Book Templates for Self‑Publishing: Find a Free Book Cover Template for Covers and Inside Pages

Free book templates give you an easy way to get a professional-looking book in no time.

48 Hour Books offers free book formatting templates and book cover templates, so your book stands out and looks great.

Learn why book templates streamline the publishing process and how to choose the best book cover template for your book. Plus, download your choice of free book design templates, so you can get started right away.

What is a book template?

There are two basic kinds of book templates:

Book layout templates are for the interior of your book (the pages inside)

Book layout templates are also sometimes called book formatting templates or book interior design templates. They’re like a blueprint for your book. Book templates are documents that are pre-formatted so that all you have to do is fill in your text.

Interior book design templates take the guess work out of sizing, fonts, spacing, and margins, so you know your book will look professional and crisp.

Book cover templates are for the exterior (the cover)

When to use a book layout template

You don’t need to wait until after you’ve written your book to download a book template!

In fact, if you download a free book formatting template before you’ve written your book, you can save lots of time later, during the formatting stage. Book templates make it easy, too. You don’t need to fuss with document settings: You can just open up the file and start typing right into the template.

What is a book cover template?

A book cover template helps you design the cover of your book. These book templates help you design not just the front of your book, but the spine (where the pages come together) and the back cover, too.

Book cover design templates help you account for all the major parts of a cover design, so you know you aren’t leaving anything to chance during the book printing process. Plus, they ensure that your book has the right dimensions for sending to the book printer.

When to use a book cover template

A great time to use a book cover design template is after you’ve written your book and are ready to begin the self-publishing process. The book cover template helps you refine your cover design, and you’ll need it to be complete before you can order a printing of your book.

Why use a book template?

Using a book template helps ensure your book is formatted correctly for printing. When you use a template, you don’t need to worry that your file is the wrong size. Book templates ensure you’ve got the right document dimensions for the printer. This streamlines the printing of your book and reduces the risk of errors in formatting which can slow down the publishing process.

Using book templates also saves you time. You don’t need to learn graphic design or typesetting in order to use a book template. You can be a beginner and still have a beautifully formatted book when you use a book design template.

Book template options

Book templates are not one size-fits-all. As you might expect, just like there are many different sizes and styles of books, there are many different options for book templates, too. Some common types of book template options include:

Cover style (soft cover or hardcover)
Size (i.e., 6”x9”, 7”x7”)
File type (Microsoft, InDesign, Photoshop, etc.)

Which book template you choose will depend on your book, the desired finished size, your intended audience, your personal preferences, and your software program compatibility.

For interior book templates, you’ll likely use a word-processing program such as Microsoft Word.

For book cover templates, you’ll probably use creative design software such as Adobe Photoshop (image software) or Adobe InDesign (a layout program).

Using the right size book template

To choose the right size book template, start with an idea of what size book you’d like to produce. (These are also called “trim sizes,” because the printer “trims” the pages to this size.) How big should your book be? While ultimately it’s your choice and your decision, there are a few standard sizes when it comes to publishing your book.

Book sizes

For reference, fiction books are usually 4.25” x 7”, 5.5” x 8.5”, or 6” x 9”.

Non-fiction books are usually 6” x 9”, 7” x 10”, or 8.5” x 11”.

Children’s books are typically 7” square or 7” x 10”.

Memoirs are often 5.5” x 8.5”.

4.25” x 7” (novel)
5.5” x 8.5” (half-letter)
6” x 9” (trade)
8.5” x 11” (magazine)

We also provide custom page sizes, so you can get exactly what you want! Custom sizes are especially suited for photo books and cookbooks.

Book cover size calculator

Once you’ve chosen your trim size, you can calculate your book’s cover size.

We offer a cover size calculator to help you determine what size your book cover should be. The calculator takes into account how many pages your book is and what type of cover you’ll be using. Both of these factors affect the final document dimensions. This is especially useful for determining how wide your book’s spine should be.

Choose from soft cover or hardcover size calculator,
then click to download the file.

Perfect bound/Soft cover size calculator

Case bound/hardcover size calculator

Open with Adobe Acrobat or another PDF reader.

Then, enter your selected book size, paper stock, and number of pages in the document to get the exact dimensions of your book’s cover. (Find out how many pages your book contains by checking the file in your word-processing program.)

How do you use a book cover template?

To use a book cover template, you will first need to choose which software you want to use to create your cover. We offer two free cover design templates (Adobe Indesign and PDF) in four of our common book sizes.

PDF

PDF templates can be opened in several editing programs including Adobe Photoshop, which is a well-known program that’s useful for creating graphics, images, and, book covers. You can purchase this software from Adobe and download it to your computer.

Our PDF book cover templates will have the file extension .pdf. When you open a PDF book template in Photoshop, you’ll be able to design your cover on top of the template: enter text, adjust settings, and even insert images or photos. You can also open this template in Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat and simply use it as a guide to determine how to lay out and correctly size your book cover.

InDesign

Perhaps, lesser known in the Adobe suite of software is a program called InDesign. This software is designed for use in Adobe inDesign and PDF layout, making it perfect for composing your book’s cover. Documents for this program will have the file extension .indd. When you open an InDesign book template, you’ll see margins, bleed, and trim area, plus room for text and images.

The trim is the outside edge where the paper is “trimmed.” The bleed shows where printing that goes off the edge of the page will end. It helps avoid tell-tale white lines when you have images or graphics that should go all the way to the edge.

Using the book cover template

Use the form below to access your free cover design template, then download it to your computer

Next, open the file in the corresponding design program.

Add your text and images. Using the text cursor, enter your book title, author name, and other information in text fields.

Then, insert photos, images, or graphics as required. We recommend that your images be at least 300 dpi for best printing quality; zoom in to about 200% to get an idea of how blurry images may print.

You can change colors and select your favorite fonts, too.

Be sure to stay within the margins. Keep all text at least 0.5” away from the edges of the front cover, back cover, and spine. This will avoid portions of your text being “cut off,” difficult to read, or even missing.

Watch the bleed (this is the pink shaded area on the cover template). The bleed area extends past the edge of your page and will get cut off. If you’re using a background, make sure it reaches to the outer edge of the pink bleed area. If not, your cover may have unwanted areas of white where the background failed to reach before it was trimmed.

Using the book layout template

Use the form below to access your free book layout template, then download it to your computer

Next, open the file in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word.

If you haven’t started writing yet, simply start typing! We’ve included placeholder text to show you how everything will look, so be sure to delete that by highlighting any text you don’t want and pressing the “delete” or “backspace” key on your keyboard. If you’ve already typed your book elsewhere, you can either:

A) select all of the text in the template and paste your entire book in its place – you’ll have to add styles and formatting to each section afterwards - or,

B) copy and paste each chapter and heading one at a time to preserve the template formatting.

Add pictures wherever you'd like by going to the "Insert" menu and choosing the image file from where it is saved on your computer. You're also welcome to change the font size, style, and spacing as you wish!

Save the file as both a Word Document (for edits in the future) and as a PDF. After saving, open up your PDF to confirm nothing has shifted out of place.

Get free book templates

Enter your information to receive free book templates you can use in self-publishing your book.

Yes! Send me my FREE Book Templates.