HOW TO - Determine the correct number of pages and binding format for your book

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A book can be any number of pages however it needs to be divisible by 4 in order to be printed offset (ie. more than 500 copies) and divisible by 2 in order to be printed digitally (ie. less than 500 copies). I advise always having your book divisible by 4 that way you can print with either print method at any time, for any reason without needing to do any more work on your book or pay anyone else to do this for you.

For binding in order to be perfect bound (ie. with a spine at the side instead of 2 stables in the side) the minimum page count is approximately 40 pages (depending on the stock) but a colour book with thicker pages can generally get away with less than this. On the flip side once you reach a certain number of pages the maximum page count is approximately 300 pages (once again depending on the stock) before you are no longer able to perfect bind and you need to move to stitch binding (ie. sewing sections of the book together and gluing those sections into the spine instead of gluing the individual pages in). This is done in order to ensure books with a larger number of pages remain bound and that individual pages don’t fall out due to the large nature of the book just as saddle stitching ensures individual pages don’t fall out due to the small size of the book.

HOW TO - Collect Killer Testimonials

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When collecting testimonies for the back of your book I recommend sourcing them in the following order:

1. A raving fan
2. Someone related to the subject of your book
3. Someone with celebrity status

There is no quick or easy way to get a celebrity on board as it is always who you know and not how well known you are. Saying this however if a celebrity is not the above 2 things first I would actually not recommend using them at all as a raving testimony from someone unknown will be more powerful than an ordinary testimony from a celebrity.

As far as how to reach the people you want testimonials form, think of who you want and put it out there to your network eg. ask all your friends, family, business/social contacts and networks you are connected to (online & off eg. social media is as good a source as asking people in person) for an introduction to who you want to speak to (and of course give them a good reason why – eg. tell them about your book as this will not only give credibility to your request, but it will be more likely to be accepted when someone find the connection for you). This can also help pre-sell your book by getting people talking about it before it exists. You never know who your dentist’s, best friend’s, cousin’s boss is?

For more tips on what is required to go on your cover and/or contents design for a saleable book check out my 5th book – ‘How to Design your Book to Stand out from the Crowd’.

Adobe InDesign - Find out why InDesign is the publishing industry standard design software

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So you want to design your book yourself? Well I say good on you. But what happens when you go to send your book to print and find out your printer won't accept what you have done or wants to charge you in order to fix it. How were you to know you designed the book in the wrong software?

We'll simply put you weren't but what if you knew more about the right software so you didn't need the stress of having to repair damage you accidently caused as you didn't know what you didn't know or the additional financial burden or paying someone else to do it. Imagine if you could get your own book ready for print at the click of a button.

Well that is why I recommend Adobe Indesign. Apart from being the industry standard you can simply and easily get a book print ready in a click of a button. Better yet if you click that button and discover something isn't print ready (eg. your images are in the wrong colour mode or aren't high enough quality) you are notified immediatly and can make the necesarry adjusments yourself instead of waiting for your printer to tell you (or worse not tell you and your books arrive back from print with pixelated images.

The problem with using home based software like Microsoft Word or Publisher is they are designed for home or small business use and as such are not designed to print on professional machines. Your image quality is destroyed the moment you place an image into either of these pieces of software which is almost guarenteeing you are going to have print issues from using word. Once again Indesign comes to the rescue with all images stored external to your document as links allowing you to quickly and easily change your image mode, save and relink you image without making any changes at all to your main document.

Better yet when it comes to designing your books contents you can once again change the order of your chapters or which side of the page a chapter starts on at the click of a button. And if you want your book in an animated ebook format once again it is a click of a button to get those animated pages.

I swear by them but don't take my word for it, try them out for yourself - publishing a book has never been so easy!

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=indesign

I would like to produce 4 different books as gifts for Christmas. Is there a minimum number of pages required to publish a hard back children's book?

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There is no minimum quantity when doing a digital run of books but you need to bear in mind that the set up costs of a single book will not necessarily be cheap. It depends what your budget is for a Christmas present. I always recommend a good price per book is around the $5 mark but obviously this is going to be impossible if you are only ordering one book. A good price for 1 softcover book is around the $50 mark and for a hardcover book around the $100 mark. Saying that 20 copies may only be $500-$1000 so the price comes down quite quickly. It depends what you are looking for.

As for how many pages for a hardcover book... you need at least 40 pages to make a perfect bound book (softcover book with spine on side no staples) and double that quantity is recommended for perfect binding in a hardcover as otherwise the pages won’t stay in the case. Saying this however there are always ways round this like making the pages twice as thick to allow you to have half the number of pages etc. Let me know how many pages you are looking at and I will make the best recommendations from there.

For more information on the dream book, check out 'How to Publish a Book for Pleasure, Profit or Publicity' THE SEMINAR or 'How to Publish a Book for Pleasure, Profit or Publicity' THE BOOK.

Designing your Book!

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It is very important to make a clear distinction between writing, editing, illustrating and designing your book. There is always a danger of getting caught up in any of the pre-publishing stages while designing your book.

Important things to think about at the Design Stage:

1. What font do I want for my headings?
2. What font do I want for my body text?
3. How do I want my page numbers to look?
4. What do I want to make stand out as bold or italic?
5. What design elements do I want to use to break my text up?
6. How do I want my text positioned in relation to illustrations?
amongst many other questions.

The design stage is when your book begins to be formed. All 3 elements of the pre-publishing stage (writing, editing and illustration) come together to form one product and as such all must be completed before this stage begins.

For more information on crash courses we run on how to do this, check out 'How to Design your Book to Stand out from the Crowd' THE BOOTCAMP or 'How to Design your Book to Stand out from the Crowd' THE BOOK.

To receive a customised step by step book publishing plan to get you from written, edited and illustrated your book to the completed book in your hands register to win a publishing plan in our just starting section.