Regardless of whether a book is published electronically or in soft or hard cover, the exterior artwork is one of the first things a reader sees. The cover design includes items such as the artwork on the front, typography on the spine, a synopsis or blurb on the back as well as an ISBN number and barcode. In most cases, the ISBN number and barcode will appear on the back cover or inside the flaps of a dust jacket for a hard cover novel so it can be sold in stores. For ebooks, the front cover is usually all the reader sees. To design the cover, use a photo editing program --- such as Photoshop --- or hire a professional to design one.
Typography, also known as the arrangement of type, involves font type, line length and leading, or line spacing. Typography is a large part of a book's design and not only appears on the cover, but within the interior as well. Successful use of typography will allow the text to be read easily and the book to look and feel professional. For example, a book with a trim of six by nine inches may use a font such as Garamond, Times New Roman or Courier New, with a font or point size between 11-13 and a line spacing of 1.5. The variables of this equation will change depending on the trim of the book, its intended audience and genre.
The interior of a book includes headings or chapter titles, the header and footer that usually include the page number, title and author and the full text of the book. When formatting a book, publishers should be vigilant for instances of orphans and widows. An orphan occurs when one line of a new paragraph sits at the bottom of a page while the rest of the paragraph is on the following page. A widow is fairly similar in that most of the paragraph rests on the bottom of a page but its final line ends up on the next page. Avoid these formatting errors by editing the paragraph so it sits on one page instead of two.
To format the interior and cover design properly, the publisher needs to know the trim size. For the interior of the book, publishers will need to consider elements such as margins, the gutter, header and footer. The gutter is where all of the pages come together and are glued into the spine. When working on a six-by-nine book, a margin of one-quarter or one-half inch is more than enough. The trim of a finished book defines how the other elements of a book will be designed.