Every­thing you need to know about e-books – part 2: e-book templates

The design and structure of your pub­li­ca­tion is very important as these factors have an influence on how suc­cess­ful your product will be. It doesn’t make a dif­fer­ence whether you’re using classic print medium or creating an e-book - even though the re­quire­ments differ. While printed books and newspaper articles tend to have a defined format, the design of an e-book layout is a little bit more varied. Due to the various display sizes of different devices such as smart­phones, e-readers, tablets, or desktop PCs, the creator needs to provide flexible e-book templates that deliver appealing results on all devices. The second part of our e-book series provides more in-depth in­for­ma­tion on building layouts and examining the role of the e-book design.

Single column layout

One of the most important prin­ci­ples of e-book design is that a single column layout is prefer­able to a multi-column layout. If your pub­li­ca­tion was designed for multiple columns, you should try to arrange long sections of text in suc­ces­sion when con­vert­ing to e-book format. For example, unusual para­graphs formats (i.e. articles with ad­di­tion­al space for ex­plana­to­ry notes) can be marked with different back­ground colors. You should also put any necessary ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion at the end of each chapter. If the two column text blocks are made up of short para­graphs, you should be able to keep the format without any problems arising.

Page count and footnotes

With re­flow­able layouts, the page count differs from device to device depending on how many char­ac­ters can fit on the screen. This is es­pe­cial­ly worth keeping in mind when working with footnotes. Linking these notes to a certain page (like in a classic book) isn’t possible on e-books with re­flow­able layouts. Elec­tron­ic books do, however, allow links to be used instead: link the text passage so that the reader can easily switch between this and the ex­plana­to­ry footnote.

Table of contents and chapters

Even though the lack of page numbers doesn’t allow for a tra­di­tion­al table of contents, you can nev­er­the­less create one for your e-book. Unlike printed media, the table can‘t be at the beginning nor be directly in­te­grat­ed. Instead, it can simply be added in a separate file, which then links to every chapter and sub­chap­ter. The reader accesses the table of contents in the menu and can then jump to the desired section. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can integrate the table of contents directly into the e-book although this can sometimes be dis­ad­van­ta­geous for standard reading (because it only displays the table of contents).

Hy­per­links and cross-ref­er­enc­ing

Besides the links already mentioned, you can also integrate hy­per­links into your e-book which lead to other websites. To make it clear to the reader that the content is in­ter­ac­tive, you should mark these links, whether it‘s by using a certain color or by un­der­lin­ing them. Keep in mind that external web content needs a working internet con­nec­tion. Links like these should never be crucial for un­der­stand­ing the text. Cross-ref­er­ences act like chapters: for, example, they don’t link paragraph three on page 14 (because, as already mentioned, the number of pages varies due to the layout), but rather they link chapter 2.1 to the topic of ‘e-book creation‘.

In terms of design, an e-book isn’t that different to a tra­di­tion­al book or a website. The content is the most important thing, in principle, but even with the best quality there’s a high chance that your book won’t be read if the design is am­a­teur­ish. While the basic e-book design (together with ty­pog­ra­phy) primarily aims to give readers a good reading ex­pe­ri­ence, you also need to make sure you appeal to them on an emotional level with in­te­grat­ed images, tables, and graphics, as well as the cover.

The perfect cover

The cover, as well as the title, is one of the first things that potential readers notice about your e-book. You should therefore invest a good amount of time and effort into the cover design so that your book makes a good first im­pres­sion. Have a look at your com­pe­ti­tion’s cover pages to get an idea of what’s typical of the genre. This article provides a good overview of the most important elements of an e-book cover. Due to the im­por­tance of the cover page it might be worth hiring a pro­fes­sion­al to design it if you don‘t feel confident doing so yourself.

Text and font

Choose a suitable font to make sure you stand out from your com­pe­ti­tion, but always keep in mind that read­abil­i­ty comes first. Don’t use more than two or three different fonts, be sure that they fit together well, and use the same font for each element i.e. blocks of text, titles, lists, etc. Make sure you use either open-source fonts or have the license to use com­mer­cial fonts. When it comes to text for­mat­ting you can be freer and use, for example, bolding, italics, un­der­lin­ing, etc. for high­light­ing.

Images

Inserting images, photos, or graphics is a good way to enhance an e-book. As with text, a re­flow­able layout allows images to  adapt to the re­spec­tive display, which is why the size needs to be entered in per­cent­age values rather than absolute values (pixel). For example, if you enter a value of 50 % the re­spec­tive image will take up half a page. You should always optimize your image data to the maximum limit, as some display devices enable you to see an image in full-screen by double clicking on it. Use high-quality images, photos, and graphics, and don’t forget to get per­mis­sion if you don’t own the copyright.

In­ter­ac­tive content and fallback

Nowadays when it comes to designing an e-book, there are so many more options than there were a few years ago. Thanks to tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments such as color displays and the support of JavaScript, modern devices can show a lot more than just images. If you choose the right format, you can also implement:

• Music files
• Pop-up elements
• Slideshows
• Videos

Not every reading device fully supports extra features so to make sure those with older devices don’t miss out, you should integrate fallbacks. This al­ter­na­tive solution comes into play when the re­spec­tive in­ter­ac­tive element can’t be displayed. This way, you can configure para­graphs so that they are either displayed as a pop-up or as a colored block when the device doesn’t support the tech­nol­o­gy.

Another option is to  hand the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of creating an e-book design and layout on to a third party. Depending on your budget, you could hire a pro­fes­sion­al designer to create a template according to your wishes, leaving you to just take care of the content. A cheaper solution would be to download ready-made e-book templates. These might not be tailored exactly to your needs, but they provide a good basic structure and make the e-book easier to create. You don’t have to think of any new concepts; just customize the template to fit your needs. When buying a template, you are generally pur­chas­ing a license for a single pub­li­ca­tion, but it’s also possible to buy for multiple pub­li­ca­tions as well. You can find a diverse selection of e-book design templates on Book Design Templates and graphi­criv­er. For smaller, non-pro­fes­sion­al e-pub­li­ca­tions there are many different e-book templates which are free of charge. These design and layout templates are available to download, but in most cases you have to subscribe to the service’s newslet­ter. Examples include the Pow­er­Point templates on Hec­tor­pre­neur and the e-book templates from HubSpot.