[Tex/LaTex] A generic but ready-to-use book template

book-designbookstemplates

Previous materials and purpose of a book template

Let's assume for a second: I already have all the text (content) done for a book. Now, I want to set it ready for auto-publishing, in the best punk-rock Do It Yourself [DIY] style. What can I do with LaTeX?

Let's get a bit more specific. Many questions on this site ask for templates in several fields:

Math for example, and yes, as an answer there suggests memoir is generally a very good class for this purpose. In fact, that post informs of another post with a very functional painless template. One of the few and best book templates in fact that I could find: code appears clearly and not too long, compiles well. Just that when I try to add more text it just doesn't work…
Another post asks for a class to write novels. And of course comes the comment: what features are you looking for?. I'll be back on this point.
Another post looks to use LaTeX for writing a fiction book. Here appears a good requirement that is quite simple and deserves some attention: a ready-to-go template…for a book . The above painless template more or less can serve this purpose of mwe as template. However I'd like some specifications that I mention as follows.

Sidenote: another cool template is the tufte-book, but it's not prepared for changes of page-size with geometry package… Hence some requirements…

Ideas for a book template

Most books, as far as I check my bookshelf, are not made in a4 paper. So here a list of desirable basic possibilties for a book template.

Inside the book

First foursih pages could have:

1) title page with the title alone

2) blank page

3) title page with title and author name

4) copyright, and other front matter info on the book/publisher
Then: main matter/contents …yada yada
Others/index/bib/etc.
Maybe date/place of publication at the end, and perhaps some other information.

Configuration

Fit por papers of sizes other than a4. Could be different shape, or bigger or smaller than a4. I like a5, and a6.
Set some kind of typography.
As for style: this template for a speech, even if subjective, seems nice.

Subjective scope and possible answers

Yes, all these pointers are somewhat arbitrary, but a template book shall come very handy and it's a good place to start at for those who have a ready text and want to format it for print. And I haven't seen this solidly responded elsewhere. I've browsed around and page title alone requires a whole series of consideration, same with typography, page size and so on.

This question aims not only for a variety of answers but also to achieving a code that could be not too long and somewhat clean with those basic points inside the book and maybe an additional tweak or so of configuring a style.

Granted that this is not very close to getting a minimal example. But I still feel that just these few requirements could be usefull for people planning to do a book. My pointers intend to go in the same direction as a comment-link suggested:

we can work together to establish some common standards of best practice (What does that even mean?) to improve the initial state of future templates and improve the current situation

That post has very good points. And references too (tl,dr). However, even if this question may be improved I still see some valid points and that it could be a good starting point.

Best Answer

I recently posted a new document class, specifically for the purpose of a novel. It is not just a template, but a complete method for created a file in PDF/X for print-on-demand (paper, not e-book). You can find it on CTAN:

https://ctan.org/pkg/novel

It comes with elaborate documentation, directed toward writers rather than programmers. You may need to start from scratch, but that should not be difficult, as the document class is pre-configured for the most likely needs of book publishing.

You can also see a demonstration novel (from public domain) both in the LaTeX code and finished PDF.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Simple latex book template

You should always provide some code where you have started; writing down your requirements doesn't really help. OTOH, vanilla LaTeX doesn't have a good support for multi-author books. This is a starting point for you mostly based on titlesec package. You have to use the command \chapauthor{name} before \chapter command when you have an author, otherwise \chapauthor{} for things like \tableofcontents.

