There is a lot of detail that goes into book design right down to the placement of the folios (page numbers). The whole point of a good book design is that it becomes invisible to the reader and brings the story itself to the forefront in the reader's mind. This may at first seem easier to accomplish, but it is not. The design must be attractive, organized, and call attention to the mood of the work it showcases. It’s like having fine velvet draped behind a display of jewelry in a shop—the velvet enhances without grabbing the focus.

There are many parts to the design including font, size of font, folios, glyphs, headers, bleeds and chapter heads. The parts of the book are mapped out: half-title page, title page spread, copyright page, dedication page, epigraphs, contents, forward and preface, acknowledgments, introduction, chapters, appendix, index, etc. Then the designer must prepare a manuscript for typesetting, plug it in, and guide it through the various parts of the book (including photo enhancement and placement). Also, keep in mind that an offset printer will require the total number of pages to be divisible by sixteen (or in some cases eight or even four—sixteen is a safe bet).

Common sizes for books are 5.5 X 8.5, 6 X 9, 7 X 10, and 8.5 X 11. They may be presented portrait or landscape. Remember, when designing bleeds, the paper size that is then used at the printer is the next size up, then they cut it down—bleeds cost just a little bit more. You can custom size a book, but remember it costs more to do so.

Common paper for book design is fifty or sixty pound weight, and colors of either natural (a kind of tan tone) or white. Here you can ask for something special too, but the price increases.

Pages come in groups of sixteen (sometimes eight, sometimes four), called signatures. Both front and back are counted. At an offset printing plant, sixteen pages are mapped out on a single large sheet of paper. The large sheet goes through the printing process, then is folded and cut. These sets of sixteen are stacked together and processed into a book.

There are many ways to bind a book. Perfect bound is the most common—this is a soft cover glued to the spine of the book. Case bound is a hard cover book. Leather binding is another option for basic binding. There is also an Otto-bind process that helps the book lie flat while reading it. Wire-O can also lie flat and is nice for cookbooks. Simpler bindings include Coil bound and Comb bound books.

Covers are designed separately from the interior design. Covers need to grab attention quickly, then offer enough enticing information to let the reader know what is to be expected inside. Stories have readers, but we need to let the readers know that this story is for them. There are too many others saying the same thing, so the cover deserves attention.

Jackets are the paper that wraps around the outside of a hard cover book. Hard cover books often have blank linen exteriors save the spine. A colorful jacket helps let the reader know what to expect inside, while protecting the book as well. Jackets have flaps that fold to the inside of the cover with a short biography and description of the book printed on them. It has become important for collectors to have the jacket, in good condition, accompany the book.

There are two major types of printing offered to the professional. They are the offset and the digital printing. Offset is the finest as they use ink and signatures (large sheets run through barrels). Digital is quickly becoming fine as well—they use toner and can place colored pages more randomly in a book while keeping the cost down.