Background
This second post continues to cover 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 (CMOS) 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.
Second up: I continue from Part 1, looking at books that are primarily text in small formats—novels, memoirs, general nonfiction—where typography is the design, but implementation falls flat. For each issue area, I’ll include the percentage of books where I saw room for improvement.
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 baseline 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 2: Implementation Issues
Implementation of the layout—the process of applying the formatting and deciding how the type is typeset—is traditionally the purview of the typesetter or formatter. In comparison to the more global nature of the structural issues in Part 1, these problems are identified and addressed on a case-by-case basis by the typesetter, page by page. Implementation problems are more insidious; solving them can be challenging, sometimes requiring several micro-adjustments across multiple pages. Automated algorithms often fall short, ultimately requiring the typesetter to identify and correct them by hand, visually checking the text line by line.
#1 Unbalanced pages across spread (27%)
(This is one of the two rules you can never break under normal circumstances.)
- The page box should be balanced, matching from left page to right.
- Baseline alignment (“baseline grid”) helps eliminate partial misalignments (refer to Part 1’s #2).
We’re talking books here, with their regular and carefully placed content. However, even our counterparts in the magazine world know that you must balance column length; it is just less distracting and easier to read.
What many rookies forget about printed books is that the left and right pages are always viewed together, as a matched set. Except for the beginning or ending of a chapter where you want to interrupt the reader, the page box—its top and bottom, left and right edges—should match. An extra line sticking down, or a page that is short relative to its partner, invites the reader to wonder why?—a distraction!
Careful adjustment of text spacing within the paragraph can “add” or “subtract” a line to help balance pages and yet still avoid leaving a single line of a paragraph stranded at the bottom or top of a page (more on that in #4).
Shorting a Spread
In dire situations where balancing just doesn’t work without violating issues #2, #3, or #4, it is permissible to short boththe left and right-hand pages by one line. Or, if margins allow, to run both the left and right-hand pages a line long. Balancing both pages across the spread is the critical point.
The usual convention (CMOS) is that when this is done, the preceding and following spreads must be of normal length. In other words, you can’t pull this trick more than once in a row. And generally shouldn’t do it very often—you don’t want to inadvertently create a new pattern for the reader’s brain to wonder about.
#2 Runts (often due to excessive indents) (27%)
- Especially problematic in dialog-heavy books with short paragraphs and excessive indents (Part 1, #3).
A particularly short last line of a paragraph, a runt, is a visual distraction. It is practically a blank line … where a blank line shouldn’t be. In other words, a visual distraction.
This problem is compounded when the line is so short it fits inside the indent space of the following paragraph, or when it is part of a series of short paragraphs one after another.
Even if a runt is longer than the indent space, if it occurs right at the end of the page, it can also imply a visual imbalance (#1).
As before, careful adjustment of text spacing within the paragraph can “add” or “subtract” a line to lengthen or eliminate short lines, yet still avoid leaving a single line of a paragraph stranded at the bottom or top of a page (more on that in #4).
#3 Bad Chapter End / Blank Right Pages (17%)
(This is one of the two rules you shouldn’t ever break under normal circumstances. Or really ever.)
- Not enough lines at the end of the chapter leave the page feeling unfinished, nearly blank.
- Blank right pages are an absolute no-no.
A great deal of effort is given to the design of the start of a chapter, but most rookies give little thought to the end. In an ideal world, a chapter would have exactly the number of lines to complete its last page, or be several lines short, so an obvious break occurs.
In reality, sometimes the last paragraph is short just a line or two; or just enough text for two or three lines on the last page. A good typesetter makes adjustments in the preceding pages to avoid this situation, because, once again, visual distraction ensues—the reader is wondering what is missing.
Even more egregious is a blank right page. We read from left to right, but by convention, we know to always start on the right-hand page. A blank right-hand page signals that the book is complete; nothing more exists. Which is distracting when it happens in the middle of the book.
I didn’t see it in this collection, but this situation could arise if chapter openers are two-page designs—with art and/or opening quotes or poems on the left-hand page, facing the actual chapter start on the right. Lovely as they are, they are a nuisance to typesetters who may have to contort the text to make this work without resorting to the forbidden blank right.
Another similar situation arises before a new part (section), especially if the author/editor insists that no text should be on the left-hand facing page (parts/sections always start on the right), as apparently happened with the otherwise beautiful example above.
In these instances, it is best to work with your typesetter and editor to add or subtract text to make this work. Or as a last resort, place some sort of meaningful graphic on the otherwise blank right-hand page. Just don’t leave your reader wondering why it is blank.
Blank Left Pages Should be Blank
While I will rally against blank right pages, blank left pages are quite common and perfectly acceptable—so long as there aren’t too many of them.
