Disclaimer: I don't have any formal design or typesetting training.
Having said that, here's my comments on your PDF:
I hate the drop shadow on the border. I'm not fond of the border either - it's a bit plain given the rest of the page.
The fancy capitals need to be bigger, as they have such a complex design. The font for the rest of the text on the title page should match the capitals design better – at the very least another serif font.
I'd be inclined to put "of the" on one line, and perhaps even slightly smaller than the rest. I'd also put your name onto one line.
If I could find a symmetric ornament that matched for the middle, I'd flip the bottom ornament to mirror the top ornament.
I'd place the dedication a little further down its page.
The first paragraph of each chapter should have no indent. Also the fancy capital needs to be a lot bigger - it's so complex that the design will just be a smudge at the size you have it. You could either have it just as a large initial letter, or even as a drop cap over (at least) two lines. Three would probably be better given how complex it it.
Obviously this is only an initial flow into your template, but you'll need to do a lot of work on this to make it look good.
Page 1, third paragraph: avoid the "ers." alone on the last line. You could do this by tweaking the tracking of the paragraph a little. It looks like a little negative tracking will pull "wish" on the third line back onto the second line, and that shoudl do it.
Page 1, third paragraph. You seem to have a hyphen when you should have an en-dash. You seem to have used an en-dash correctly in the second paragraph. Ditto in the fourth paragraph. And throughout the sample, it seems.
Page 1, fourth paragraph: The "Some." on its own is ugly, but you might have to live with it.
Page 2: Your ellipses need to be done with non-breaking spaces between the full stops. That way you'll avoid the nasty breaks in the second and fifth paragraphs.
Page 2/3: ugly orphan "with my hair down." on the page break. But facing pages, so not to worry about if it can't be easily fixed.
Page 3, 8th para: "ing." ugh.
Page 3/4: You can't leave "you." alone on the next page, especially as it's over a page turn.
Chapter pages: Given the centred chapter number and title, it might look better to make the page number of this pages centred on the text block as well.
I also thing the page number style does match the rest of the page very well. Perhaps changing the old-style numbers for the page number would look better?
Given that you've used “curly” quotes for speech, you really ought to use a proper apostrophe ’ rather than the straight ascii apostrophe '.
Quote:
Originally Posted by khalleron
So, many of you know that I'm writing a novel. I intend to offer it as ebook for free to anyone who'll read it, but since most of my friends don't have ebook readers, I'm also planning to do a POD on CreateSpace for those who'd rather have a paper copy.
I'm learning some typesetting stuff as I go along, but I'd really like some opinions from those who know more than I do about that. I'll attach the first two and half chapters I have done in PDF for anyone who'd like to give me pointers.
I do wonder if the Title Page might have too many swirly things on it.
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