Another book project

In addition to my wife's photo book, I just completed my 6th paperback book project. This is the second book for this author who was a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

I used Georgia for the book text and SF Movie Poster for the cover text and chapter titles.

Interestingly SF Movie Poster is a free font, but only for non-commercial use so I had to pay for a license so the font would embed properly in the document.

The book was self published though KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

Even though mwenz is always telling me there are better programs for publishing, I know Designer Pro and know how to kicking and screaming, get it to do what I need it to do. And my favorite feature is the tracking control which I use liberally to expand and contract the text to eliminate widows or expand a widow to two or three words.

For the cover, I used a photo of the author which I processed in Prisma on my iPhone, saved then processed in Waterlogue, also on my iPhone.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

In addition to my wife's photo book, I just completed my 6th paperback book project. This is the second book for this author who was a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

I used Georgia for the book text and SF Movie Poster for the cover text and chapter titles.

Interestingly SF Movie Poster is a free font, but only for non-commercial use so I had to pay for a license so the font would embed properly in the document.

The book was self published though KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

Even though mwenz is always telling me there are better programs for publishing, I know Designer Pro and know how to kicking and screaming, get it to do what I need it to do. And my favorite feature is the tracking control which I use liberally to expand and contract the text to eliminate widows or expand a widow to two or three words.

For the cover, I used a photo of the author which I processed in Prisma on my iPhone, saved then processed in Waterlogue, also on my iPhone.

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Hi Gary,
looks good. Like the font for text.

So what I see is this book a softcover? If Yes then makes it sinn to do the spine a little bigger. Otherwise here in ole Germany this is a fault.

Cheers Ernie

Looks good to me Gary. I especially like the cover art.

Ernie - Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing does not offer this option. But when you consider the cost of printing on demand, around $3.50 per copy, it makes it possible to market your work on Amazon.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

...or expand a widow to two or three words...

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Gary, do you think Egg could provide a video for this? ;))

Acorn

Good job. Beautiful cover art.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

...
Even though mwenz is always telling me there are better programs for publishing, ...

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;))

That's because there are.

But I guess this issue can be found under, better the devil ya know...

Gary, you are so talented in many fields, that often we just take it for granted. So, just for the record, accept praise for being talented.

Your talent always amazes me, Gary.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Ernie - Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing does not offer this option. But when you consider the cost of printing on demand, around $3.50 per copy, it makes it possible to market your work on Amazon.

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Hi Garry,
I never worked with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing so I don't know there requirements.

If I design books then only for bigger publishing houses where the books will be printed in professionell offsetprint and bind as softcover or hardcover.

We in Germany still pay a lot of attention to classic book typesetting and typography. That's why I wondered why you have more room inside the waistband than outside.

Good luck.

Ernie - My background is 15 years in advertising working as a print and TV art director and I owned my own graphic design business in San Francisco for 12 years. I have worked with typography and I have worked with the best printers.

I add more space on the inside margins of my book to compensate for the binding. If the margins are the same, outside and inside, the type is harder to read in the middle of the book.

Ernie - You asked why I had more margin on the inside of the pages. This is what Kindle Create Publishing recommends:

Page Count - Inside Margin
24-150 - .375” (9.6 mm)
151-300 - .5” (12.7 mm)
301-500 - .625” (15.9 mm)
501-700 - .75” (19.1 mm)
701-828 - .875” (22.3 mm)

After looking at a proof copy of the book, I decided that the standard margin was not large enough and I increased it. The great thing about publish on demand is you can order a proof of the book, get the actual printed book in two to three days and make any changes that need to be made before the book goes on sale. If the book is ready, it is on the Amazon site the next day, or two days world wide. And even after the book is on Amazon, if we find a mistake, we can submit new interior or exterior content and the revised book will be available in 24 hours or less.

I am very familiar with the publishing industry. I published a book on color in the late 80s and my stereogram partner Gene Levine and I have had 6 books of stereograms published in the US, UK, Japan and a few other countries. It is a very different world.

Gary,


About how much time does it take for you to layout a book in Xara? I myself have used different programs for various layout options. I would not hesitate to use Xara.

Ray

Not that long unless your book has a lot of illustrations and charts and such. This book was a novel and what took the most time was when we got the proof and the author said the type was too small and too thin. So I had to reformat the text. But I had used Georgia for her first book and she was good with that.

Lacking Master Pages, I set up basic pages that are formatted and use the same text styles. Then use the formatted pages for the first and next few pages. Columns are set to start new pages which is a big timesaver.

My first new chapter page starts down about 1/3 from the top and the next page the text starts at the normal place. If I set the first page to automatically start a new page, the new page starts down the same distance as the first page, so I create two pages, with the first page linked to the second full text page, and then the second page set to automatically create new pages.

The entire process takes me 3-5 days. (Or 3 days and 52 years :) )

Love the cover.

Love the cover and the fonts used. You are so talented that often we take this for granted and do not appreciate all you have done on this forum and continue to do so.

Stygg