Investing in print design
If you're off to the garden centre for a rare variety of rose, chances are, if you did find it, it might not be cared for in the right way and will take more effort, worse, it'll die. You're better off going to a specialist rose grower who will have cared for it well and can help you to nurture it as it reflects on their expertise. It's a nicer plant and better use of your cash.
There's nothing wrong with Canva for quick wins, (responsibly used with respect to our carbon footprints, of course). I use it, and Adobe Express, for myself and clients. Other book builder tools exist (note builder not design!).
For work that's been around for longer and requires professional touches because the audience is investing more time, effort, and money, I advise using specialist software. Often, it's only when a book is out there and readers give feedback that authors appreciate that book page design is a speciality.
This is why I use InDesign for print design:
InDesign provides precise control over page layout, allowing the creation of consistent, professional-looking designs.
InDesign has advanced typesetting features so text follows the same styles across entire publications. This includes GREP options to quickly address snags like messy line lengths and stray words that distract readers and devalue a book.
InDesign is amazing at creating multi-page documents like books, magazines, and catalogues, with features like parent pages
InDesign supports high-resolution output and superior colour management, and it has prepress tools like bleed settings and slug areas, which help prepare documents for professional printing.
I have used Affinity and rate that too. Back in the day, I was a Quark Xpress fan and survived Pagemaker 1). I tend to favour InDesign because it's not the industry standard, and means that I'm more likely to find an answer to any questions
It will also be easier for future designers to access the files. When Quark Xpress lost its market share, I was one of many designers who made a small profit converting Quark files to InDesign!
I also know it well. I estimate it's been at least fifteen years of use, so those keyboard commands and font errors are easy to address for me.
Image shows white text on a purple background that reads "The sample chapter already looks better than the last edition' with this explanation 'Praise from a client whose first edition book was created by them in Canva and has asked me to update the second edition using Indesign. I created a sample design, introducing GREP expressions and Keep Options in Indesign to remove widows, grunts and orphans to improve ragged lines, text flow and give a professional feel so that the design doesn’t distract the reader.' Text ends www.hellolovely.design
