Explore articles on self-publishing, book design, launch strategy, and book marketing from a team that has supported authors since 2015.
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Self-publishing strategy
Clear walkthroughs for planning the book, the launch, and the reader journey.
Design and production decisions
Guidance on covers, formatting, and the details that make a book look market-ready.
Marketing and platform growth
Practical advice for visibility, promotion, and turning attention into sales momentum.
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Strong starting points for authors who want high-signal guidance before moving deeper into the archive.
What a publishing imprint is, whether a self-published author needs one, and how to set up your own in the UK: the name, Nielsen ISBNs, the copyright page and legal deposit.
What widows and orphans are in typesetting, how to tell them apart from runts, and how to fix them in Word and InDesign, plus why KDP will never flag them for you.
Article index
Browse the latest publishing advice, design guidance, and author education content.
The parts of a book, outside and in: covers, spine, joint and hinge, head, tail and fore-edge, endpapers and flaps, then front matter, body and back matter, all labelled in plain English.
What a publishing imprint is, whether a self-published author needs one, and how to set up your own in the UK: the name, Nielsen ISBNs, the copyright page and legal deposit.
What widows and orphans are in typesetting, how to tell them apart from runts, and how to fix them in Word and InDesign, plus why KDP will never flag them for you.
The main types of book binding explained for self-publishers: perfect bound paperbacks, case bound hardcovers, saddle stitch booklets and coil binding, with the page-count limits and what KDP, IngramSpark and Lulu actually offer.
A step-by-step guide to Amazon Author Central for UK and US authors: claim your books, write your bio, add your photo, set up a series page and check what's still US-only.
What interior book design covers, from trim size, margins and fonts to running heads and chapter openers, how to spot an amateur interior, and when to do it yourself or hire a designer.
How to calculate your book's spine width and full-wrap cover size for KDP and IngramSpark: the official per-page figures, bleed, spine text minimums and worked examples in inches and millimetres.
How many words is a novel? Typical word counts by genre, where a novella ends and a novel begins, how word count turns into pages at 5x8 and 6x9, and what length means for editing and print.
Is KDP Select worth it? How KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited work, the 90-day ebook exclusivity rule, how page reads are paid, free promotions and Countdown Deals, and when going wide suits you better.
What copy editing is, what a copy editor fixes on the page, before-and-after examples, a sample style sheet, and where copy editing sits between developmental editing and proofreading.
What typesetting means for self-published books, how it differs from formatting, and when a Word layout is enough versus a page-by-page InDesign interior for KDP and IngramSpark.
Hardcover vs paperback for self-published authors: what each costs to print on KDP, what you earn per copy, KDP case laminate vs IngramSpark jackets, ISBNs, and which format to print first.
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