First Choice Books' Blog

A book cover needs to say it all in one quick, really quick look. The title and image need to be seen as of one mind. Their message needs to be compelling. Your reader needs to feel motivated and moved to buy your book because of these qualities.

To create a successful book cover, there are a few things to keep in mind. The title has to be legible. Potential readers can easily determine the title and/or subtitle of your book. The same is true for the spine. The spine is important real estate, and it needs to be used wisely. It should be bold, and it needs to stand out. The typeface used on the spine does not have to match fonts used on the cover. You are competing with thousands of other books, so making yourself stand out is paramount. The cover or spine, depending on how your book will be displayed, is what initially draws enough interest for your book to be picked up.

The back cover text giving a brief summary about the book’s content. If an author picture will be included, it should be a professional headshot or no picture at all. In this case, bigger is not always better, and the headshot should be kept to a small size. If used, the author biography should be kept brief, and no longer than a few lines.

Another important thing is know the reader. All books have a target reader. If it’s a murder mystery, then the reader is a murder mystery fan. However, in all genres there are varying degrees of readers. Targeting the reader most likely to buy the book is very important. All other sales are gravy.

Knowing the demographic of the reader allow you to craft a combination of type and graphics to grab that reader’s eye, then instantly send the message that this book is for you.

No business is too small to have an environmental plan. One of the first rules of green business is to do more with less. Reducing waste is in the best interest of not just the environment, but businesses – large or small. Having an environmental plan will save your business money by reducing costs. Furthermore, the plan doesn’t have to cost much – or even anything – to develop, and can be carried out with minimal effort. Your green plan can start with small changes that can save you time and money.

Here are some pointers:

• Turn off lights and equipment at night to save on your energy bill.
• Change the raw materials you use or find a supplier that is eco-friendly.
• Introduce a paperless system to reduce waste, save on printing and toner costs.
• Recycle toner containers and used printers.

Saving the environment should be our top priority and First Choice Books would be happy to listen and share other ideas you have with our clients and friends. Much of the paper we use is tree free and, unlike other printing companies, we maximize our print layout per sheet of paper, thus reducing paper waste substantially, while offering you great prices for printing your book.

Below are photos taken during our in-house seminar with a professional consultant on our “Lean and Green” initiative.

Whether you are an individual who is getting your first book printed or someone who has already carved a niche for yourself in the market, choosing the right book printing company is of the utmost importance. Here are some important things to look for in a printing company to get things right the first time:

Reputation; find out the market reputation of the printing company. Make sure that the company you choose is known for quality book printing services. If you get too many negative reviews about a company, it is better not to choose such a company.

Experience; find out for how long a particular company is in the business of printing and publishing books. A company with several years of experience would offer you quality services compared to the one that is novice in the industry.

Printing technologies; before selecting any company, inquire about the printing technologies that are being used by them. For the best results, choose a company that uses state-of-the-art printing technologies and advanced printers and equipment.

Printing quote; Book printing companies charge differently for their services. A company that is offering you higher printing quotes might not necessarily provide you better printing services. So, do not take your decision solely on the basis of the printing quote. Compare all the factors given above to assure yourself of the best book printing services.

If you don’t want to get in to the hassle of finding book printing companies, you may self publish your books. For self publishing, you may visit www.firstchoicebooks.ca

You may have great content, but without an attractive cover, your book may have half a chance to sell. Your cover has to be designed to attract the attention of a buyer.

An easy solution if you’ve hit a proverbial creative “wall” is to visit your local bookstore (or not-so-local — try our online bookstore at www.firstchoicebookstore.ca or peruse amazon.com) for ideas. You can go one of two ways — replicate, or “be inspired by” current and popular titles — or try to get attention by being decidedly different. But do keep in mind that the “rules” and guidelines to cover design exist for a reason. The “best selling” book covers generally follow a few hard and fast rules.

The first is that they contain powerful, descriptive or intriguing words on the front cover. Enlarge the words you’d think would entice a potential buyer. For instance, Danielle Steele’s books generally sell because of her name. This is why her name is in a large typeface.

The second rule, which is a bit of a “secret weapon”, is not to forget the back cover. Don’t discount this potential, miniature marketing space. I’ve read that the average potential book buyer will make a purchasing decision within the first 15 seconds of viewing the back cover. I’ve not investigated the statistics for this, but I’m a great walking anecdote!

Keep your description on the back cover concise, and make sure that it piques the curiosity of the reader. Try to use short, descriptive sentences which evoke the feel of your book. If you’re writing a technical or self-help book, bullet points are a great tool to use. You don’t need to repeat the title of the book on the back cover — presumably, the reader is already aware of the title from reading the front.

Thirdly, know whom to contact should you require further assistance in your cover design. We have professional graphic designers here at First Choice who can meet your needs no matter where you are in the process. We also have a talent pool on our website — check it out for names of illustrators, designers and editors.

Make sure to check out my next article about cover design, which will cover the more technical aspects including typography, illustration, design and layout.

Whether your book is a novel, poetry, memoir, children’s book, or technical in content and form, choose to self publish your book. Self-publishing gives a lot of opportunities to authors that traditional publishing doesn’t and cannot afford to give.

In traditional publishing, the author exchanges his/her right and control over the work for money. The author can’t put any questions to the publishing company as to why they changed the title of the book, its cover, plot, and even the ending of the book. The publishing company enjoys complete autonomy over production and publishing of the book.

On the contrary, when you decide to self-publish a book, you are responsible for the content of the book, cover design, editing, printing, copyrights, storage, marketing, sales, distribution, and various other aspects of book publishing. Right from writing and editing to design and marketing, you are involved in everything in the case of self-publishing.

