For a quick reference on industry standards for book layout, refer to the IBPA’s Industry Standards Checklist. They set up everything for you in either Word or Indesign. For newbies, I highly recommend that you buy and use a template, such as those from. But know that you’ll always be learning how to improve your layout and design.įor a novel, you’ll worry about page numbers, page headers, and margins. For a simple introduction to it, I recommend The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams. This is a vast topic, the subject of many books and courses. All of the planning for the trim size, art direction, and integration with the text is referred to as the book’s design. The illustrator should have allowed space for the text, or you may have planned to add colored boxes for text. Layout refers to how the images are integrated with the text, and is an art-form. I’ll cover it here as a separate step, but it’s really integral to the illustrations step. Of course, you’ll be thinking about his as the illustrations are developed. With illustrations in hand, you can turn to layout and design. (If you don’t follow this discussion, you’ll have to read elsewhere about image quality, as it’s beyond the scope of this article.) Therefore, require all art at the highest dpi needed and convert as needed for the web/ebooks. If your images are 72 dpi, you can’t change to 300 dpi, or the image will pixellate. All photo formatting programs can change the 300dpi to 72 dpi without a loss of quality, but you can’t go the opposite direction. For the web/ebooks, the standard is 72 dpi. Check your printer’s specs for the exact amount of bleed required.ģ00 dpi - One measure of the quality of an image is dpi or dots per inch. This gives them some small allowance for variations. Here’s an example that can be varied to meet your needs, and your printer’s specifications (which can vary!).ģ2 pages ( Why 32 pages? ), 8.5” x 8.5” with 0.125” bleed (check printer’s specs for exact bleed requirements often you can download templates for covers).ġ4 double-spread illustrations, plus one single image for page 32, and background for copyright/dedication page.ĭouble-spread cover, with the exterior cover doubling for page 1/interior cover.Īll images must be 300 dpi, print ready, provided as jpegs or tiffs.Īdd any details about payment schedule, due dates, etc.īleed - Printing can vary by hundreds of an inch and to prevent tiny white lines around the edges of a book, the printer requires that images extend beyond the borders of the book for about 0.125”. Now, you’re ready to give you illustrator a spec sheet (list of specifications) for the project. Let’s assume for this article, that you are publishing a children’s picture book and decide to use the 8.5” x 8.5” trim size. Popular sizes for picture books include 8.5” x 8.5”, 8” x 8”, and 8.5” x 11”. Though it varies widely, for novels, most self-publishers use 5” x 8”, 5.5” x 8.5”, or 6” x 9”. Here are the links for trim sizes at each: There are three main POD printers: KDP, IngramSpark, and Lulu. I’m going to assume you’ll use POD printing because the standard trim sizes for them are the same as for offset printers. Please read this post about the difference in print-on-demand (POD) printers and offset printing. It’s always better to stick with a standard trim size. Any non-standard size will cost much more to print and will cut into your profit. This decision means you must know ahead where you plan to print the book, or else you must know standard trim sizes. First, before you hire an illustrator, you need to decide on a trim size, the finished size of the book.
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