iUniverse presents 5 self-publishing Do’s and Don’ts

iUniverse wants to give you every advantage as a writer. With this in mind, we’ve put together the following easy-to-remember suggestions:

Front covers:

DON’T design the cover yourself. Unless you are an accomplished graphic designer, please don’t ruin your future book sales with an unattractive cover.

DO use a professional. If it’s one thing you want to spend your money on, it’s a good front cover. We strongly encourage this.

All three of these fonts would be considered to complex for a normal book.

Fonts:

DON’T use unusual or eccentric fonts for your book. Let your story be creative, but make your fonts relatively normal. An usual font will be viewed as hard to read.

DO use fonts that are common. Examples of these are Bembo, Garamond, Caslon, Electra, and Janson.

ISBN numbers:

DON’T decide to use an ISBN you’ve used before. Simply put, this will cause confusion.

DO decide to use a different ISBN for each book. An ISBN serves to identify a unique book, and also identifies the book’s edition and format. For example, your book’s hardcover, paperback, and (for now) e-book versions each require their own ISBN, as do their different editions.

Image resolution:

DON’T make the assumption that an image on your PC will also look good on a paper page. On your computer screen, images are displayed at 72 dots per inch (dpi) in what’s called the Red-Green-Blue (RGB) color space.

DO make sure your image is prepared with the proper resolution and color space. Pictures in printed books are usually 300 dpi and use the Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black (CMYK) color space. Make sure your graphics are prepared for the format in which they’ll be displayed.

Editing:

DON’T do the editing yourself. Naturally, you should re-read and proofread your own work. However, your relationship with the text is intimate and your eyes will see what they want to see.

DO have the book edited by a professional or at least experienced editor. While iUniverse suggests hiring a professional editor, you can also find part-time copy-editors online. Their most important function is to ensure the consistency and readability of the text.

iUniverse enjoys the opportunity to give you tried-and-true tips on what will help you present your best work. Make sure to check out the iUniverse site for more advice and blogs, as well as iUniverse Facebook and iUniverse Twitter.