presses that are used to print book covers today can print very fine pixels and need a lot of information in order to produce a smooth image that doesn’t look pixelated.

Your cover designer will be able to advise you on the resolution and size of files that are required to print a professional-looking cover.

Book Cover Mistake 2: Using Gimmicky Fonts

In keeping with the professional image that your nonfiction book must convey, stay away from using gimmicky fonts that could make your book appear amateurish in any way.

Nonfiction fonts must conform to the expectations of your niche. What works in one niche can bomb in another. Rely on the expertise of your cover designer when it comes to cover fonts and try to keep them simple and niche-friendly.

Book Cover Mistake 3: Using Too Many Cover Elements

We briefly talked about this subject before, but it bears repeating one more time. Nonfiction book covers have one job only: to reflect the aspirations and hopes of your target audience.

You want to produce a book cover that clearly and cleanly achieves this objective. Too many elements will simply obscure this important goal cluttering your visual message.

Even if you feel that certain images or graphic elements need to be on you cover because they have a personal meaning, remember that your book cover isn’t about you but about the state of mind of your readers.

In other words, the meaning that you ascribe to those images or elements will not be shared by your audience, so might as well keep them out of your cover so as not to clutter your key visual message.

In Conclusion

In the world of digital shopping you need to make sure that your nonfiction book cover is able to compete with the pros.

The above nine book cover ideas show you foundational design tactics that are necessary to compare favorably with other professionally-produced books in your niche that’ll appear side-by-side with your title in book searches.

By developing your knowledge around these rules of cover design, you’ll be able to have more in-depth discussions about your cover with your designer.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

Book layout design is a key element in the visual appeal of nonfiction books. Unlike works of fiction, where endless streams of similarly laid out text are used to “lull” you into the story, nonfiction layouts respond to a completely different set of needs.

The goal of most nonfiction books is to solve a problem for an individual or a business. Therefore, they need to be laid out to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from the author to the reader.

This requires your text to be compartmentalized in a way that’s simple for readers to process. For example, your nonfiction book layout may use charts, tables and images to bolster your thesis, and they’ll need to support your text.

As a result, both your text and your images will have to be laid out following certain rules of the trade so that they look professional. In this article, I’ll share seven basic rules for nonfiction layout design so you can develop a sense of the genre’s visual requirements.

The Importance of Book Layouts in Nonfiction

Nonfiction is a very particular genre. By the mere act of publishing a book, authors are assumed by readers to be instant experts in their fields. As a result, there’s always a high expectation of quality.

Also, by acting as a proxy for your experience, a nonfiction book will have a high reputational impact on your career. So, you want to ensure that your book layout is top-notch since this will reflect on your overall professionalism.

Why Hire a Professional?

The nonfiction genre is also a highly competitive. As a self-published author you need to be able to compete head-to-head with traditionally published books because they’ll appear side-by-side with your book on user searches.

Interestingly, nonfiction readers for the most part aren’t aware whether a book is self-published or traditionally published. But they’ll know an amateurish design when they see it and this is something that’ll always negatively affect your sales.

So in order to compete you’ll need to hire a professional book designer to level the playing field, and you’re going to have to budget for this expense.

Like any other profession, book design is something that requires extensive experience to get it right. As an analogy, a house renovation done by a professional contractor will always look better than a DIY job.

Although a contractor will cost you more, the resale value of your home will be higher. A DIY renovation may cost you less, but chances are it’ll also depress the resale value of your home.

The 7 Book Layout Design Rules

All professional book designers will follow the layout rules shown below. I’m including them in this article so that you’re well informed when you discuss different options with your designer.

Rule 1: Always Justify Body Text (with Very Few Exceptions)

The first layout rule for nonfiction books has to do with the most basic text-formatting element: alignment. The four options for text alignment are aligned left (a.k.a. ragged left margin), aligned right (a.k.a. ragged right margin), centered and justified.

The vast majority of nonfiction books are justified, that is, evenly aligned to both the left and right margins. This makes text easier to read and it also makes books look professionally laid out.

The exceptions are very few. Poetry books, art books and cookbooks tend to use a ragged right margin because when used in short bursts this type of text alignment is said to improve reader retention. But in long bursts, ragged edges make reading more difficult.

A technical exception is text laid out in a narrow column (e.g. text that surrounds an image). In this case, justification can sometimes look funny, so a ragged margin is used instead.