\documentclass[openright,twoside,10pt]{book}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{%
  textwidth  = 156mm ,
  textheight = 234mm ,
  a4paper            ,
  includehead        ,
  hcentering         ,
  vcentering
}

\usepackage[osf,proportional,space]{erewhon}
\usepackage[rigidchapters,pagestyles]{titlesec}
\usepackage{titletoc,lipsum,multicol}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\chap@author{}
\newcommand\chapauthor[1]{%
  \cleardoublepage
  \gdef\chap@author{#1}%
}
\def\chap@author{}

\titleformat{\chapter}[hang]
  {\LARGE\bfseries\filright}
  {\thechapter}
  {0pt}
  {%
    \ifx\chap@author\@empty\else
      \setlength{\unitlength}{1mm}%
      \begin{picture}(0,0)
        \put(0,-17){\makebox(0,0)[l]{\Large\mdseries\itshape \chap@author}}
      \end{picture}%
    \fi
  }
  [%
    \thispagestyle{empty}%
    \ifx\chap@author\@empty\else
      \addtocontents{toc}{%
        \vspace{-5pt}%
        \protect\contentsline{chapter}{\mdseries\itshape \chap@author}{}{}%
      }%
      \addtocontents{toc}{\addvspace{5pt}}%
    \fi
    \startcontents
  ]

\titleformat{\section}[hang]
  {\Large\bfseries\filright}
  {\thesection}
  {0pt}
  {}

\titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{0pt}{3cm}
\titlespacing*{\section}{0pt}{.75pc}{.5pc}

\newpagestyle{main}{%
  \sethead[%
    \ifx\chap@author\@empty
      {\makebox[1.5pc][l]{\thepage}{\lsstyle\MakeUppercase\chaptertitle}}%
    \else
      {\makebox[1.5pc][l]{\thepage}{\lsstyle\MakeUppercase\chap@author}}%
    \fi]
    [][]
    {}{}{}
}

\renewcommand\@makefntext[1]{%
  \parindent 1em%
  \noindent
  \hb@xt@1.8em{\hss\@makefnmark\hspace{0.5em}}#1}

\let\footnoterule\relax

\makeatother

\usepackage[activate=true]{microtype}

\pagestyle{main}

\setcounter{secnumdepth}{-1}

\raggedbottom

\begin{document}

\chapauthor{Christoper S. Chapman}
\chapter{Controlling Strategy}

\begin{multicols}{2}[\subsubsection*{Contents of this chapter}]
   \printcontents{}{1}{\setcounter{tocdepth}{2}}
\end{multicols}

Norman 1965, Kaplan 1987 \\\lipsum[1]

Footnotes look like\footnote{Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste
  natus error si.  Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error,
  si.  Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error si.}
and\footnote{Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error si.  Sed
  ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error, si.  Sed ut
  perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error si.}.

\section{The relationship between management control systems and
  strategy}
\lipsum[1]

\section{Any Relationship between management control systems and
  strategy?}
\lipsum[1]

\section{No Relationship between management control systems and
  strategy!}
\lipsum

\chapauthor{}
\tableofcontents

\end{document}

Children book/picture book template

As most babies don't need table of contents, cross references, as well as bibliography, I think using slides (such as beamer class) is more appropriate.

If features provided by beamer are too advanced for the babies, we can write the slides manually with drawing packages, such as PSTricks, TikZ, Asymptote, MetaPost, etc.

Here is an example with PSTricks:

\documentclass[pstricks,border=10mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{lmodern}

\newenvironment{slide}[1][]{\pspicture[#1](200mm,138mm)}{\endpspicture}
\newcommand{\cc}[1]{\rput[b](100mm,10mm){\parbox{180mm}{\centering\fontsize{25pt}{35pt}\selectfont #1}}}
\begin{document}
\slide[showgrid]
\pscircle[fillcolor=red,fillstyle=solid](100mm,80mm){15mm}
\cc{This is a ball on a table.}
\endslide
\slide
\pscircle[fillcolor=red,fillstyle=solid](100mm,80mm){15mm}
\psline[linewidth=10pt]{->}(100mm,80mm)(100mm,40mm)
\uput{5mm}[r](100mm,50mm){\fontsize{25pt}{35pt}$\vec{F}=G\,\frac{m M}{r^3}\,\hat{r}$}
\cc{Gravitational force acting on the ball. Ouch Charlie! That really hurts!}
\endslide
\end{document}