What Designers and Publishers Miss About Typography

Typography isn’t just about choosing a good-looking font—it’s about shaping how readers experience content. In this article, I explore the subtle but powerful ways typography influences readability, trust, and storytelling. I highlight common blind spots among designers and publishers—like ignoring leading, line length, and font pairing—and explain why thoughtful typographic choices can elevate a book from amateur to professional. This is a call to treat type not as decoration, but as design’s quiet engine.

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Positioning Yourself as an Author: Branding Tips Every Self-Published Writer Needs to Know

Author Branding, Part One: Why It Matters

Readers don’t just buy books — they buy into the person behind them. In today’s crowded self-publishing market, a clear brand is essential to stand out. Your brand is your promise to readers, built on three key questions: Who am I as a writer? (Genre, voice, themes). Who am I writing for? (Target audience). Why should readers care? (Your unique value). Answer these, and you’ll create the foundation for trust, loyalty, and lasting reader connections.

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How To Get Your First 1,000 Readers as a Self-published Author

Author Branding, Part Two

Why Your First 1,000 Readers Matter. In the golden age of publishing, authors only had to focus on writing. Publishers handled printing, distribution, marketing, and branding—often turning writers into household names with eye-catching covers and clever publicity campaigns.

Today, as a self-published author, the landscape is different. The responsibility of finding readers, building a brand, and marketing your work falls on you. That’s why your first 1,000 readers are so important.

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Reliving the Golden Era of Kenyan Fiction: Revisiting the Pioneers of the 1970s

The 1970s marked a vibrant era in Kenyan literature, led by authors like Meja Mwangi, Sam Kahiga, Mwangi Ruheni, Charles Mangua, David Maillu, and Grace Ogot. These writers championed accessible, streetwise storytelling—writing for the ordinary Kenyan in a raw, humorous, and often provocative style. Their fiction explored urban life, crime, sex, struggle, and survival, blending entertainment with social realism. Bold and unfiltered, their work captured the mood of a restless generation and carved a lasting place in Kenya’s literary legacy.

Why Graphic Design Still Demands Mastery—Not Just Tools

True graphic design still demands creative, artistic skill. It's not about clicking through templates or dragging and dropping stock elements. It’s about mastering visual storytelling—using form, space, typography, color. It about the mastery of tools such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and CorelDRAW in shaping meaningful, original visual communication. By emphasizing creativity, technical skill, and artistic intent, the piece defends graphic design as a disciplined craft.

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Book Design Is Not Graphic Design—Here’s the Difference

While graphic design and book design share common roots, they are fundamentally different disciplines. Graphic designers often excel at logos, social media visuals, and marketing assets, but may lack the specialized knowledge required to design a professional, print-ready book. Book design is a craft that demands deep understanding of typesetting, layout, and readability—things like kerning, hyphenation, ligatures, and print specifications.

A book designer doesn’t just make a book look good—they ensure it reads well, feels polished, and meets publishing platform requirements.

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Book Cover Design: Why First Impression Matters

A professionally designed book cover is your most powerful marketing tool—whether in print, eBook, or digital promotion. In this post, I break down the importance of strong, genre-specific cover design in today’s saturated market, especially for indie authors. I explain my process for creating impactful print covers, high-resolution eBook formats, and eye-catching 3D mockups that elevate your book’s visibility and sales potential. Great covers don’t just attract—they convert. Let yours do the heavy lifting.

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What Is Book Interior Design?

And Why It Matters for Your Manuscript’s Success

Your book’s interior layout matters just as much as its cover. A well-designed page invites the reader in and keeps them turning. I offer custom, publication-ready interior design and typesetting services for authors and publishers who care about quality, readability, and professional presentation.

Whether you’re publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, cookbooks, memoirs, or business books, I create layouts that are tailored to your genre, audience, and publishing platform—be it KDP, IngramSpark, Blurb, or Kindle.

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