We here at Book Templates by Looseleaf love a unique, pitch-perfect design. So why do we did we make readymade book templates? Because as more authors turn to self-publishing to find their audience, more of them stumble into newbie formatting mistakes in their efforts to create really readable books. Many indie and hybrid authors are publishing quick-to-market books with streamlined budgets, and custom book design doesn’t always fit that modus operandi.
So we developed industry-standard, elegant book design templates to make reliable, reader-ready book design more affordable, accessible, and adaptable.
Templates Are Affordable
Custom design is a labor-intensive process. The designer asks a lot of questions about the book, reads excerpts and promotional material, researches comp titles, and brings up-to-date industry savvy to develop one or more unique concepts for the book in front of them. Then they take feedback from the author or publisher and revise those concepts one or more times, then go over every page of the book to ensure the typesetting creates as smooth a reading experience as possible. After that, they turn the results of that work over to the author or publisher for exclusive use on that one book.
That takes a lot of time, training, and expertise—all of which add to the price. All the costs remain solely in one book’s budget because of the exclusivity.
A template lets an independent author or micropublisher share the cost of a book’s design with other publishers. Think of it as crowdsourcing the costs of a designer’s expertise and time. You get the expertise and industry savvy on your side at a fraction of the cost.
Templates Are Accessible
Custom design can support a lot of innovative elements—for example, illustrated chapter and scene breaks, variable tables and charts, and more. But many of these elements require special skills to translate to ebook formats and to tweak and adjust after the initial typesetting.
Well-designed templates can make print book production smooth even for novice software users, and tailored ebook kits can ensure all a book’s elements translate across multiple reading platforms without requiring you to tinker around under the hood. That means you can make minor adjustments for typos, rewrites, and other elements quickly, without involving another publishing team member. For a self-publishing author who makes nimble adjustments to a shifting market, this accessibility can be priceless.
Templates Are Adaptable
Custom design is exactly that: custom. It’s specific to one particular book or series and accounts for all that project’s needs while keeping a tight, cohesive look and feel. But it’s going to be difficult to use that same design for a different series or stand-alone book and keep a similar feel without doing some redesign work.
For self-publishers who want to keep a consistent look and feel across their work but have several series or stand-alones, our adaptable templates offer a solution. Each template has multiple options for chapter starts and a variety of specialty text types, so each one can adapt to multiple books in the same genre, even when those books have different specific requirements. We even have discounts available for multibook licenses.
Does a template sound like a good fit for you? Check out our current stable of options. We’re adding new templates every few months or so.
Templates Aren’t Always the Answer
Although well-designed templates have a lot of benefits, they aren’t always the best option. If you want a look that is uniquely yours and perfectly tailored to your book, you’ll want to look into template customization or fully custom design. These options help if you have specific page requirements you want to meet, if you’re using a binding method other than print-on-demand paperbacks, if you have a number of illustrations or tables, or if you want unique decorative elements.
Our trained designers are happy to help with customization or custom design concepts. If you think that’s a better fit for your work than a template, reach out and let us help you get your book reader ready.