Background
This first post covers most of the entries in the fiction categories, as well as the majority of nonfiction books. The “design” and interior layout is usually simpler, owing to smaller form factors (typically 6 x 9 or smaller), with only a handful of specific page designs: chapter opener, body text, toc, perhaps index and/or references in the nonfiction side of things, and a handful of other single-page front- and back-matter items.
Generally speaking, in book publishing, we use the Chicago Manual of Style as our primary reference.
I’m breaking the issues of “mainly text” books into two broad categories: structural (Part 1) and implementation (Part 2). And while I present these as individual problem areas, in reality, they are often interrelated. Then, in Part 3, I’ll explore “visual and large format” books, followed by Part 4, “covers.”
Introduction
I’m often asked why some books just look off, and if it really matters what the interior of a book looks like. Call it what you will—the “self-published look,” “budget design,” “template typography,” or just that hard-to-name feeling that something’s not quite right…
As it turns out, yes, it matters. Even casual readers notice when something feels off, and may turn away from a book, even if they can’t explain why. Layout and typography shape the reading experience more than most people realize.
This summer, I decided to take a deep dive into the finalists and winners of the 2025 Midwest Book Awards to better understand the “why”—examining books from indie publishers across the Midwest, ranging from established academic presses to author-publishers self-publishing for the first time, and everything in between.
Even among the books that otherwise impressed the judges, I kept seeing the same avoidable design issues pop up again and again. Small missteps in design and typesetting that chipped away at a book’s professionalism and polish.
You see, when design is working, it vanishes—it becomes “intuitive” or natural. However, when design stumbles—such as with tight margins, clunky spacing, or misaligned spreads—it draws attention to itself. Once that happens, it’s hard to unsee.
In this four-part series, I’ll walk through the most common design mistakes I found, and explain why they matter. These aren’t arbitrary rules—they’re time-tested guidelines rooted in how people actually read. And most of them are easy to fix, once you know what to look for.
First up: Here in Part 1 I look at design issues for books that are primarily text in small formats—novels, memoirs, general nonfiction—where typography is the design. For each issue area, I’ll include the percentage of books where I saw room for improvement. Then, in Part 2, I’ll continue with the most common typesetting issues I saw in implementing the design.
Before we get into the details, let me say this: I’m not here to discredit anyone’s work. The books I reviewed were written, edited, and published with heart. But ensuring that none of these foundational issues sneak into your work—what I consider the minimum level of visual clarity and polish any published book should meet—is doing your readers a service by making your book more approachable and appealing, not to mention better received by book professionals, including librarians, book sellers, and reviewers.
Part 1: Structural Issues
Poor decisions about how to design the book’s interior—the layout—are what I characterize as structural issues. These types of problems are built into the design decisions of the layout. In that sense, they are “global” and often rule-controlled within the typesetting system.
#1 Bad Margins (47%)
- Inside margin depends on thickness and binding stiffness
- Balance between the top, outside, and bottom margins, as well as the visual gutter
- Account for headers and footers, which factor into the visible space of the top and bottom margins
- Line length usually isn’t a problem in small-format books, unless the font is quite small.
The whitespace around the text block on a page—the margin—helps visually contain the text, buffering the reader from the world beyond—and the dangers of falling off the edge of the page!
Since I’m talking about a lot of measurements in this section, I’m going to use a shorthand. When I refer to the type size, I’ll express it as two numbers, the type size and the line spacing, e.g. 12/15, which is an (approximately) 12-point font set to 15-point spacing baseline-to-baseline. Some software expresses line spacing as a multiple of the font size, so 12/15 is equivalent to a factor of 1.25 (12 x 1.25 = 15).
Additionally, for most measurements, I’ll list them in picas and points (e.g., 3p is three picas, 4p6 is four picas and six points, or four and a half picas). Typesetters often use picas because page geometry is actually simpler to understand than fractions of inches or decimal metric values. Just know that there are 12 points in a pica, and 6 picas in an inch. So, for example, 3p = 1/2 inch and 4p6 = 3/4 inch.
