Your Comprehensive Guide to Designing Your First eBook

Writing and designing an eBook can be an excellent way to reach a much wider audience and build a loyal base of readers. Today, there is a range of excellent tools available in the market to help you create an aesthetically pleasing and well-designed eBook.

If you are also an author looking to design your first eBook, this guide is for you. 

1. Write Your eBook Content

When it comes to creating content for your eBook, you either write something completely new or you repurpose published content. Irrespective of the route you decide to go, the most important part is to make sure that it resonates with your potential readers. 

Below are some tips you can use to manage the content of your eBook –

• Conduct thorough research to give your readers accurate and relevant information
• Make sure to fact check every piece of information you offer and cite sources wherever needed
• Keep the language simple so that readers can grasp quickly
• Be on point, avoid unnecessary details, fluff and jargon
• Choose a title that is catchy, attention-grabbing and informative at the same time
• Avoid contrived phrases to make sure that your readers know what they are getting even before they download the eBook

Related Read: How to Create an Interactive eBook in 10 Steps

2. Organize Your eBook Content

Before you start working on the design of your eBook, make sure to organize the content into different sections. A great eBook always has a well-organized table of contents with proper titles for each section. 

Here’s how you can organize the content of your eBook –

• Identify the parts that can be made into bullet points or charts for ease of reading
• Try to break up long blocks of text in a visually appealing way to help the readers skim through the content
• Properly edit and proofread the entire text and check for grammatical or spelling mistakes

3. Choose the Right eBook Format

Until recently, PDF was the preferred format for delivering eBooks simply because it’s easy to create. But PDF lacks the option of resizing or reflowing the content.

ePUB is a widely used format that is compatible with most e-reading devices. It offers a fixed and reflowable layout option, allowing you to present your content the way you want. Making your eBook available in the ePUB format will help you increase your reach and users can have a seamless reading experience.

Also Read: 8 eBook Conversion Tools Compatible with Multiple Formats

4. Style Your eBook

The first step in designing an eBook is to take your manuscript and format it. There are several free tools to do it for you.

For instance, if you’re designing an eBook that is not very image-heavy, you can look at the Reedsy book formatter. It is an excellent tool where you have to simply copy and paste your text into the book formatter, insert your chapter breaks, and pick your trim size to get started with your eBook design.

For image-heavy eBooks, the best tool is Canva’s eBook Maker that is specifically designed for laying out images in books. Also, to be able to give a different look and feel to your eBook, make sure to do the following:

• Create a cover for your eBook

Designing the cover is one of the most overwhelming experiences for most authors. Taking a blank canvas and starting to design a book cover requires a lot of hard work and a structured process.

For first time authors, the best thing to do is to start with a template instead. There are several tools and book cover templates that you can use for this. These tools allow for easy point-and-click customization, a very useful and handy feature for cover design.

Once the template selection is done, you need to replace the default images in the template with images that fit your book. At this stage, you can either find free images using stock photo sites such as Pixabay and Unsplash or you can edit those images using a free online tool such as Pixlr.

• Incorporate a lot of visuals

A lot of first time authors struggle in getting images and graphics in their eBooks right. The first thing they need to remember here is that the images shouldn’t just be there for aesthetic reasons, but to enhance the reader’s understanding of the content you’re covering.

The best way to navigate your way through this is by treating images and visuals as complementary to your writing. Irrespective of when you add them – during or after the eBook writing – visuals should fulfill the larger purpose of highlighting a key concept or an important point you’re making in a visually appealing way.

• Highlight all the stats or quotes

One of the other important aspects of designing an eBook is to enhance it by highlighting all the statistics and quotes within your design. However, you need to be careful whether the numbers and figures you’re using genuinely add value to the content.

In addition to this, it is also important to keep all your content within the same margins whether you’re adding a visual or emphasizing a quote.

Here are some quick tips for achieving balance in your eBook design –

• Choose the fonts and colors carefully
• Make sure to use the same size, font and color for all the body text
• Keep the style similar for all the paragraphs
• Never place images just behind the main text body. Also, make use of white or light background for easy reading
• Don’t forget to add your contact details and an author bio at the end of the eBook
• Proofread the entire eBook again as a lot of copying and pasting can lead to common mistakes such as double words or missing letters

5. Publish & Share Your eBook

Once everything is done, and your eBook is ready, it’s time to publish and share your eBook. There are several publishing platforms available for independent authors that allow you to download your eBook in PDF or any other format that you can easily share online. These platforms also allow you to create interactive eBooks and embed them on a webpage.

Also Read: 10 Best ebook creation software

Similar to a physical book buying experience, online buyers also browse through multiple eBooks and consider several factors to make their pick including title, covers, formatting and more. This makes the design aspect one of the most important elements while creating your eBook.

The above tips can help you design an attractive and eye-catching eBook from scratch so that you have the best chance of standing out among the competitors.