Another Use for The Book Designer's Book Design Templates

I really value my time these days. I am more than willing to learn new technologies if they are helpful and of value to my business and writing efforts. But if they are going to be huge consumers of my time and may or may not be worth the effort to master on my part, I am no longer willing to go the extra mile.

I have been trying to motivate myself to learn how to use some of the writing software packages available such as Jutoh or Scrivener. I have come to the conclusion these are certainly good products and the people who like using them have valid reasons to do so.

It is just not a wise use of my time to learn to use these products. I have been using Joel Friedlander's Book Design Templates for the last few months. I successfully completed several short e-books/Kindle books as well as two large POD projects.

To teach myself how to use these templates, I decided to actually write a book using the template as a time saver. I would learn to use the templates at the same time I finished the project. What I learned was with a single Word document open for a variety of uses ranging from making notes to test writing passages, it was much easier for me to write the book directly into the template.

I was able to see the book as it would actually appear form before my eyes. Since I write non-fiction and my books involve graphics and photos, this made the writing process much easier for me. I am not certain if the same would be true for fiction authors, but these templates have been a wonderful tool for me, both in terms of producing a professional book interior in terms of appearance and a time saving writing tool.

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Easy, Attractive, Low Cost Kindle Book Conversion For Do It Yourself Authors!

In my never ending quest to find ways to make my self-publishing efforts more profitable I have tried to learn how to do as much as possible myself in order to save costs. At times that approach has been costly due to the amount of time lost or wasted. Other times I have spent money to have work done and, while the work was worth what I paid for it, it was money I could at times ill afford to spend.

Since eBooks appear to be the future of self-publishing, I have been struggling with how to convert as many of my titles as possible into Kindle editions. As I have often mentioned in this blog, if you are willing to pay to have conversions done, I recommend eBook Architects.

But, if you're like me and need to save money and are willing to do the work yourself, converting your print edition file to Kindle is a hugely daunting task.

I am happy to say, I no longer feel that way. 

I spent over $100 on books telling me how easy it was to convert my Word document into a Kindle file. The only one I ever understood was Aaron Shepard's book on inserting photographs and diagrams into a file for Kindle. I don't want to add up the number of hours of frustration I spent trying to convert files that would look reasonable, just reasonable, in Kindle or ePub format.

What's changed?

After using one of Joel Friedlander's new Book Design Templates for my latest non-fiction book's POD release and being so pleased with not only how the interior of the book turned out but how easy it was to use after about 30 minutes of playing around with the template, I decided to give the ebook template a try.

I spent the money to purchase a multi-title version of the ebook template I wanted to use. I spent two long days cutting and pasting the book I was converting into the ebook template. Don't let this statement discourage you. I had to learn a little about using the template, remove formatting that got transferred and correct the format in the template (very easy to do, just time consuming) and position the 200+ diagrams the book contained. The big time consumer was the diagrams.

I then converted the file to HTML. Uploaded it to the FREE program Calibre, converted the file and uploaded it to KDP.

When I previewed the file before publishing it I was stunned. For the first time I had created a book in the Kindle format that looked like I wanted it to!

Of course, I plan to purchase a copy to make sure the Table of Contents and the links in the book work. But, the interior turned out great! It looks just like it did in template form as a Word document before starting the conversion process!

If you have books you want to convert to Kindle editions and desire to do the work yourself, take the time to investigate these templates. Joel offers a lengthy guide on using the templates for both POD and eBook file creation and offers customer service via e-mail if you have a question concerning the use of the template.

I have already started converting another book using my template and the process is going much faster as this book does not have diagrams. 

You owe it to yourself to investigate these templates!

CreateSpace Interiors Versus Book Design Templates

I am a huge fan of CreateSpace. This Amazon owned company has helped me not only get my books into print, distributed to online retailers, but has done a lot of my covers, interiors and provided editing for several of my books. The author services I have used, cover design, interior design and editing have, I believe, been fairly priced.

But who doesn't want to pay less for the same product?

Cover design and editing are something I will probably continue to farm out. Interior design I will probably do myself from now on using Microsoft Word for Mac to create my interior.

