eBook Design: Visual Content Marketing Is Now
With such a heavy focus on visuals, the formatting and design of eBooks is an essential part of the process, and one that can make or break the asset’s effectiveness as a marketing tool. Brafton’s eBook formatting and design services are geared toward ease of use for clients, providing a wide range of options, including both the creation of original eBooks and the layout of already-existing text.
Various teams, composed of industry-focused writers, content marketing strategists, project managers and graphic designers, work together to provide customized content marketing collateral designed with conversion rate optimization in mind.
Our end-to-end eBook process is patented to optimize the creation, distribution, promotion and conversion potential of this powerful content marketing asset.
The Value of eBooks
Your eBook format, cover design and publishing process helps define your company’s brand image, thought leadership and creativity. These assets are incredibly multifunctional — they can be used to:
- Nurture mid-funnel prospects via email.
- Capture key contact information through a form fill on your website.
- Enhance blog posts by embedding visual eBook CTAs.
- Encourage social sharing due to stellar design and thought-provoking commentary on industry trends and predictions.
While designing an asset for eBook readers, it’s also valuable to consider the full range of your audience. eBooks satisfy the content preferences of visual-first learners and research-heavy consumers alike. Because each page features insightful takeaways, eBooks can be either short or long form, with the interior layout formatted to highlight key points for easy scannability and accessibility.
eBook Formatting à la Carte
Brafton can author and design an entirely new eBook. Alternatively, clients can leverage our proofreading and editing services to help polish existing copy. We can either help convert a print book, white paper or long-form research report into a digestible digital eBook, too. Your ultimate eBook format is configured to attract readers through the content types they prefer.
Either way, creating an eBook from scratch with your Brafton creative team isn’t always necessary. If you already have copy ready to be transformed into an eBook, you can utilize Brafton eBook formatting services to provide your text with a sophisticated, easy-to-read layout that shows your brand in a polished, professional light. Just send over your existing content in a Microsoft Word doc, Google Doc or other text format, and our designers will pick up at layout.
Whether the eBook copy is created by our writing team or in-house, gifted graphic designers are on hand to apply industry best practices, incorporate specific design preferences and implement existing brand guidelines, including company colors and logos. Your assigned designer collaborates directly with you to align on and recommend the best layout and eBook file format.
eBook Design From Scratch
If you’re seeking a new, customized eBook launch, your Brafton creative team will work with you to generate an appropriate topic, outline the text, interview subject matter experts, research authoritative industry sources and author high-quality copy designed to inform and engage your target audience.
Every Brafton eBook is customized with specific commercial goals in mind, with client feedback and preferences incorporated into the text every step of the way. Once the copy is approved, the eBook is brought to life by the creative team’s dedicated graphic designer.
eBook Design Process
Working alongside your content writer, Brafton graphic designers are involved in the eBook production process from the start. They begin by examining the asset’s outline to gain a better sense of the specific topic, following up with the creative team and client with any questions. From there, they conduct research for branding and visual design purposes. Oftentimes, designers will present clients with various templates and themes for their eBooks based on the topic, associated keywords and any appropriate imagery. Your existing visual branding is taken into account, and any relevant collateral is collected for inspiration and to ensure consistency.
Brafton graphic designers also consider how the eBook will fit into your current content marketing strategy, as well as how it will complement and support any existing visual collateral. The goal is to maintain brand consistency while providing a custom-built, effective content marketing asset. Existing imagery from client-provided collateral, as well as specific color schemes and fonts, often provide the initial foundation of the eBook.
Throughout this process, we’re also considering the future state of your eBook across various channels, such as eBook conversion goals for email and eBook publishing formats for social media, among others.
After themes and art styles are determined, designers work to establish a general layout for the eBook. This includes considerations such as cover pages, tables of contents and other basic presentation and arrangement factors. Using cutting-edge design software, Brafton’s creative team is also able to include interactive digital elements within the eBook to increase engagement and assist with asset navigation.
Once the eBook is fully laid out, complete with finished fonts, colors, illustrations, photographs and interactive design components, it is provided to the client for final approval. All feedback and any last-minute editing requests are incorporated into the eBook to create the final product within Adobe InDesign.
eBook Design Best Practices
From cover design to contact page, effective eBooks are created with content marketing best practices in mind. During the formatting and design process, the Brafton creative team works to ensure proven guidelines are followed, including using minimal text on each page and ensuring the visual design of the eBook supports both your storytelling and commercial objectives.
Writers and designers collaborate to balance insightful, impactful text with imagery and appealing design elements. While client-provided designs can be implemented easily, designers strive to create custom, one-of-a-kind imagery to better establish thought leadership on the part of the client. These take the form of unique ebook cover design, illustrations, icons, charts, graphs or other visual design options. Various art styles are available, from more illustrative arrangements to photo-realistic compositions. Your creative team will work to offer a variety of options based on client preferences and audience appeal.
Once completed and approved, Brafton content marketing strategists assist with eBook publishing. Our experts will help you determine which channels to publish on, and in what file format. After we upload the eBook files, we can begin promoting the asset to maximize conversions. This is accomplished through the creation of customized eBook calls to action.