Business Book Design

You may have gone through some challenging experiences in business, but have come through on the other side with a new perspective. You now have some valuable insight that would help others in similar situations. Not only would this knowledge benefit others, but the sharing of it with others would assist you in your specific niche. By writing a book and educating others on the topic, your brand is also being promoted. Your credibility is being built.

This was the case with Pauline Greenidge. During her 15 year HR career in the oil & gas sector, she went through the biggest energy merger in Canadian history. With the help of her business coach Jan Eden, she brilliantly tied the story together with the theme of an upscale dinner party. The result was her first book, A Grand Dinner Party: Setting the Table for Employee Engagement Through Mergers and Acquisitions.

I had the pleasure of working together with Pauline and Jan on this project. New Dimension Design took care of the cover design, interior layout, book launch invitations, and Kindle book, as well as the process of making the book available on Amazon. The amazing cover and interior illustrations were done by illustrator George Sellas.

This venture went smoothly overall and was a very positive experience. Here are some tips that I observed while working on this book that might help you as you start your self-published business book.

1. Hire a coach. Whether a writing coach, or a business coach that has experience with book production, it helps to have a mentor. Writing a book is a big, even a huge endeavour. Very few have the ability to work alone and stay on track with an undertaking of this size. A coach will be there to help piece the project into small sections, develop an attainable schedule, and be your accountability partner so you will progress at the speed you desire. This one step may be the difference between actually completing the project, or having it stay on your wish list forever.

2. Have your manuscript completely edited before sending it to your interior layout designer. Chances are you will find a few text edits after the book layout is complete, but it will save you extensive time and costs to do it in this order. It is so much more labour intensive to make changes after the layout is complete.

3. Have the Kindle and/or epub version of the book designed a the same time as the print book. Again, this will save considerable costs in the long run. If your designer has this task ahead of time, they will be able to proceed in a logical order so that they minimize production time.

4. Plan your audience and sales channels ahead of time. Are you creating the book as a free handout to prospective clients? Do you want it only available on Amazon as a Kindle book? Or do you want it to cover as many channels as possible including digital and brick & mortar book stores? This will dictate how decisions are made with ISBN numbers, cover design, interior graphics, pre-launch marketing, and post-launch marketing.

5. Plan on getting a professional cover design and interior layout. By hiring a graphic artist with book-design experience, your book will rise above the look & feel of many self-published books. Whether your objective is to hand it out for free or to sell it via Amazon and book stores, your brand and reputation will be enhanced with a well-designed end product.

May you embrace the entire process of writing your book, and achieve an amazing finished product!