The appearance of your book is crucial for its success. Only a clear and uniform typographical design looks professional and ensures that it is readable enough. Therefore you should take your time dealing with all layout issues.

 

Your basic decision: the trim size

We recommend that you wait with the layout until you have completed the text corrections and have already decided on a trim size.

 

Set the width and height of the page according to your preferences. Whether you decide in favour of a hardcover, paperback, or booklet has no impact on the layout of the book block, since the page format is identical for them.

 

If you no longer wish or are able to adjust an already existing layout after the fact – for instance, when reprinting an old book – size reductions or enlargements can lead to a satisfying result. BoD is equipped to adjust paper as well as digital templates to one of the BoD trim sizes by way of enlargement or shrinking.

Important instructions for the book layout

Setting up the pages:

Set your word processing or layout program so that the gutter margin and the fore-edge margin alternate on even and odd pages. In Microsoft Word, for instance, you must select “Opposite Pages”. Please be sure, however, to avoid any setting which places two pages on one sheet. Whether you submit a printout or a file as camera-ready copy, each page of your book must remain available individually.

 

Blank pages:

If you are preparing camera-ready copy in digital form, please select “print with blank pages” when writing the PostScript files. If you are submitting hard copy (a printout), add blank pages at the pertinent places. This ensures that the book will contain blank pages in the places where you had planned.

 

Page numbers:

When inserting the page numbers, make sure that verso (left-hand) pages have even numbers and recto (right-hand) pages have odd numbers. If you want all page numbers to appear outside of the pages, they have to be at the left on the verso pages (those with even numbers). In Microsoft Word this is achieved by choosing “Outside” for the position of the page number.

 

Graphics material:

In digital book printing, graphics material presents no problem if it has been set up so that its quality in the camera-ready copy is good enough. Colour pictures must have a resolution of at least 200 dpi, and greyscale images at least 400 dpi. Line art without greyscales and gradations require a minimum resolution of 600 dpi. In hard camera-ready copy (printouts or old books) which is scanned in, line art, such as copperplate engravings, lead to excellent results. For photos and old pictures with greyscales, on the other hand, the quality is likely to be impaired since these illustrations were already screened for the first printing. The quality of these illustrations can be improved by touching them up manually; this is charged based on the labour involved. As a general rule, digital camera-ready copy means better quality of graphics materials.

 

Grey surfaces:

If you want a grey background for some areas, please choose a grey screen with at least 20% black (not lighter). When submitting printouts as camera-ready copy we recommend that you avoid grey areas as much as possible: grey has already been screened in the printout; therefore its quality deteriorates when it is scanned in. For pie charts and comparable graphics material we recommend greyscales of at least 20%.

 

The copyright page

The copyright page must contain the following information:

The copyright notice, which must include the copyright owner – e.g., © 2006 by Adam Author (the wording must be changed accordingly for other copyright owners).

 

The names of the manufacturer and the publisher, which must read as follows for BoD titles whose ISBN was obtained via BoD: “Manufactured and published by Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt, Germany”. In titles where the author has obtained the ISBN, the wording “published by” is omitted. This standard notice generally appears in a separate area near the top of the copyright page, often inside a box.