For margins I’ll express them as t/b or top/bottom, followed by i/o or inside (spine side) and outside. But the specific measurements aren’t the point here—I’m not trying to build a template or a formula. Instead, it is the relationship between the margins and how they visually balance with the other characteristics of the page that I am trying to address.
Finally, the text box, the areas of the body text excluding headers and footers, is most useful to think of as number of lines high, by number of characters wide.
The inside margin is the starting point in planning a page’s geometry. It will depend on the type of binding, its stiffness, and the thickness of the book. Thick, glued bindings, known as “perfect bindings” with EVA glue are the stiffest, and so require considerably more margin to account for visible page area lost to the gutter, particularly in books with 150+ pages. A Smyth-sewn binding is generally more flexible, allowing you to use a smaller inside margin.
When choosing the other margins, a designer needs to maintain a visual balance, with the outside margins typically similar in appearance to the top and bottom margins, and also visually similar to the gutter margin—the combination of the left and right page inner margins, minimizing the loss to the gutter. It is not an exact science, and there is a range of acceptable values.
Header and Footer
In a traditional layout, page headers and footers contain (more or less) useful information for navigation. A nonfiction book’s headers might contain chapter or section names, while the footer commonly contains a page number. And while bottom-only “headers” are something I usually avoid, reverse headers can be used effectively in a design if one is careful.
Generally, page headers and footers are set in a smaller type size than the main text, and so visually have less weight than a full line of text. However, it is essential to space them appropriately—too close to the text, they can confuse the reader. Too close to the page edge, they feel accidental and can distract the reader by pulling the eye away from the main text. And headers spaced differently from footers will feel awkward and unbalance the page.
Line Length
The general rule-of-thumb is that the ideal length of a line of text is around 65 characters, or perhaps in the 55–75 character range. With a normal 6 x 9 or smaller book, in a typical 11-ish point type size, and a text block under 5 inches wide, this usually isn’t a problem. In fact, this is why a 5 x 8 – 6 x 9 book works so well—because the line length is in that sweet spot where the eye can easily travel from the end of one line to the beginning of the next without getting lost, but the text isn’t so narrow that it gets choppy or suffers from excess interior space (as happens with, for example, newspaper columns and some narrow-column magazine type).
However, if you push things in a 6 x 9 format with small margins and small type, you can create a trifecta of problems by ending up with an uncomfortably long line length. And when we next discuss large-format books, we’ll encounter a whole host of line length problems.
#2 Baseline (Grid) Misalignment (35%)
- Aligning the text baselines throughout the book provides a clean experience, especially given the thinner paper used in books of this category.
This insidious problem shows up most often with chapter openers, following a subheading, or following a break in the text—whenever the line spacing “grid” is ignored. Text on one side of a page that is misaligned with text on the other is most apparent in show-through.
This issue is another type of visual distraction, particularly prevalent in books with thinner-weight paper. By aligning lines, the show through (even without a light behind the page!) becomes less of a distraction.
This is a particularly frustrating issue because it requires only a minimal amount of extra planning to ensure that the regular baseline grid is maintained. Tools such as InDesign include built-in “baseline alignment” to help ensure this happens, but just a little math can solve it as well.
Baseline misalignment is also the leading cause of unbalanced pages, which I discuss in the Implementation Issues section in part 2.
#3 Excessive Indents (27%)
- Indents are best when sufficient, not overblown, nor understated.
- Over-large indents can lead to short-line runts, especially in text with short paragraphs, which is common in stories with a lot of dialogue.
You may not think about it, but indents are a space-saving invention that eliminates the “blank line” to separate paragraphs. The rule-of-thumb of how much to indent is 1–1.2 em—or slightly more than the width of the capital letter “M,” in typsetter speak. In other words, the type size you’re using. This is enough space for the eye to easily see that there is an indent, but not so much that the eye has to search to find where the paragraph actually starts.
