1. Self Publishing - Design
Straun, self-published by Richard Brown
Rightly or wrongly, I fancy myself a bit as a whiz with design. The illustration here shows a book
cover I created for my account of the origins of organised Scottish skiing. The back cover had
another picture, a blurb about the book and some friendly quotations from people who know the
scene.
For most self-publishers, the costs of hiring a professional designer might be daunting. If you
don�t feel confident enough to do the job yourself, maybe it would be worth asking an
artistically-minded friend to put some ideas together. The truth is that it�s not that difficult to
produce something that serves quite well. Much will depend on the intended market for your
book. If you want to compete in a commercial field then professional help with design is
probably essential.
There�s also the question of the layout of the text itself; typeface size and style, indented
paragraphs or not? speech quotation marks or none? and so forth. You may want to take
professional advice on this too but to save money, just look at as many books as possible and
pick the features which you like.
Whilst looking at books for these details, take note of the introductory pages where the name of
the publisher (your company name!) and title page, acknowledgements, copyright warning and
so forth are. Use whatever features appeal to you (but be careful not to infringe copyright!)