But when a left page is left blank—either before a new chapter or a new part/section—then it should be entirely blank—no header, no footer, not even a page number.
And please, unless you are a government organization regularly faxing reports in the 1980s, please, please, please do not label a blank page as “intentionally blank.”
#4 Stranded Lines (Widows and Orphans) (12%)
- Never end a paragraph with one line at the top of a page.
- Avoid starting a paragraph with one line at the bottom of a page.
The typesetting terminology of “orphans” and ”widows” may be anachronistic now, but the point of these terms, to avoid leaving one line of a paragraph stranded, is alive and well.
Strict adherence to this point is another place where CMOS and AP diverge, but where, for well-thought-out and carefully implemented books, CMOS insists that you can never end a paragraph with a short line at the top of a page. Like the runts of #2 at the bottom, it unbalances the page text box.
And since we’re talking about wrangling the type, let’s just say it is strongly preferred to avoid starting a paragraph at the bottom of a page unless there is no other way that doesn’t violate #1, #2, or #3. And there is almost always a way for a good typesetter, if you work at it.
However, if you must, starting a paragraph at the bottom of a left-hand page is slightly more preferable than starting one at the bottom of the right-hand page. Be nice to your readers, and don’t make them turn the page to see how your paragraph opening starts.
#5 Poor Typography (10%, but I probably undercounted)
- Look out for bad hyphenation, rivers of whitespace, hyphen stacks, and end-of-line repeats.
- Hyphenation rules allow for 2 back or 2 ahead. I vastly prefer the look of 3/3 (my preference).
- Hyphenation across pages should be avoided.
Ok, I admit, this item is a catch-all for remaining items that address a whole host of typesetting gotchas. If you look at a well-typeset book, you’ll see that the publisher has taken the time to ensure that the reading experience is as free of distractions as possible.
Hyphenation Gotchas
Hyphenation is one of the stickiest points. We need hyphenation to help fill out the text frame without having rivers of white space flowing through our text.
But hyphens are inherently distracting, since you’ve broken a word across a line. To keep things manageable for the reader, a long list of hyphenation rules is provided, although only some of these are well implemented by automated typesetting engines. Proofreaders to the rescue!
CMOS convention is to allow a hyphen after only two letters, or to allow only two letters to break to the following line, if it breaks at a natural syllable boundary. Personally, I will only do this as a last resort, and by default require at least three letters behind and three to go ahead.
Whether you are a two- or three-letter person, we can agree that hyphenating proper names is a bad idea, just as a line break after a title such as “Mrs.” or ”Mr.” or before a title such as “Sr.” I’ll break a proper name after the first occurence in repeated usage, if needs be.
Likewise, a hyphen break across a page turn is bad luck, although a break from the left to right page is moderately tolerable, if necessary.
Honoring the text box on the page, we also need to take care not to stack too many hyphens (my preference is at most two; the CMOS allows three as acceptable).
Speaking of stacking, it is also preferable to your reader if you can avoid stacking words at the beginning, or especially the ends, of lines. Or even partial words that are similar.
These are visual distractions that trip up readers, kicking them out of ”the zone,” and perhaps reminding them that they need to put your book down to deal with something else in their lives.
#6 Bad Art (6%)
- Placed art quality, alignment, and captions.
This item was relatively infrequent among books considered only because most books in this “primarily text” category don’t include art. The exception is nonfiction books with charts and graphs.
Creating effective illustrations and graphics for a book is a challenging task, and as a result, it can be expensive. It takes time and careful consideration of how the graphic will fit into the book’s flow, often forcing system and typographic choices to be translated to an entirely different software application. But what I know for certain is that simply placing a greyscale version of your PowerPoint graphics is not a good solution.
However, it is also one of the most visible examples of negligent publishers who choose to “cut corners” and simply slap in a graphic exported from Excel, PowerPoint, or some other screen-oriented graphic engine.
If your book is black and white, avoid using color graphics and relying on the printer to convert it to greys. If your book is set in, say, an 11-point serif typeface, don’t suddenly throw in a large 12 or 14-point sans serif label, or an 8-point font for the graphic axes, or labels. Remember, consistency.
As is often said, ”a picture is worth a thousand words.” If your picture suggests that you couldn’t be bothered with making the fonts readable or harmonized with the rest of your book, then you are telling me the data must not be all that important, after all.
The rule of “clean art” also applies to your captioning and placement of the art. In a small-format book, wrapping text around art should be avoided, but if it is necessary, do so with generous white space. And, generally speaking, your art + caption should be anchored to either the top or the bottom of the text frame.
Go ahead, break the “rules”—if it is in the best interest of the reader. But only if you’ve exhausted all other possibilities, and can either be done unobtrusively, or can be done consistently. Consistency is the most important rule—but consistently “wrong” for no good reason doesn’t make it right! 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.
