Consider Developing These Skills as an Indie Author - Part I: Simple Interior Design

Being an indie, or self-published, author has meant learning skills I never thought were a necessary component of an author's skill set. Like the vast majority of self-publishing authors, my budget to produce my books is very limited. In fact, once my books began to gain traction on Amazon and sell, I needed the money to pay bills for the family. 

Lesson learned. This is not a hobby, at least for me. There are skills authors today need that extend beyond craft. Without a doubt, the most important element of any book's success is a well written manuscript. Without a topnotch manuscript, no book will succeed despite all the other bells and whistles being topnotch.

Traditional publishing provides skills most authors don't have. Skills such as editing, interior design, cover design and for some lucky authors, marketing. Editing your manuscript yourself is not wise, thought it can be done.

Designing your interior is another skill that is best left to creative professionals. Having said that, there is an easy way to go about producing the files necessary to have your finished manuscript published in paperback and ebook formats. You don't have to learn the first thing about coding for ebooks or actual design elements for paper and ebook interiors.

Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer, and his partners at Book Design Templates have done the hard work for you. You simply have to select, and yes, pay for the template that features the interior design you believe best fits your manuscript. 

I have used these for multiple editions of my non-fiction books and successfully saved hundreds of dollars while producing quality book interiors! Yes, there is a learning curve. But, the good folks at Book Design Templates have provided the means to teach yourself how to use these Microsoft Word based templates.

You select the type of license you want to purchase, single or multi-edition. A commercial option is available as well. When finished, hit save and make a duplicate copy. I have found there are a few things I want to change for the two versions, one for paper and one for ebook. When finished, you are ready to upload your interiors for publication.

Once you master the process, you can format a 60,000 word book in a couple of hours. Books with images, graphs, etc, take longer.

If you hit a snag, for a reasonable fee, you can pay for help to either tutor you in the process or actually fix the problem for you. In one of my first efforts, I managed to mess things up so badly it took them awhile to repair the damage I had done. They did it with a smile and sent me my finished file ready to upload.

Please note! If you use these templates correctly, there is NO NEED to have your interior file converted to upload to Amazon's KDP or Nook's ePub. Your book, minus the cover, is ready to go! I have successfully used my files for Kindle, Nook and Draft2Digital who distributed my ebooks to iBook, Kobo and other ebook retailers.

Yes, this approach does cost some money and you have to invest the time to learn to use the templates. The positive is your book file is ready much quicker than if you paid someone else to do the work. Purchasing a multi-use license is still cheaper than paying to have a professional to design and produce your interior file and it is a one time fixed cost. You also do not have to pay for having the files converted for either POD or ebook editions.

I'm sold on this product/service produced and sold by Joel Friedlander and his partners. It is a skill indie/self-publishing authors should consider mastering.

For More Information

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 Design Templates for Microsoft Word from the Book Designer - a Review

Joel Friedlander, the owner of The Book Designer, is the creator and driving force behind this new product, interior design templates based on Microsoft Word for self-publishing authors to design and complete their own book interiors.

I was not sure what to expect when I downloaded my template. It was easy to download and open, something I cannot say for many varieties of software. 

It just gets better from there. Joel offers a downloadable 55 page instruction manual with each template. In fact, you can obtain one for free prior to purchasing your template. I appreciate this feature a great deal as I still prefer a paper manual when I am trying to learn how to master a new skill, or in this case, software. I like to be able to write notes in the margin or highlight information I will need to refer to on a regular basis. Make this another big plus for this product.

If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use this product. It is that simple. Should you run across something you don't know how to do to create the look you want in your book, you will be able to find the information you need in the downloadable PDF manual.

Why invest in one of these templates? The entire book is already laid out for you! This starts with the front matter and includes the author page at the back of the book! Everything that goes in between these two items in a book is included. 

All I will have to do is cut and paste in my manuscript, enter my own headers and footers, table of contents, etc, and my book interior will be done. 

The sample I am experimenting with is for a 6x9 interior but 8.5x11 interior templates will be available. eBook templates are also available and I am excited about learning to use one of these in the future.