Rule 2: Begin All Chapters on an Odd Page

This is a stylistic rule that applies to most nonfiction books: you have to make sure that all your chapters start on an odd page number.

In other words, the first page of every chapter must be on a right-facing page. If your previous chapter ends on an odd-numbered page, then you must add a blank page in between.

Incidentally, this blank page must have no text on it whatsoever including no headers and no footers.

Nonfiction books that don’t follow this rule are perceived to be amateurish. The reason is that chapters in this genre are considered to be units of knowledge, where a full theme is developed from beginning to end.

The first page of each chapter indicates to readers that a new unit is about to begin, which requires the consistency of a similar look.

To help with this transition, the text in the first page of a chapter typically begins anywhere from one-third to half the way down from the top of the page and a large drop cap is usually used as the first letter of the first paragraph.

Rule 3: Use Between 3 and 5 Sentences per Paragraph

Each paragraph in your nonfiction book should only contain a single controlling idea or topic. This idea should be mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph and must be able to stand on its own.

The rest of the paragraph needs to expand on this idea and the final sentence should be used to sum it up and to transition the reader to the paragraph that follows.

Never introduce a new idea at the end of a paragraph or use the last sentence to give a preview of the next paragraph. Otherwise, the opening of the new paragraph will feel redundant.

Rule 4: Don’t Place Any Front Matter Between Your Book’s Introduction and the First Chapter

In nonfiction, the job of the introduction isn’t to ease the reader into the book’s subject matter but to act as a marketing “sales letter.”

Here’s the basic structure you’ll need for your book introduction:

1. Draw your readers in by showing them the problem your book will solve and then by showing them the expected end result
2. Reveal your solution without giving any details (readers must be compelled to read your book to find out)
3. Show them why they should listen to you
4. Reveal the roadmap that’ll take them from problem to solution
5. List the benefits they’ll receive
6. Give them social proof (testimonials of your solution in action)
7. Address any known objections
8. Compel them to take action
9. Transition them to your first chapter

Now that your readers are sold, you don’t want to interfere with this transition by placing, say, your acknowledgements or a preface between your introduction and your first chapter.

You want to have a clean transition into the body of your book to allow readers to carry their excitement from your introduction into the roadmap to your solution.

Rule 5: Use a Single Font for Your Body Text (with Very Few Exceptions)

Your goal with the typeface of your book is to allow for consistency in the reading experience. Once you’ve settled on your body font with your designer, you want to stick with it all the way through the end of the book.

If you have multiple fonts in your body, you’ll “break the spell” of your writing by adding unnecessary distractions.

It’s as if you were immersed in a movie and all of the sudden they change the lighting dramatically for a minute or two for no reason. That would get you temporarily out of the story and make you wonder what happened.

The only exceptions are words or phrases that don’t interfere with the flow of your text. For example, image captions may use a different font (usually smaller). Words inside images may also look different.

Rule 6: Don’t Use Images with a Resolution Below 300 dpi

If an image looks okay on your computer screen, there’s no guarantee that it’ll look good when printed. Many images that look fine onscreen will look pixelated and “low-quality” on paper.

The reason for this is that digital printers can output pixels of a much smaller size than most computer screens.

The recommendation from the two largest on-demand printers in the world (Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark) is to use a minimum resolution of 300 dpi for all images that will be shown in the body of the book.

Rule 7: Use Healthy Margins

Finally, don’t reduce the size of your margins to fit more words per page in order to lower your unit printing cost.

Books that have thin margins look amateurish, and even from a practical standpoint they don’t allow enough space for the thumbs of a reader’s hands to hold it open without accidentally covering the text.

To choose the right margin size, seek the advice of your layout designer since there are standard formulas that apply to margins based on the trim size of the book.

In short, your margins need to look balanced – an excessively thick margin will look as amateurish as a thin one.

Next Steps

This article was meant as an introduction to the basics for professional nonfiction book layout. If you’d like to learn more, read my companion article: 10 Nonfiction Book Layout Tips That Will Glue Your Audience to the Page.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

The bar for nonfiction book-cover design is much higher than that for most other genres. Unlike works of fiction, where the primary goal is to entertain a general audience, nonfiction books are much more serious in nature. Whether your goal is to help your audience at a personal level or in their business, your book will position you as an expert in their eyes.