While most authors choose to self-publish books because they want to exercise full control over their work, there are others who self publish books because they have met countless rejections from traditional publishing companies. Such writers and authors are passionate about their work and plan to self publish what they have felt, thought, and written. Self publishing is perfect for novice and anonymous writers who want to enter the industry. It offers them a platform to showcase their talent and carve a niche for themselves in the market.

If you have a flair for writing and nurture a dream of seeing your writings in print and finding appreciation by serious readers, think of self publishing.

To self publish books, please visit www.firstchoicebooks.ca

The website belongs to a self publishing  company in Canada that makes self publishing quick, easy, and affordable for today’s authors.

Online book printing is fast replacing traditional book printing companies. More and more authors, poets, fiction writers, and children story book writers are choosing online book printing due to the numerous advantages offered by it.

Compared to traditional book printing, on demand printing is really quick and easy. You don’t have to send your manuscript to a publishing house and then wait for months, anticipating whether they would agree to publish your work or not. With the advent in technology, you can now self publish your book easily, affordably and quickly with the help of online book printing companies such as www.firstchoicebooks.ca

Another advantage offered by online book printing companies is that they let authors and writers exercise full control over their work. You can decide which book cover, page layout, page size and font would best suit your work. You can even decide whether you want your copy to be printed as hard copy or soft copy. Online book printing lets authors choose their publishing preferences in a hassle-free manner.

A great advantage of online book printing is that if buyers wish to purchase your book, you can print the exact number of books required without ordering excessive copies.  Unsold copies can hurt your pocket book. So, as the demand for your book increases, you can request the online book printing company to print more books for you.

For self publishing your work with the help of an online book printing company, please visit www.firstchoicebooks.ca

Creating a school yearbook allows students to express their creativity and memories of the past year. With the help of a teacher or school staff member, the following tips will help turn your yearbook ideas into reality.

First Choice Books offers many options to meet your School annual budget from a simple low cost saddle stitch booklet to a Smyth sewn hard cover.

Our prices are affordable and quality superb. Colour printing does cost more, so if you are on a tight budget we recommend only a few pages in colour (class photo pages). www.firstchoicebooks.ca

Yearbook’s Theme

Select a theme for your yearbook and use it throughout the book. Instead of using proprietary software to set up type or photos, the students can create their own layout using in-design. Scrap book or print projects software are simple to use for page layout as well. All photos or images should be 300dpi and needs to be converted to CMYK.

Allowing Time for Printing

First Choice can turn around your yearbooks quickly. Please allow 4-6 weeks from the time you send your print ready file to us. Our quick turnaround time allows you to get your spring activities and sporting events in this yearbook and not next year’s.

Personalize It!

You can inject your yearbook with style by personalizing it. No, not by engraving the yearbook with each student’s name. One option could be adding student artwork or poetry inside the yearbook or on the cover. Make your book unique by adding elements of family life. Have students bring in pictures of trips and vacations. Allow them to include photos of their social functions and outings away from school. This gives the reader a sense of what makes your community tick. It allows the students within the school to be comforted and visitors to get a sense of what your community is like. Another way to add personality to your yearbook is to incorporate themes. Get ideas for thematic elements from school locations, school-wide goals or school milestones.

If you are a writer, there are several reasons why you should consider self publishing your own book in Canada.

FirstchoiceBooks,a Canadian company, gives you complete control over your work. There won’t be any major publishers or publishing companies making inappropriate changes to your work. You can self publish what you had actually thought of and written using your own creative abilities.Traditional publishers quite often change the cover of your book, the title, and even the names of the characters, if they want without even any discussion with it’s author. As a self publisher,please rest assured that no one but you have autonomy over your work.

FirstchoiceBooks allows you to enjoy great flexibility. You can change the direction or genre of your own writing and  under no obligation to follow the niche that was created for yourself earlier or the one that a traditional publishing company wants you to adhere to. If the idea or theme of your book doesn’t fit in to the slots of the traditional publisher, your manuscript most likely would be rejected. FirstchoiceBooks,allows you to be as experimental as you want in self publishing your book while exploring new potentials.

FirstchoiceBooks makes selfpublishing  more profitable compared to traditional publishing. In case of traditional publishing, you get a small, upfront payment and some book royalties that are spread over the years, depending on how your book sells. Since some publishing companies do not take much pain and effort to market your book, you normally won’t get high returns. On the contrary, self publishers can take the best possible steps to market their book effectively so as to enjoy increased sales and higher profits. No doubt, as a self publisher you would have to invest your own money and time  initially, but the final balance sheet would be quite impressive.

So, if you are thinking of self publishing your book, please visit www.firstchoicebooks.ca Here you can self publish your book quickly and affordably, and determine your own book content, style, price and marketing strategies.

Technology is moving in the direction of everything digital. The future promises hand-held reading devices that will be able to hold hundreds of eBooks at a time.

When you sell your eBook on the internet, it is instantly available to the whole world, not just a few bookstores. Anyone from any country, at any time, can buy your eBook, and download it instantly.

There are many distinct benefits to eBooks and FCB’s offering you many of them. It would be a good revenue stream for your published book.

For over 20 years, First Choice Books has created a reputation for exceptional quality and service that has fuelled unprecedented growth through old-fashioned word of mouth and smart advertising.

Unlike faceless internet book publishing companies, that offer you the world and deliver very little, we know how important your book is to you.

We make sure that your book is designed, formatted and bound in a way to attract readers in bookstores. Take advantage of our many free services such as an ISBN, CIP and a barcode.

We are proud to have clients around the world and helping them find simple solutions to complex jobs at affordable prices.

• Listing with Amazon and file conversion for $25
• 50/50 – split on royalties
• Call for details and contract:

First Choice Books

Phone: 250-383-6353
Fax: 250-383-2247

Email: shy@firstchoicebooks.ca