As we’re building an ebook together, we’ve reached the point where we both need to start deciding what your ebook will look like. Step 5 in the Build An Ebook process is focused on Layout and Design.
LAYOUT & DESIGN
Simply said, layout and design determines how your ebook looks.
- Clean and simple.
- Mostly simple but with some visually rich pages of photos and text.
- Some pages with all photos.
These all describe what you might find in your ebook. As you have been writing the content, I’m sure you have been imagining how it will look on the page. You’ve also probably been thinking about what graphics and photos you could add to enhance your writing and tell the stories inside your ebook more fully.
Layout and design refer to both how you will be ordering your pages as well as how you will place your written and graphic content on the pages. Many of your pages could be only text, but you may also be including photos and/or graphics on some pages.
Here’s an easy process for deciding on layout and design.
Consider Your Audience First – Before you even start deciding on layout and design, you need to consider what appeals to your intended audience. Are your pages easy to read and can they stay focused as they are reading? Will your content be broken down into easy to comprehend sections? Would your audience like a lot of visual content (hint: younger readers do).
Look for Inspiration – Check out books and magazines around your home and office to see if there are any page layouts to inspire you. If this is a book of family stories, choose something simple so that it will be easily read by future generations.
Review Your Outline Again – Look back through your outline from Step 2 and get an idea of which pages will be including visual content. For the ones that are just text, you’ll need a standard heading.
Sketch Out a Page Layout Style Board – This is where it gets fun! Grab a notebook or some loose paper. Roughly draw your ideas for text pages and pages with images. I’ve included my early ideas for the first pages in a chapter plus the text-only pages. I’ve also sketched out how I plan to layout a page with just one image or illustration and the text wrap or space I want to include around that content. Keep going until you have drawn out your ideas for the layouts for pages you think you’ll need.
Test Out Some Templates – Find templates for the publishing software that you have chosen and work up some sample pages first. Placing images in text can sometimes be exasperating! What you think the software will do with your content sometimes doesn’t work out the way you hope it will. So before you start building out your ebook, do some experimenting and eliminate some challenges early on.
Decide On a Color Scheme: As you’re working through some templates, also see if you can decide on a main color and two complimentary colors that will make up your color scheme. Brands will already have a brand palette to choose from, but non-brand ebook creators can find colors that will tie all of the parts of the ebook together in a nice way.
Step 6 is going to be fun because you’re going to decide how to “illustrate” your stories. Don’t worry – you don’t have to draw and create art. I’m referring to adding graphics and/or photos that will add to the “telling” of your stories.
Until next time,
You can follow this process right here on my site or in my social feeds:
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