Therefore, the quality of your book’s presentation will have to meet a high standard: that’s the natural expectation readers have from experts. Specifically, your book cover design is an area where you can’t afford to cut corners by going for the lowest available cost from a gig website, because your professional reputation will be riding on your book.

This article will teach you five guiding principles of good nonfiction book-cover design so that you can have an educated discussion with your designer and understand their constraints in the choice of fonts, colors and other cover elements.

Principle 1: Use the Highest Resolution Images Allowed by the Printing Equipment

When it comes to nonfiction books, there’s nothing that screams “amateurish” more than pixelated, blurred or otherwise low-quality images and photographs.

Advanced digital printing presses require files with high-resolution images – the fact that an image looks perfect on your computer screen doesn’t mean it’ll look good when printed.

Before acquiring or producing your images, make sure to check the specifications from both Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and IngramSpark, the most popular on-demand printers for self-publishers.

The minimum resolutions accepted by both platforms is 300 dpi, however, you should strive to supply the highest resolution you can obtain from your graphic designer, image creation software or photographic equipment.

For the full print-file specifications, check the following links:

KDP: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201857950

IngramSpark: https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/file-requirements-for-print-books

Principle 2: Never Use Gimmicky Fonts

Since there are thousands of font families to choose from, it may be tempting to want to experiment with “unique” fonts to make your book cover stand out from the crowd.

But you need to consider that although the creative possibilities may be endless, the expectations from your market niche will not. Simply put, choosing the wrong font from the standpoint of your market will hurt your book cover’s appeal.

The problem is that you have no way of knowing which fonts will work in your niche and which won’t. This is the reason why you need to enlist the help of a professional nonfiction cover designer, because they’ll know from experience the fonts that’ll work best with your target audience.

Principle 3: Always Reserve the Largest Font for Your Book Title

Unless you’re a famous author with an established personal brand, you’ll want to showcase your book title, not your name, with the largest font size on your cover.

This is an important design decision since your book will most likely be discovered online and all that readers will have to go by is a small thumbnail image of your book.

Due to this real-estate limitation you also want your title to plant a question in your audience’s mind that can only be answered by clicking through the cover thumbnail to read the subtitle.

Here are some popular examples of online-friendly titles:

• Title: Blink, Subtitle: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• Title: The 4-Hour Workweek, Subtitle: Escape 9-to-5, live anywhere and join the New Rich
• Title: Brotopia, Subtitle: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley

Principle 4: Make Your Book Title Short (Ideal Length: 3 Words)

I believe that the shift of book discovery from offline to online bookstores is behind the current trend for shorter book titles.

When you think about it, the main job of your book cover is to be the backdrop for your title, both stylistically and in terms of the visual content of your graphic elements.

Your cover tells a story and your title gives it a name. For example, the cover of “The 4-Hour Workweek” shows the outline of someone lounging on a hammock tied between two palm trees with the sun in the background.

Although your title needs to be long enough to be compelling for your target audience, given the natural size limitations of book covers and the additional visual constraints of thumbnail images, you should ideally aim for 3-5 words maximum.

Whereas in the past (before thumbnail images ruled book discovery) titles used to be much longer and subtitles shorter – e.g. Title: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Subtitle: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change – this formula has now flipped.

In fact, now 1-3 word titles abound and authors are getting very creative with them. Often, even a one-word title can be alluring enough to make us click on the thumbnail to find out more about the book.

As they say necessity is the mother of invention, so get creative! Now, since the shorter the title the higher the chances someone else may have come up with it first, make sure to search it on Google before committing resources to it.

Principle 5: Avoid Flashy or Intense Colors

As a final tip, although the goal of your cover is to stand out from the crowd, the excessive use of color will more than likely become counterproductive. Colors need to meet the expectations of your target audience in the same way that fonts do.

If a certain color palette is considered to be loud, amateurish or otherwise inappropriate by your audience, it’ll be a turn-off for sales even if it achieves the goal of making your book stand out from the rest.

Since the range of available colors is virtually unlimited, this is another area where you’ll need to enlist the help of an expert for advice.

A professional book cover designer will know what colors work for what audiences and will be able to make a good recommendation informed by their experience.

Your color palette must both appeal to your target audience and also align with your book’s niche. Otherwise you risk creating confusion in the minds of your readers.

For example, if you’re publishing a cookbook with a color palette that isn’t typically associated with food, you’ll have a hard time convincing someone to buy it.

