Articles | Designing Your Ebooks

Ebooks are a huge hit these days and there's no sign of the trend waning one bit. In fact, it is projected to soar even higher in the near future. If you are a budding writer or an entrepreneur who has already started working on your own masterpiece, chances are you already know the procedure of creating these digital books. In this article, rather than talking about the process further, let us focus on the other thing which is just as crucial: designing your electronic book.

Contrary to what some may think, the design of the electronic books counts a lot. If the format of your book is bad, the reader will surely discard it as junk in a matter of minutes. After all, a badly formatted electronic material is a lot easier to get rid of than a badly printed one. Apart from this fact, a poorly designed e-book can also make you, the author, look like an amateur. Now, if you have a name to protect or a business to endorse, you would surely not want anyone thinking you as that, right? Fortunately, there are some things that can help you make your ebooks look much better. In the following, let's talk about them.

Many digital book writers use Word when they are working on a project. It's the easiest and most accessible program for documents and you probably find it convenient too. Now, when using Word for creating digital books, one of the things you have to regularly remind yourself is that electronic books are usually between 5x7 and 6x9 inches. They don't use the typical 8.5x11-inch format. Hence, the first step when polishing the design of your book is adjusting the page size. Go to the Page Setup menu and set it according to the appropriate figures.

You should also give attention to your margins. All sides must be on a minimum of three quarters of an inch. If you intend to use some header, footer, or both, it would be wise to make the top and bottom margins a bit wider.

Headers are a great way to improve the looks of your book so it's always ideal to run a header at the top of every page. Simply put the title and set it flush left, flush right, or centered, depending on what you think is best. You may also choose to put the page number on the same line, but, setting it on the footer would be a good idea too.

Bear in mind that some of the standard fonts are Times New Roman, Century Schoolbook, and Palatino. They make the body of your book a lot friendlier to the eyes. Meanwhile, non-serif fonts are ideal for chapter headings and subheadings.

Finally, you must remember that the front and back of the ebooks matter too, so, ensure that you work on them as well. Create a title page, copyright page, and table of contents for the front. Then put an index, short bio, and contact information at the back. There goes your well-designed electronic book!