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They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but a professionally designed cover can be the key to a book's success. From helping enhance your images to creating a best-selling book cover from scratch, we offer book cover design packages to fit your needs.
Interior book formatting is often overlooked but may be even more important that the book cover design. From novel formatting, textbook layouts, and full image formatting, we offer a variety of custom book interior design packages to fit your book.
We understand each book is different and is as unique as the author who wrote it. Talk to one of our book design experts in our shop, over the phone or in person to discuss what you are looking for and we will help you find the right book design package that fits your needs.
What is included in book design and book formatting? This is a common question for first time authors who are publishing books themselves. When most authors write their manuscript, they use Microsoft Word or a similar word processor. If you were to print these documents as-is, it wouldn’t usually look much like a book since these softwares are not made to print books. For the cover, authors may have a photo they want to use but it needs to be sized, shaped, and text has to be added to make it look like a book cover. With interior book design/formatting and book cover design, we take your native/raw files and will transform them into a book. Here is what is included in book design:
You have already put so much work into writing your book, so let us help you get across the finish line. Our goal is to make the book design process simple, easy, and hands-free for you. Our designers review each book individually and will work to create a one-of-a-kind book format/design for you.
Since designers do not read or edit your book, it is important you have your manuscript completely edited. You can do this yourself, have a friend or family member do it, or hire a professional editor. We do not have editors in-house but have a great list of Recommended Editors.
To get started you will start an order with a quote and half-down deposit using the Online Pricing Tool or by giving us a call. After submitting your deposit, you will either upload or mail your materials to us (What to send for Book Design).
One of our expert book designers will review all of your materials including your preferences, book genre, etc. After this, they will create a preview of the book design concept. Usually a low-res of the cover or a few pages of the interior. You will have a day or two to review the preview and send feedback to your designer.
After the designer reviews your feedback and discusses it with you, they will make any required alterations to the design and finish the complete design. You will then receive a complete proof of the book. You will be able to either make changes (Additional Design Changes & Proofs Rates) or approve for production.
Once you approve a proof with no changes, your book will be sent to production! The production time can vary depending on your quantity and binding style. See our Book Production Timelines for more details. Once books are complete and you have paid your final balance, books will ship either by UPS, USPS, or freight. Learn more about our shipping options.
Book design pricing depends on your book word count, genre, and complexity along with if you are getting complete design or just the cover or interior. Book cover design starts at $89 and Interior Book Design starts at $399. For exact pricing, see Book Cover Design Pricing, Book Interior Design Pricing or use our Online Pricing Tool for a complete quote. You can also give us a call or email us using the Contact Us page.
Yes! You will talk directly to the designer regarding the initial design, the preview, and the proofing process. The rest of the Gorham Printing Team will be available for you as well. Meet a few of our Book Designers and Gorham Printing Leaders.
No, the designer will not read, edit, or spell-check your book. Here is a complete list of what Book Design does NOT include. If you need editing, we do have a long list of editors our authors have worked with. Check out our Recommended Editor’s List.
Yes you can. You will fill out the Proof Decision Form stating you have changes and what type of new proof you would like to see. All changes made after the initial design is $92/hr or $23 per 15 minutes. For more details, review our complete list of Service Rates.
When you receive the Design Preview, you will want to make sure to review the font. This is what the Designer Preview is made for, checking the font and the design (layout) before the complete design is done. Changing the font once the design is complete can require a complete redesign of the interior of the book. If you do decide to change the font after the design is complete, talk to your designer or the Gorham Printing team and we can discuss options and costs with you. Contact Us whenever you have questions!
Every book is unique which means no two books will take the same amount of time. Book design can take on average from when the order starts to when the author receives a complete proof is usually 1-3 weeks. It will depend on the book’s complexity, genre, and author preferences. Learn more about the Complete Design Process.
No problem, all you have to do is submit your reprint requesting changes. To do this, simply go to your Account, Past Orders, and click reprint. It will ask you how many copies you want to reprint and if you have changes. Changes are made at $92/hr or $23 for 15 minutes and we are efficient at making changes! Learn more about Reprinting.
Most likely. Times New Roman is a basic font that appears in most computer software programs. Our designers prefer not to use this typeface as it was originally designed for newspapers to be quite narrow and can be difficult to read. It also has a very “dated” appearance. There are many readable and attractive typefaces out there that would be perfect for your particular project. Your designer will take into consideration your book’s genre, author, and format when picking the best font for your book. To learn more about book fonts, check out our blog article "Fonts, Faults and Foibles".
If you were to hire an electrician, you wouldn’t tell them what tools or wires to bring, you would trust their expertise. This is the same with book design. We have over 35+ years of book designing experience and will choose the right font and margins that fit your book. If however you truly like a certain type of font or size of margins, just let us know and the designer will take it into consideration when setting up the design. To see examples of our award-winning interior book design, check out Our Interior Design Portfolio.
When designing a book, we will flow your words into Adobe InDesign. From there we will choose fonts, styles, margins, etc. If your images are in your manuscript, they won’t flow into our software and will be lost. Images placed in word documents are also condensed and lower quality. We will manually optimize images and then place them in the InDesign file after the text is formed. This is why we need place markers, such as "insert image x here", in the manuscript to indicate where your images should go. Here is What to Send for Book Design.
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