The most common problem with indents is over-indenting. This design choice may be a throwback to early typesetting styles. While it is something you can get away with if you are setting very long paragraphs (such as older writing styles), for modern writing styles, especially those with short paragraphs and dialog-heavy text, this results in a choppy reading experience.
It is rare, but sometimes people under-indent, tending to make a page of text look like a solid block.
Justified Text?
You’ll notice that all of these examples use justified text. Of related interest to indenting is the question of whether or not to justify (or “fully justify”) the text. Usually, the answer is yes, provided the columns aren’t too narrow, for the same reason why excessive indenting is a problem. The reason is simple: it is easier to read long passages of text if the eye knows exactly where to stop and where to start each line.
However, this is more of a guideline, and many types of text work perfectly well with “left justified” (also known as “right rag” for the ragged right edge) text. “Right justified” (“left rag”) is usually avoided, and “Centered” is something to use with care. More on this when I discuss picture books in Part 3.
#4 Bad Leading/Color (23%)
- Line spacing must balance visual association with visual separation
- Overall page tone depends on line spacing, word spacing, letter spacing, and the nature of ink-on-paper.
The “color” of a page in typesetting parlance doesn’t refer to literal color, but to how dense or light the page looks when you step back and take it in as a whole.
“Color,” first and foremost, is determined by the spacing between lines of text, also known to typesetters as leading (as in the metal strips of lead which added space between lines of metal type back in the day). But color also takes into account the spacing between words, the spacing between letters, and the weight of the strokes in the font(s) in use.
I have two theories on why books are often set with line spacing that is too large. 1) Because authors and editors often spend more time in “double-spaced” manuscripts, they have grown accustomed to the “spaced-out” look. 2) Because webpages and other digital type is usually lower-resolution, sans serif, and so is set with wider line spacing than is typically needed for a printed page—or is only ever previewed on the screen. However, these are just speculations on my part; I have no proof. But the fact of the matter is that nearly a quarter of the books I surveyed showed line spacing excesses enough to annoy the reader.
Too Tight is Also a Problem
Just as a speaker’s tone and posture shape how we receive their words, a page’s spacing and rhythm shape how we read the text. If the lines are too far apart, it feels like the author is hesitating or unsure of their words. If they’re too tight, it feels rushed and breathless. While over-spaced feels disconnected, crowding creates tension.
Good Color
The goal here, for these non-illustrated books printed with only black ink that I am looking at here in Part 1 (and Part 2), is that a well-designed page should have a consistent, inviting gray tone—a balance of ink and white space that makes reading feel effortless.
It may seem subtle, but if you’re asking your reader to stay with you through 100, 200, … 500 pages, it behooves you to help them out as much as you can. As should be apparent from these examples, this is easier said than done, and why “color” is one of the trickier things to anticipate without experience: the effect of ink (or toner) on paper depends on the paper’s color, coating or absorption qualities, and how heavily the printer lays down the ink. The computer monitor, or a home print-out, only gets you so far toward really seeing how the actual printed page will look.
#5 Bad Lead-in/Bling (18%)
- The eye is easily drawn to irregularities in the boundaries of a text block, particularly the left edge.
- Stacking excessive character styling, especially in opening paragraphs, draws the reader’s attention to the formatting, distracting them from the actual content.
- Avoid fake small caps with capital letters—a problem of unequal line weight → use a Small Cap font if you must, but better not to mix large and small “capital” letters.
More about the theory behind indents: since they are used to indicate where one paragraph has ended and another begins, they are not needed on the first paragraph after a chapter opener or other subheading or break in the text.
Indenting first lines is one example of what I refer to as “excess bling” for opening paragraphs: anytime the designer has decided to use too many visual markers to indicate where the text begins.