Or if you publish a book on how to make money in the stock market but your main cover color is red, you’ll create a subconscious disconnect with your audience (hint: green is a much better choice for this niche).

Next Steps

Now you have a foundation for the basic principles behind good nonfiction cover design.

Before you hire a professional cover designer, it would be a good idea to do some research on Google and Amazon to find the top-selling books in your niche over the last 10-15 years.

This research will allow you to see not only what works in your market right now, but also how design has evolved over the years as book discovery transitioned from brick-and-mortar to online bookstores.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

If you search Google for “book title ideas” you’ll find that most results point to book-title generators. The problem with these tools is that although they can do a decent job coming up with titles for novels, they do a poor job for nonfiction books.

The reason is that nonfiction books aren’t meant to entertain but to problem-solve, and as such they must have titles that are specifically created to address the needs of the book’s target audience.

Book title generators don’t know who your target audience is and they certainly don’t know what their needs are – only you do. Therefore, you’ll be much better off if you use your own creativity aided by a set of best practices for coming up with your ideal book title.

What Best Practices Should I Follow to Title my Book?

What makes a great nonfiction title is its ability to attract our attention, intrigue us, elicit our interest, persuade us to browse the book and compel us to open our wallets.

When naming a book, be careful not to create a title that makes sense only to you but not your readers. For instance, if you settle on a clever play on words that readers can’t relate to, your book title will likely fall on deaf ears.

Readers are constantly tuned into WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?), so you have to make sure that your title is always written with them in mind. Your title can be playful, intriguing and even controversial, but it always needs to be clearly understood.

Having said that, you don’t want to use a plain vanilla-title that has a clear message and does the job but that’s also boring and uninspiring.

For example, if the perennial bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People had instead been titled Things People do to be Highly Effective, the results would have been quite different, right?

Word choice matters a lot, and while the choice is nearly unlimited there are some best practices for nonfiction books that work time and again.

Below, I’ve compiled five book title ideas that you can use for inspiration, plus some examples of popular nonfiction books that have taken advantage of them to great effect.

Idea 1: Consider Using Numbers in Your Title

It’s been known for a long time in marketing circles that the human psyche finds lists of items alluring. This is the reason why so many articles have headlines like “The 7…”, “The Top 5…”, “The 3 Best…” and so on.

Nonfiction books are no different. For instance, here’s a list of popular titles that just use the number 7:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
• Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom
• The Seven Mysteries of Life
• Seven Steps to Oneness

Idea 2: Make Your Title Intriguing or Controversial (And Then Explain it)

This idea is the classic 1-2 punch: show the reader something intriguing or controversial to get their attention (your title) and then explain what you mean in the subtitle.

Here are some popular nonfiction titles that make use of this technique:

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counter intuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
• Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Idea 3: Make Your Title Counter-intuitive (And Then Explain it)

This is an extension of Idea #2. Use a counter intuitive message in your title and then explain what you mean in the subtitle. Here are some examples:

• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-to-5, live anywhere and join the New Rich
• The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
• Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
• Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America
• The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win

Idea 4: Consider Making Up A New Expression

Some authors have found success making up new words by mashing up two words that align with their book’s subject. In some cases, the made-up word has even become part of our modern lexicon. Here are some popular examples:

• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explains the Hidden side of Everything
• Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
• Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley
• Buyology: Truths and Lies About Why We Buy

Idea 5: Use a Single-Word Title And Then Explain it in the Subtitle

This is another very effective technique for coming up with nonfiction titles. Choose a single word that summarizes your book’s thesis, and then proceed to explain in detail in the subtitle.

Ideally, you want to use imagery on your cover that aligns with the basic meaning of this word. Here are some popular examples:

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
• Outliers: The Story of Success

Here’s an example of a nonfiction title that makes use of ideas 1 and 5:

• Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

Next Steps

Creating a title that inspires you is the first step. Next, you need to come up with two or three other alternatives that you can test with a select group of members from your target audience to find the one that resonates the most with them.

For example, Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, tested a number of titles using Google ads before he published his book. He wanted to find out which of his title choices would get the most clicks.

Whether you do this testing with Google or through people you already know, make sure that you pick the title they gravitate the most to (incidentally, The 4-Hour Workweek wasn’t Tim Ferriss’ preferred choice).

In short, be creative but let your test data drive your final decision-making.

Good luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

When you lay out your book you won’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and this is particularly critical for nonfiction books written by entrepreneurial authors.

