Layout Help for Print on Demand Books

While it is true that most sales for a self-published author will come from ebook sales, I think having print books as well is a great idea as there are many people who still prefer to have a book in their hands (and you probably want books for yourself to sit on the shelf). While formatting of ebooks is incredibly easy, laying out a print book to look professional is a bit more challenging.

For Ridan, we do our book layout in a program made by Adobe called In Design. This software is rather expensive and takes quite a bit of time to master, but does produce incredibly beautiful results. I recently ran across an alternative that I found so worthwhile that I thought I would share it here.

Below are three very quick and easy videos showing you how to get a professional looking layout using OpenOffice.org. As the name implies, this is free software but as I'm an ex-programmer and know just how much work producing such a product entails, I highly recommend you donate a little if you do use this program and find it useful. Here is where you can download the software.

The following videos take you step by step through the process of setting up a professional looking layout. They take just a few minutes to watch and I highly recommend them.

Part I



Part II



Part III

See, that's not so hard is it? Once you have your interior layout and know your page count you can calculate the spine width that will allow you to do your cover (which will be in separate pdf file).

Armed with these two things, you're all set to choose a printer/distribution partner. The two I recommend the most are Create Space and Lightning Source. In February I did a comparison of these two and proclaimed Create Space the winner. Since that time some information has come to light that has made we re-work this post so if you've not read it recently it's worth a revisit. Here is the link.

I hope this helps!