Word is designed to be used as a word processing program, something it does well. It is not a professional publishing software.

Since part of the reader's experience in using a book is the readability and aesthetic appearance of a book's interior, it would make sense not to use Word to create the interior. The flaws in the final product, particularly in regard to spacing of letters and words, makes Word a less than desirable tool to create the level of interior design expected by most readers. Readers who will often go to the trouble to leave a negative review on Amazon for a poor interior design.

If you don't want to pay to have a professional book designer to craft your book's interior and you are the do-it-yourself type, you can invest in expensive publishing software and tackle the tough learning curve to master using the software.

Or you can save money, do-it-yourself, use Word and create an appealing interior for your beloved book.

This is made possible by a new product designed and sold by Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer. I had reviewed Joel's new interior book design templates earlier and really liked what I saw.

I have since had more time to utilize the template I have and like the product event more. First, let's take a look at the cost comparison between using a professionally designed interior, with its two to four weeks time frame for production, and using one of Joel's Book Design Templates.

CreateSpace offers two reasonable priced options for a professionally produced book interior design. The less expensive option, Author's Advantage Book Interior, uses a variety of predesigned interiors for the author to choose from.

The Total Design Freedom Custom Book Interior is the more expensive option but the author, after consulting with a designer, will receive a custom designed book interior.

Let's compare the pricing options for a Book Design Template. The template I have been working with is a 6 x 9 version of the Britannia template. A single, one time use template can be purchased for $37. For $97 a multi-book license can be purchased, allowing the template to be used repeatedly. For those who are interested in providing design services to other authors, a Commercial license can be purchased for $197.

A print and eBook option is available as well. For the paper edition and an eBook template the price is $47 for a single use license. The multi-book paper and eBook version is available for $107. The commercial license paper and eBook option is available for $207.

The most expensive option for the Britannia template, which is priced the same as all of the other Book Design Templates, is less than the least expensive option from CreateSpace.

How easy is the template to use? I have finished several chapters by cutting and pasting in  just under 30 minutes. Most of that time was spent thinking about how to do the first chapter, which was as simple as cutting and pasting. I was making the task much more difficult than it needed to be, I simply could not believe it was that easy.

The customer support is excellent. I had one small visual issue I could not figure out how to resolve. One e-mail initiated the help I needed to solve the problem, complete with step-by-step instructions with screen shots to provide me with directions I could not misinterpret.

I am so sold on these templates I am now an affiliate for Book Design Templates! If you want to purchase one of Joel's templates, please consider going through the icon on this blog to make your purchase.

Click here to order.

Book Templates by The Book Designer - a Product Review of Sorts

No, I am not affiliated with Joel Friedlander's company, The Book Designer. I have not purchased a template just yet, but I'll explain why in a moment. I do follow Joel on his blog and have learned a great deal about self-publishing from the advice and information Joel shares.

His latest business venture, or product if you will, is called Book Design Templates for Word. Knowing Joel puts a lot of effort and thought into everything he does, I signed up for the e-mail newsletter for this new division of his business. 

When I got the official notice of its launch, as soon as I had time, I read everything on the entire site. Wow! This new service has the potential to save me hundreds of dollars in interior design fees. The prices for these templates are introductory I believe but well worth the cost at twice the price (have you checked what it costs to have interiors done professionally?).

Why haven't I purchased on yet? Because at the moment the largest trim size available is 6 x 9 and the next three book projects I have coming up will all be in the 8.5 x 11 trim size.

A quick e-mail produced a quick response and I was happy to learn in the next series of templates to be released the 8.5 x 11 trim size for non-fiction books will be included! Exactly what I need!

You may purchase a single book license or a multibook license.

It gets better still.

While I was interested in these templates for my POD paperback editions, I was equally happy to learn Joel will be offering Ebook and Kindle templates! 

Take the time to read the FAQ page and you will have your questions answered. If not, use the Contact Us feature and e-mail a question. The response will be prompt.

Once again, the name of the new company is Book Design Templates by Joel Friedlander.