If you’re writing a book to establish yourself as an expert in your field – say you’re a business owner and want to become recognized in your industry or you’re a professional and you want to give a boost to your career – your book will be judged with a high level of scrutiny.

When you’re deemed to be an expert, decision makers who have the ability to open doors for you are usually too busy to read an entire book, so they’ll make a go-no go decision based on first impressions. They’ll scan through your book quickly, read a few pages and then decide based on what they saw.

Clearly, with such brief exposure to your content, your book layout comes to the forefront. Since these people browse through a large number of books, they have expectations that at a minimum you’ll follow well-established publishing standards.

Any book that breaks one or more of these design rules is likely to be deemed as amateurish, which will impact your reputation and credibility.

Often decision makers move in small circles (e.g. event managers, procurement managers, media producers, bookstore buyers, etc.) so you cannot afford to be badmouthed by any one of them.

For this reason, you should only work with professional book designers to lay out your book and never attempt to do this work yourself – there are just too many rules and standards to follow and too many things that could go wrong.

Having said that, I believe it’s very useful for you to at least become familiar with the mistakes that do-it-yourself’ers make so that you have a general knowledge of the required publishing industry standards. Below are the top five mistakes to avoid when laying out a nonfiction book.

Paragraph Mistakes

Paragraphs Length

You should refrain from writing long, seemingly unending paragraphs. All your paragraphs should be broken down into short sentences that are easy for readers to digest. Aim to have between 3 and 5 sentences per paragraph on average.

Remember, the world of nonfiction requires that readers constantly process a lot of new information and you want to ensure that they don’t feel overwhelmed when reading your book.

Paragraph Breaks

You should always use a single break between paragraphs (i.e. the enter key). Multiple paragraph breaks is a big no-no in the book publishing industry.

Although your book designer will take care of this for you, make sure that your manuscript only uses single breaks between paragraphs. When you start a new chapter, use a page break instead, attached to the heading containing your chapter title – never hit the return key multiple times to get to the next page!

Widows And Orphans

A widow is a layout error that results in the last few words of a paragraph being pushed to a new page. An orphan is a layout error that happens when the first line of a paragraph is the last line of a page. Both widowed and orphaned text should be avoided.

Justification

Don’t left justify text blocks like you do when you write a letter, leaving the right edges unaligned (this is referred to as “ragged paragraphs”). The industry standard for nonfiction book text blocks is full justification. That is, your text needs to align against both the left and right margins.

Paging Mistakes

Chapter Pages

Don’t start a chapter on the left-hand page – this is a clear sign that an amateur designed the book. All chapter pages must be placed on the right-hand page.

Numbering

As an extension of the above rule, never begin numbering pages on the left-hand side of your book. Odd numbers must always appear on the right-hand side page, and even number on the left hand side page.

Also, page numbering should be in the header (the top) of your page, near the left and right edges of the book. Page numbers should not be in your footer for any page, with one exception: the first page of each chapter can show the page number on the footer or skip the page number altogether.

Flow

Don’t place any front matter sections between your introduction and your first chapter (such as acknowledgments, dedications, etc.). For maximum sales effect, your book’s introduction must transition directly to your first chapter.

Textual Mistakes:

Fonts

Don’t use “fancy” looking fonts – they’re a sign of amateur design. Also, don’t use multiple fonts in the body of your book. All paragraphs must always be laid out with the same font type and font size.

The only exceptions are the captions for images, graphs, tables and charts, and also breakout boxes used to highlight a specific sentence lifted from the text.

Spacing

Don’t use line spacing that isn’t proportional to your font size. Lines that are too close to each other are known to give headaches to readers. Lines that are placed too far apart are a sign of amateur design.

Indentation

Never use hard indents like tabs or multiple spaces. Your book designer will take care of this detail, but to make their lives easier make sure that your manuscript doesn’t use either tabs or multiple spaces anywhere in your document.

Graphic Mistakes:

Resolution

Never use low-resolution images in a printed book. Always provide your book designer with the highest possible resolution you can obtain. Aside from being considered amateur design, blurred or pixelated printed images will devalue your book in the eyes of readers and decision makers.

Content

Never overcrowd your charts, graphs and tables with too much information. The amount of information on any graphic element should always be in balance with the text that surrounds them.

If you have a lot of graphical information to share, break it apart into multiple images. Your book designer will be able to advise you on how to achieve the right balance.

