Holding Your Book

Make your book user-friendly. There are many facets of book design, including how your book will be used. Take into consideration the anticipated usage of your book before designing it.

• If your book is a how-to, reference, or cookbook, you probably will want to design it to lay flat somehow (so the reader can use it conveniently when needed)
• If the book is designed to be read often, like a novel or book of poetry, you want to make sure the book is comfortable to hold—you wouldn't want to design a book in too large a format (like a coffee table book) because those are designed to be looked at while they are laying down, rather than being held and read for a long period