Joel offers a wide range of design options for book interiors. Samples of each template are available for view at The Book Designer.

It gets better still. Full support for the templates is offered by The Book Designer. My experience with Joel has been he and his support staff are very easy to communicate with and always want to answer your question and make sure you are able to use the product or service you paid for. In this day and age, customer service can be iffy at best so this type of product support goes a long way with me.

Will this template produce a book interior exactly like one produced by a professional book designer using software designed specifically for creating book interiors? No. It can't because Microsoft Word was not designed for that purpose. 

What these templates can do is create an interior file that has all of the needed information for a print book, interior designs that every bit as professional in appearance as designs crafted by "pros" (by the way, Joel is one of those pros who does interior book design), and is easy to use. The cost and steep learning curve of the professional software is removed for an author who plans to self-publish.

Will an interior produces by one of these templates match up well against a traditionally designed interior design? Yes. It just won't be as "perfect" as one done using the pro software.

I can live with these differences, mainly because I cannot find them, and I believe most readers won't notice the differences either. I say most because a reader like my grandfather, who was a professor of journalism, a newspaper editor, typesetter and author of historical biographies, would. Gramps was one of those individuals who would be defined as a "pro" who would be able to pick up on the minor details. Collectors of books and aficionados of fine editions would be able to discern the differences as well.

So long as your audience is not geared for this small group of readers, I doubt any of your readers will be able to discern the interior of the book was created by the author. These templates are that good!

Finally, I can create a series of books that have matching interiors. Since I write non-fiction and my books are often in a series, this is a great feature for me. I am sure this holds true for fiction authors who have recurring characters in a series. Having identical interior designs is a great touch.

I have spent a lot of money on a wide range of products in my quest to learn about self-publishing and to build my tiny publishing empire. A considerable portion of that money was wasted. 

Authors who self-publish must always consider cost. Covers and editing are two areas where money needs to be invested. While you have to purchase the template, the cost is very reasonable for the product and you, the author, do the work of creating the interior. 

The design work has been done. If you can use Word, you can use this product. There is almost no learning curve and we all know time is money. Here is a great way to save money by doing it yourself and having the finished product look professionally done!

Money spent on these templates won't be. I strongly recommend you visit the site and investigate these wonderful templates. Here is a quick summary of why you should take a look:

• low cost of each template
• wide variety of design templates in a variety of sizes 
• more designs and size are in the design and production process for future release
• everything that needs to be included in a book interior is included
• free manual describing in detail how to use the software/template
• great customer support
• based on Word, a software nearly every author already knows how to use

My next experiment will be to write one of my next non-fiction books directly in the template as I go! Imagine, you save time and get to see what your finished book will look like as you write it!

Click here to learn more!

CreateSpace Continues To Add New Services - Interior Design Templates Now Available - More Competition For Author Services Companies!

Amazon and CreateSpace appear to be serious about making inroads in the self-publishing industry as CreateSpace continues to offer an ever expanding array of new services for authors who desire to self-publish.  The latest addition to the services offered by CreateSpace are interior design templates.

For authors who are just entering the field of self-publishing, funds are often limited, making it difficult for an author to afford professional interior design and layout for their book. CreateSpace templates make it possible for self-publishing authors to improve their interior design, creating a more professional appearing book.

This new feature could be a major boon to the industry as one of the complaints often voiced about self-published books is the poor design of the cover and interior. The greater the number of self-published books that have quality design, the better for all self-publishing authors.

The new feature will introduce competition in the market for other author services companies who often charge significant sums of money to layout the interior of a book. This move would seem to indicate CreateSpace wants to challenge the competition in the author services industry.

Below is the information from CreateSpace announcing the new service.

Creating Content

New Interior Book Templates

Need some help preparing your book's interior as a PDF to meet our submission guidelines? We recently introduced new interior book templates in Microsoft Word to help make the interior file creation process easier for you. Templates are available in a variety of standard trim sizes. Here's a quick overview of how you can use these templates to create your book's interior: 1.     Select the template that fits your manuscript's needs and trim size 2.     Copy and paste your content into the template 3.     Proof each page 4.     Convert your document into PDF format - get specific instructions here