Header & Footer Mistakes

Size

Never jam-pack your header with excessive information. The header in your book is used for navigational purposes and shouldn’t be hard to follow or cluttered with too much text. Make sure your book title and chapter titles have a reasonable length so that they can fit comfortably in the header and table of contents.

Placement

Don’t place any text in the footer; the only exception is page numbers for the first page of a chapter and footnotes. Also, make sure there are no headers on the title page, copyright page, chapter pages and any blank pages.

Next Steps

Now you know what to look out for in a good book layout. Keep this information handy when you’re looking for a book designer. Ask them for sample books they’ve laid out and then check them against the above rules for compliance.

Good luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Nonfiction Authors

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

A good book layout is important for books in any genre, but it’s essential for nonfiction books that deliver solutions to an audience.

Most readers will use these books more as reference manuals than as books they read once and then put away on a shelf. There’s usually so much actionable information in them that constant reference needs to be a key design criteria.

As a matter of fact, according to statistics from Amazon Kindle, almost 70% of the most electronically-highlighted books on their platform, excluding the bible, are titles meant to inform and educate users: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the 4-Hour Body, Steve Jobs, and The 4-Hour Workweek.

It’s for this reason that great care must be taken when balancing all the necessary visual aspects that appear on each page of your book.

Book layout is part science and mostly art – specifically spatial art. As a result, this is not something that you want to take care of yourself. This is something that you want to leave to the experts in consultation with you, so that you can guide them with your overall vision while they do the actual work.

There’s a lot riding on the quality of your writing, as well as your book design and layout. These elements will either reflect positively or negatively on your professionalism, and by extension on your reputation.

My recommendation is for you to create with the help of an editor the best possible manuscript you can, and then hire a professional book designer to take care of your book’s look and feel.

Even so, it’s good for you to develop a clear understanding of what makes a nonfiction book “pop” so you can provide valuable feedback to your book designer.

Here are ten book layout tips, one for each of the ten key layout areas that must be nailed in order to produce a book that will be easy on the eyes and appealing to the mind.

Tip 1: Size Does Matter for Book Layouts

The physical size of your book (referred to in the industry as your trim size) is the first decision you’ll need to make in conjunction with your book designer.

Standard trim sizes are the least costly to produce by your printer because most printing machines are preset for those sizes and they generate the least amount of paper waste. Custom sizes always have a higher cost per book because they tend to produce more waste.

The vast majority of nonfiction books come in three popular standard sizes:

5” x 8”

Typically used for paperbacks only, although there are exceptions.

5.5” x 8.5”

Used for both paperbacks and hardcovers.

6” x 9”

Used for both paperbacks and hardcovers.

In general, the size you choose is determined by your total word count. The highest cost driver for printed books is the number of pages. If you have a large word count and you want to limit the number of pages in order to lower your cost per copy, then a 6” x 9” trim size is advisable. If you choose a small trim size instead (say 5” x 8”) you may end up with an overly thick book, which will not only cost more to produce but also may be a turn-off for some buyers.

On average, a 5” x 8” book will fit between 250 and 350 words of text per page. A 6” x 9” book, on the other hand, will fit between 350 and 450 words per page (if you add images or graphics, then the word count per page will decrease).

For example, a 70,000-page manuscript will require approximately 200 pages in a 6” x 9” trim size – using the lower end of the range at 350 words per page to account for the inclusion of some images and graphics. The same word count in a 5” x 8” book would instead require 280 pages.

Tip 2: The Right Font Will Glue Readers to the Page (The Wrong Font Will Repel Them!)

The type of font that you choose in your book layout is the virtual “glue” that holds your reader’s attention.

To the layperson, most fonts of the same type and size look similar (e.g. most serif fonts or most non-serif fonts). But in reality, the design of a font can make a huge difference in reader retention.

Even subtle differences in the construction of a font can make a big difference between a reader gliding through the page and a reader experiencing tiredness when reading a book.

This is another reason why you should hire a professional designer to select the right font for your book. There are literally thousands of font designs to choose from, and if you were to take on this task it would quickly become overwhelming.

Finally, you never want to use a font that is so different that it becomes a distraction from the content of your book, even if you feel it’s appropriate.

Tip 3: Line Spacing is Much More than Just the Space Between Lines

Line spacing is critical for readability. It’s also dependent on your font size. To much line spacing and your book layout looks sparse. Too little and your readers will get a headache.