(Note: this is one place where AP and CMOS style differ, because they have different purposes. For newspapers, following Associated Press guidelines, text is written to be easily chopped apart and rearranged to accommodate space. A first paragraph with an indent makes more sense when it may not be until presstime that you actually know which paragraph is first. However, books following the Chicago Manual of Style recommendations will be typeset and reviewed carefully before anything goes to press, and so can afford the luxury of avoiding initial indents. At least, that is how I think about it.)
Drop-caps, running small caps, and bold opening letters are all examples of proper ways to make opening text more fancy. But when you start combining these, especially when used in conjunction with a fancy chapter opener or elaborate divider line, it just becomes too much—you’re trying too hard, a sure sign of design crossing over from helping to hurting the reader by calling attention to itself, instead of letting the words speak for themselves.
Optical Margins and Hanging Punctuation
A related issue is the curious problem of alignment and the text envelope—the overall shape of the text block. Earlier, I spoke of “left justified” text as being aligned along the left edge. That wasn’t strictly correct. If you think about the shape of letterforms along the left edge of a long paragraph of text, there is a range of shapes
- From the hard-edged lines of letters like “M,” “N,” and “h.“
- The rounded shapes of letters like “o,” “C,” and “s.”
- Pointy triangular edges like “A,” “v,” and “Z.”
- Irregular shapes such as “Y,” “J,” and “x.”
Creating a vertical column of these letters, as is done with lines of text, and strictly aligning the leftmost point of all of these letterforms might seem to be correct, but it actually looks irregular if you do! That is because the space around each of these types of letters is different.
To fix this in modern typesetting, we use a trick known as optical margins. That is to say, we intentionally slightlymisalign the left edge of each line based on each character’s visual weight, so that it appears aligned when quickly scanned during normal reading.
One of the most apparent places where this shows up is leading punctuation, such as quoted text during dialogue. Without this optical margin to create the effect of “hanging punctuation,” the quoted lines end up looking like they have extra indenting relative to unquoted lines.
Of course, you don’t want the punctuation hanging too far out, or that looks awkward, too. So, like many things I discuss here, it’s about balance —a happy medium.
#6 Front Matter/Back Matter Problems (10%)
- Convention and logical placement of supporting material in a book will help the reader navigate to exactly what they need.
- But don’t neglect the design of these very visible pages.
Under the heading of “conventions designed to help readers” is the order and design of material that appears before or after the main text of a book.
For most traditionally formatted books, this includes
- a half-title page (right side)
- a title page (right side)
- the copyright notice (left side)
- a dedication (if applicable, sight side)
- a table of contents (if necessary, starting on the right side),
- other reference tables (starting on the right),
- a preface (starting on the right),
- an introduction (starting on the right),
- and so on (generally starting on the right)
A similar standard structure exists for the back matter.
Sure, you could break this rule, and mix things up … but why? The conventions make it easy for librarians, book sellers, and other professionals in the trade to find the information they need about a book quickly. And it does make sense in terms of the information hierarchy.
So, for primarily text-type books, I recommend sticking with the CMOS recommended structure (refer to section 1.4 for the complete list and acceptable deviations) unless you have a really compelling reason to deviate.
Sequencing aside, I also recommend actually designing these special pages. They are, after all, the introduction to your text; why would you let a clunky title page or a poorly designed table of contents turn your reader off before they even start?
These structural design “rules” are the constraints we work within to create professional books which are a pleasure to read. Far from limiting a designer’s creativity, they focus it—directing the creative energy toward making a book uniquely pleasing, without bogging down in problems that limit the merely functional.
Good design isn’t just about adding bling or making things “pretty”—it’s about making it easy to read your book, easy to navigate, and comfortable to spend time with.
But these fundamentals are just a starting point, the basis of good, solid design. As a professional designer, I start here with a solid foundation, then take things further—bringing in hierarchy, voice, and aesthetic nuance to further enhance the written narrative. Learn more about Paul and Illustrada Design.
