Important note: This is a critical review and not a salesletter or an ad!

Format

Ebook (PDF-file). 102 pages.

Review

"How to design and create a great ebook even if you don't know a font from a folio and haven't a clue as to how to begin anyway..." by Neil Tarvin is not the typical guide to creating ebooks, which you can find a lot of places on the Internet. 

It's not an attempt to cover every aspect of ebook publishing. And I like that. Because, all too often such attempt fail. The subject of ebook publising has so many aspects, that most books on the subject, get rather superficial at several points. 

For example, often you just hear that your ebook "should look nice and clean to the reader and be easy to read". 

But what exactly does that mean?

Neil Tarvin's book, "How to design and create a great ebook even if you don't know a font from a folio and haven't a clue as to how to begin anyway...", is an attempt to answer this question. It's a guide to making your ebooks look great, while still being easy to read and apply.

Neil Tarvin adds his own particular viewpoints and experiences to the ebook-publishing business. This means that this book isn't just a copycat of all the other books on the same subject. For example, Neil has a really good chapter on how to be creative and get ideas for your coming ebooks.

In this connection I really like the useful questions Neil gives his readers, which may be very helpful when trying to get and formulate new product-ideas. His sections on how to brain storm and use mindmaps are really great. In particular his section on using mindmaps is really good. Neil goes to great lengths to show hisreaders how to use mindmaps.

"How to design and create a great ebook even if you don't know a font from a folio and haven't a clue as to how to begin anyway..." is published as a PDF-document, and it's obvious that Neil prefers this format to the compiled html-files ebooks. Neil lists several good arguments for using the PDF-format, which probably will convince many readers to use this format too.

Though the book is not primarily a tutorial on creating PDF-documents, it contains a lot of useful tips on how to make such documents. Besides, Neil gives his readers good advice on such questions as, which font (sans or sans serif) you should use for your book. If you don't have a clue what I mean by this, you'll be glad to take a look at Neil's book. Neil makes even complicated subject easy to understand.

Neil also gives you some good advice on the use of graphics and how colors affect the reader.

The visual view of "How to design and create a great ebook even if you don't know a font from a folio and haven't a clue as to how to begin anyway..." is really good.

At several places in his book, Neil has added useful screen captures and illustrations that'll make it easier for the more visually minded reader to get a grasp of what he's talking about. This is a very commendable aspect of this book. Personally I really like such visuals which break up the text and give you a different view of the content of what you're reading.

Besides, I really like the bubbles Neil has added to several of the screen captures. They make it clear to the reader how to use the software etc. illustrated in the screen captures.

In some books you get the impression that the screen captures, illustrations and images are pure filler, added to the book in order to make it seem larger. Recently I bought such a book by a well known marketer. This book had a lot of visuals - screen captures, illustrations, images and so on. But what was really annoying is that most of these illustrations don't have a really purpose. They have no obvious meaning - except for making the book look larger than it actually is.

But this does certainly not apply to this book by Neil Tarvin. And I don't think Neil has overdone it, though he has a lot of illustrations. Each illustration has a clear purpose - namely to make the content more understandable to the reader. 

Neil's book also tells you what you should probably always include in your book, such as title page, copyright, table of contents etc., etc. And he explains each point and tells you what you would probably include.

It's obvious that Neil knows what he's talking about. This is also clearly indicated by all the useful tips Neil gives the reader. For example, he shows his readers how to avoid long, blank pages in PDF-documents, after a page break. Such small but useful tips can be very valuable to the ebook creator.

One thing I miss in Neil's book, is some good references and links to useful software and other resources. This would have made the book even more useful. For instance, so far as I can see Neil doesn't tell his readers which software program he's using for making his nice mind maps and screen captures. Personally I know which programs he probably has used, but it would have been fine if he had told us.

Overall assessment

In my opinion this is a really useful book. Unlike many books on the subject of ebook-publishing, Neil's book doesn't claim that you'll be able to earn tens of thousands of dollars after having read it. It's certainly not a get-rich-quick book. Instead it's a sober guide to making your ebooks look really nice and readable.

If you've already written an ebook, or if you're considering to write one, I'd strongly advice you to read this useful book. Think on it, you've maybe spent months writing your book. But it doesn't help you very much if your readers don't like your book because it doesn't look very well. Admit it, if you get a book that looks really amateurish, you probably think that the content isn't any good either. Don't you agree?

Neil's book does a really good job at showing you how to make your ebooks look nice and clean, while being easy to read and apply.

I miss some good references to software and and other resources for the ebook publisher. But despite this criticism, I think this book is a good investment for every aspiring ebook publisher - and many more experienced publishers too.

Price (at the time of this writing)

US $27

Buying information

Web site

http://www.ebookgraphics.com/design/index.html

Email

infodesign@ebookgraphics.com