Here, again, you need to rely on the expertise of your professional book designer to find the right balance. Also, their advanced book-design software tools already have built-in algorithms to find the most efficient line spacing for a given choice of font and font-size.

Tip 4: White Space Is Not Empty Space

White space in a book layout refers to the absence of any design elements. A well laid out book has the right balance of white space and printed elements.

If you use too little white space (for instance by using very thin margins and little space between paragraphs) your book will feel visually cluttered and it’ll be very uncomfortable to read, even with the most appropriate font size and line spacing.

The key for nonfiction books is to strive for the perfect balance between white spaces and textual or graphic elements, because their readers will often re-read the same page or even a specific paragraph several times.

This is again an area where professional book designers come in very handy because they are true visual artists.

Tip 5: Margins Improve Readability in Your Book Layout

Margins are used to manage the balance between white space and the printed elements in your book layout. Technically, they’re also needed to make sure that printing shops have enough space to bind the books. But their primarily function is to help “anchor” the reader to the page.

If margins are too wide, the text appears to float in the middle of the page. Too little margin (which can be tempting to use because it lowers your page count and the cost of each printed copy) will result in cluttered text and make for a very uncomfortable read.

Tip 6: Be Creative with Your Chapter Pages

This is an area where a good designer can make the inside of your book really shine. When you look at other nonfiction books, you’ll find that the first page of each chapter looks different than the other pages: They have a “special” look.

This is an area where you can give your book layout personality by playing with different design elements.

For example, many authors take visual cues from their book covers and use them in the chapter pages to give their books a unique identity. Not all books take advantage of this feature, but some do it to great effect.

Tip 7: Use Headers and Footers as Navigational Tools in Your Layout

Aside from holding your page numbers, a well-designed header can be a great navigational tool if you have a large or detailed table of contents.

Using this valuable real estate just for the name of the book and the name of the author is redundant and not necessarily the best use this space. Consider instead using the chapter title and section (or sub-section) title as the header content.

Tip 8: Place Images, Diagrams and Charts Strategically to Help Readers Better Absorb and Digest Your Content

Graphic elements that are used with a lot of thought and planning can truly enhance the delivery of information in your book.

From photographs to images, illustrations, charts, diagrams and tables, the judicious use of these graphical elements can greatly enhance your book’s reading experience and help improve your reader’s understanding of your content.

The key is balance. Too many graphics can become distracting to your reader. Too few graphics will make your reader wonder why the graphics are even there.

Also, make sure that every single graphic element has a clear purpose and isn’t just used to provide a break to the text. Your readers are a very discriminating group and they expect all information to be in your book for a reason. Confusing graphics are a sure way to lose these them fast.

Tip 9: Make use of Breakouts to Help Readers Retain Information

Breakouts are text-box elements where key takeaways from your book can be pulled out of the main text and given a much larger font and a different background to make them stand out.

They can add a lot of value to your books provided that they are used judiciously. First and foremost, only highlight phrases that contain a key point, discovery, or takeaway from your book, but also make a plan ahead of time for these textual devices throughout the book to ensure that there is a logical flow from text-box to text-box.

Balance is once again key here. Too many boxes will become a distraction and take away from the reader’s enjoyment, and too few will make readers question why they are there in the first place.

Tip 10: Don’t Make Your Table of Contents Boring and Utilitarian

The final tip is to make sure that your table of contents serves the purpose not just to navigate readers throughout the book, but also to provide your readers with a clear informational roadmap.

Your editor will be of great help in organizing your table of contents to have a clear flow and to be useful beyond navigation.

What you don’t want is a table of contents that is too “thin” (not enough details beyond the chapter title and a couple of headings) or too “dense” (so much information that it becomes overwhelming).

Visually speaking, this is an area where your designer, in consultation with you, can play with different font sizes and text positioning for added emphasis.

You Now Have the Basics For a Strong Nonfiction Book Layout

The main lesson is to always strive for balance:

• Balance between white space and textual elements
• Balance in your line spacing
• Balance between graphical elements and text
• Balance in the use of breakouts
• Balance in the design of your table of contents

The above information will allow you to have an informed conversation with your book designer as you define together the layout elements that would best represent the message contained in your book.

Best of luck in your book layout!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book Introduction That Will Move the Needle

How to Come Up With Killer Book Titles for Your Nonfiction Book

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.