For my day job, I've been doing a lot of what's called content design. Content is everywhere, and that includes in software products, as technical documentation, in emails, on marketing websites, and more. For authors, it can be useful to think about content design, since it also involves SEO and search, measuring the effectiveness of content you put out there, and creating … [Read more...] about Designing Effective Content
design
Guest Post: What Color Can Do for Your Website as an Indie Author
By Josh Wardini Color is an important but often underrated facet of web design and marketing. Be it a massive international corporation, or a small independent venture, businesses can profit from using color choices in strategic ways. What’s more, the wrong color choice can damage your chance at success, affecting anything from brand image to CTA button efficiency, they can … [Read more...] about Guest Post: What Color Can Do for Your Website as an Indie Author
Guest Post: How to Make Professional Looking Covers for Your Ebooks with DesignCap
By Rita Fong Self publishing is now getting easier than ever. Here the question arises: how do you make your ebook stand out from massive others? As an old Chinese saying goes, Clothes make the man. An eye-catching ebook cover will help you to hook people to read. But here is another question you need to consider: How do you make your ebook covers? Hire a designer, do it … [Read more...] about Guest Post: How to Make Professional Looking Covers for Your Ebooks with DesignCap
Design Tips and Tricks
Design is an important of any aspect. For indie authors, this could mean books or websites, or any other digital or physical products they sell. With that in mind, here are some design tips and tricks, in case you feel like learning a new skill! Read about the latest features in Adobe InDesign, which can help with book design Learn about design systems with Atomic … [Read more...] about Design Tips and Tricks
Thinking About Design
Good design can mean the difference between someone purchasing your product/book and passing on it. There's a lot of emphasis on UX/UI design now, and the concepts can be applied to anything you sell. Design and Words "9 simple but powerful UX writing tips for designers" on Medium: Make clear lists, scannable content, and links "Design words with data" on Medium: Use … [Read more...] about Thinking About Design
Guest Post: 5 Money-Saving DIY Design Tricks for Self-Publishers
You decided to put your thoughts to paper and have a manuscript that you deem worthy of publication. However, you do not want to pay a company to use expensive and proprietary software to make your book stand out among the rest of the books on a book store shelf or on Amazon. Here are 5 do-it-yourself design tricks that will save you money. Templates Use existing layouts and … [Read more...] about Guest Post: 5 Money-Saving DIY Design Tricks for Self-Publishers
Guest Post: Unleash the Power of Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a powerful, flexible tool that allows you to create great art and graphics. Read on for how to learn more about taking advantage of all of Adobe Photoshop's features. By Brenda Barron Photoshop gives you the tools to accomplish some amazing image editing techniques without having specialist knowledge, so think what you could achieve with a few handy … [Read more...] about Guest Post: Unleash the Power of Adobe Photoshop
FotoJet, an Online Collage Maker, Graphic Designer, and Photo Editor
Visuals are an important aspect of building platforms. Think about it. What is more likely to catch your eye on Twitter or Facebook? A few words and maybe a link, or a strong image that conveys a message? There's a reason for the idiom, "a picture is worth a thousand words." With that in mind, I recently had the chance to try out a new graphics platform, called FotoJet. … [Read more...] about FotoJet, an Online Collage Maker, Graphic Designer, and Photo Editor
Taking Stock of Industries Related to Book Publishing and How That Relates to the Future
Book publishers can learn a lot from their media counterparts. As the world becomes more connected, the lines between these industries is getting blurred. Keeping on top of trends then can be really helpful, in terms of getting ideas of what can be done and what to expect in the future. Here are a few headlines from other forms of media that can help inform people in book … [Read more...] about Taking Stock of Industries Related to Book Publishing and How That Relates to the Future
Indie Authors: Designing Books and Choosing Fonts
Indie authors are sometimes called authorpreneurs, because they have to act like entrepreneurs and make all the decisions about their books. This includes how to design books. And one of the most important design elements is typography. Butterick's Practical Typography has a great overview of what constitutes typography and why it matters. Keep in mind that spacing, indents, … [Read more...] about Indie Authors: Designing Books and Choosing Fonts
EBook Design
Just like regular books, the design, both interior and exterior, of an ebook is important. To see an example of what I mean, see Carolyn Jewel's post, Why eBook Formatting Matters – A Case Study. She includes examples of how her ebook looks on different devices, as well as what a well-formatted ebook looks like compared to some that was converted automatically. Auto-generated … [Read more...] about EBook Design