At Ooligan Press, we have two main stages in the publishing process that involve creating interior layouts for print books (not EPUBs): the galley and the final book interior. For our title Cekpa (launched in November of 2025), I had the opportunity to design both versions of the interior, and they were different processes. I wanted to take a moment to demystify what goes into each.
Ready to take your ebook production to the next level? In this post, I dive into the technical steps of building accessible InDesign files, from creating a navigable table of contents to ensuring your content is screen-reader friendly. If you’re looking to make your ebooks more inclusive and improve their accessibility, you won’t want to miss these expert tips!
From covers to interiors to collateral, InDesign is great for book designers, especially because it is a publishing industry standard. However, learning InDesign can be quite a task, especially if you are new to the industry. Here are some helpful InDesign tips that I have learned during my time at Ooligan Press.
It’s important to be well-rounded in the industry, so—through trial and error—I have gained knowledge that has helped me become a designer when I have never been one before! Through my few short months of being at Ooligan Press, I have learned some tips and tricks that have helped me become a better designer.
It’s not a bad cover by any means, but in a world where the books we read often perform as style accessories on top of mere storytelling vessels, I knew there was an opportunity to give her something more unique—something she’d love to pick up based on the cover alone. Not to mention that personalized gifts are always the best anyway!
The good news is that like many other professional-level tools like InDesign, we only use a small number of its features on a day-to-day basis. The bad news is that over the lifetime of a book, that exact “small number” changes, and by the time the manuscript is all placed, the layout designer will have checked or changed nearly everything the computer needs to know about how to format the book. The best way to become fluent with a tool like InDesign is to practice, practice, practice.