Beyond the covers of many cool looking books, there's more going on than beautifully typeset pages. At least this is true for that category of books that fit into what I think of as advanced book design.
To help explain what this concept really means, I have some diagrams. You may be thinking -- "Whoa!, I want to see some interesting book designs, not diagrams illustrating concepts." But hang on, these are pretty interesting concepts, especially if you are a small publisher or self-publishing author wondering how far you can take your book idea.
Advanced book design is achieved by bringing together two things --
(1) Your brand mission and vision (i.e., the mission and vision about yourself as a author or publisher that exists or you want to exist in the mind of consumers), especially it's visual identity, and
(2) Quality book design, meaning design that adds value that the book would not otherwise have -- such as design features that give the book increased functionality, specific benefits, and create a desireable user experience, and an overall image that increases user identification (so that, in effect, the consumer believes "this book is so me!). To better understand the idea of quality book design, see Figure 2.
Quality book design involves a wide range of things that can be done to make a book better and more appealing -- like clear navigation graphics, visual information categorization, a fashion that appeals to the target market, etc. -- but ultimately advanced book design goes further, but marrying these qualities with the author and/or publisher existing or planned brand identity. It can, in fact, be a tool for developing a publisher's brand identity and brand value. In time, such design can translate into well-known measurable benefits:
• Good design adds higher perceived value to brand identity.
• Stronger brand identity guides purchase decisions.
• Stronger brand identity commands a price-premium.
• A perception of quality is created by a price premium.
• Perceived quality increases customer usage.
• Strong brands give immediate credibility to new product introductions.
• Design quality can be a point of differentiation.
These brand objectives can inform the book project in the developmental planning stage, the formulation of design briefs, and aid evaluation of market testing. The designer engaged in advanced book design does more that simply make the author's stack of pages ready to look like a bound book. The bar is set much higher. Ultimately, advanced book design takes the end user of the book as close as possible to the station of complete identification. That, at least, is the holy grail of advanced book design. The final design communicates not merely what features the book has, what benefits it offers, or how you will feel, but who you are -- the central goal of brand identity itself.
If you have a book idea that is successful, you know that, as with all products, at some point this success will likely end. To prevent or delay this inevitability, you'll need an advanced book design strategy. Most every product has a product life cycle. First you plan and create the product, during which time you may also introduce it, Second, you'll take it into the growth stage, during which time competitors will emerge. The product then reaches maturity -- the stage when it faces competition, market saturation, commodization, and possibly begins to go out of fashion aswell. See Figure 3. To counter these trends, you can use design to
• Repackage the book's content to make it more visually appealing and up to date.
• Take the book's content into new forms (diversification)
• Reconfigure the product layers
• Re-brand it
• Design it for new markets
• Co-brand it with different products
Each of these tactics involves design that can be part of a long-term advanced design strategy.
Practical application
On a number of occasions self-publishing authors have come to me with large tomes and ask me about design ideas. Often very good material, but in a few cases, these huge books would make a better series than a single publication. This is something that needs to start with developmental editing. The author started out with the assumption that everything needed to be told in one book, and so, for perhaps one purchase fee, they would give a life's work away in a form too cumbersome to attract buyers or readers.
A more effective alternative may, in fact, be two, three, or more books generated from the same material. The more technical it is, the more it will need to be developed and shaped into a digestible presentation. It may, for example, require developmental editing to parse out the contents of each chapter into special design elements, such as chapter objections, case studying, key terms and definitions, summaries, etc.
Recent and forthcoming posts:
Ads that Pop
What is Advanced Book design?
Creating a Publisher's Style manual
Tips for a Better Book Design Brief
Developmental Editing and Book Design
Logo Tips for Small Publishers
Book reviews & recommendations (for self-publishing authors and small publishers)
The Fine Print by Mark Levine
The Brand Gap
Chicago Manual of Style
15th edition
Wilder Radio Interview
Catch me discussing art 1/18/2009 6:00 PM
on the Olivia Wilder show
The Fine Print of Self-Publishing, The Contracts & Services of 45 Major Self-Publishing Companies -- Analyzed, Ranked, & Exposed, by Mark Levine (3rd edition) Hillcrest Publishing Group, Inc., 2008
Anyone considering using one of the many online Print-on-Demand (POD) services available today would do well to read The Fine Print of Self-Publishing by self-publishing author and attorney Mark Levine (only an attorney could risk writing a book like this). This is a critical guide to the legal and economic pitfalls of POD with the names of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Actually, he ranks the services according to 4 basic categories --1) outstanding, 2) pretty good, 3) okay, and 4) publishers to avoid. He examines over 40 companies, including Booksurge, LuLu, CreateSpace, Arbor Books, iUniverse, etc. Unfortunately, he just doesn't compare them in a uniform way. That said, this is a useful book that can no doubt says authors from making some expensive blunders, including loosing control of their life's work.
On the down side, he doesn't discuss Lightning Source, a subsidiary of Ingram Industries Inc. a good guy in the world of POD and a company used by many of the companies he reviews. It is the sister company to the wholesaler Ingram Book Group. They are said to produce around 100,000 books a week. The reason for Levine's omission is, I assume, that Lightning Source only works with publishers. That said, most of my self-publishing clients use Lightning Source. Anyone who self-publishes, is in effect, a publisher, so why not act like one and go about business in a way that makes the most economic sense? The other services are really for people who can't or don't need to get published with a traditional publisher and who do not want to be bothered to do the work on their own -- i.e., the work of getting a designer, their own ISBN, etc. In a few cases, as Levine points out, you can still profitably use some of he companies Levine reviews for POD even if you have the book prepared through a different provider or series of providers -- which is really your best option with POD.
Because Levine is critiquing services that offer additional services like design and pre-press layout, as well as the printing, he doesn't really address true "self-publishing" in most instances. Most of these services are actually a POD version of what is better known as vanity presses.
