If you want to learn how to design books, don’t read The Design of Books by veteran book designer Debbie Berne. This is not a how-to book.
If instead you want to learn more about book design, this is the book for you. As the subtitle declares, it’s “an explainer for authors, editors, agents, and other curious readers.” Perhaps unique in its topic, it’s a gem of a book for those of us who work adjacent to book designers.
When I worked with the University of Chicago Press on my book, it was assumed that as an editor I knew all about book publishing. Although Right Touch Editing has been around for nearly 20 years, we’ve worked on about a couple dozen books, and most of those books have been self-published, with the author creating their own publishing process. We didn’t have contact with the designer, and I only knew about our limited role in the books we worked on.
This book fills a gap in my knowledge.
Demystifying Book Cover Design
When deciding on a cover, it’s helpful to know what works for your kind of book. All book covers will have the title, subtitle (if there is one), and author on the front, but there are choices even with these basics. For example, which should be more prominent: the title or the author’s name? With long subtitles, where should you break the line? With all of that text, should more be included, like the author of the foreword or a series line or tagline?
And then there’s the imagery. The right cover image will encourage readers to pick up your book. Your book should look good on both physical and electronic bookshelves. The type of book it is will also influence the type of imagery. Different types of fiction will suggest different types of images. The subjects of nonfiction books will also suggest certain types of images.
Nonfiction books about abstract topics, what Bernes describes as “concepts, systems, dynamics, or states of being,” are the most difficult to design a cover for.
“Concept-driven covers are deceptively hard to pull off,” writes Bernes. “Because they have a clean aesthetic and are mostly type, people may assume they’re easy to design—there’s barely anything there! In reality, translating big ideas into elegant visual metaphors is quite a task.”
When reviewing a cover, it’s helpful to know what works for your kind of book. My book falls under that abstraction category. Understanding a bit more about how a designer approaches the task would have helped me better assess the cover ideas I received and give more specific feedback. (We got there in the end, though.)
A Practical Guide for Authors and Self-Publishers
This points to perhaps the most important use of The Design of Books: helping authors understand what to expect from their designers, how to direct them, and how to review their work.
It’s particularly useful for self-publishing authors, who have to create their own publishing process. You’ll learn about the kind of decisions you need to make to help you produce a professional-looking book, and you will understand what a typical design process is and what your designer should be doing to help you hire the best designer for your project. The book even includes a sample contract and elements to include in a contract with your designer.
Valuable Insights for Editors and Publishing Professionals
Editors will get a lot out of this book as well. It’s always best to understand the processes before and after yours. Copyeditors can gain insight into how to prepare the manuscript for the designer, while proofreaders can better identify changes that would derail the publishing process. All freelance editors can learn more about how to guide their indie authors in the publishing process.
And if you’re looking to expand your editing business to include book design and publishing, you’ll gain a general understanding of the process you’ll need to manage and skills you should look for in a designer.
A Comprehensive and Engaging Overview of Book Design
I enjoyed reading Berne’s book. It starts with an overview of physical books and then explores the different parts of a book, including type, covers, and book interiors, all of which were interesting. I particularly liked the brief history of ebooks, as it brought back the excitement and hope of a new format. There are also plenty of graphics providing examples, and the appendix is full of resources for later.
It’s easy to pop in and out of topics you want to know more about, but her storytelling makes it enjoyable and interesting to read cover to cover. Her writing style is clear and easy to follow, and she talks directly to you, avoiding both talking down and overwhelming you with jargon.
The Design of Books won’t make you a book designer, but it will make you a better partner with designers, resulting in the best book you can create as a team.
