HomeBook ProductionePUB3Kindle book designWriting and working in InDesign makes using it easy

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Writing and working in InDesign makes using it easy — 5 Comments

  1. I’d agree with you with one important caveat. InDesign does not work at a book’s drafting stage, where texts need to be left in a crude form until what is to be said becomes clearer and where texts needs to be easily moved around constantly. At that stage is actually helps for what’s being written to not look pretty because it isn’t pretty. Having it as text with little or no formatting helps me to see what needs to be radically changed. Having little invested in how it looks, I can focus on what it says.

    That’s why I keep a book in Scrivener until the text settles down and all that remains are clearing up the details and refining the writing.

    I do believe that publishing should be a two-step, one final document operation. That’s why, once a book’s draft is complete, I move it directly into InDesign. Everything I publish will come from one ID document. Print will get a PDF. Smashwords (for now) gets a epub 2.0. Amazon gets an epub 3.0. Apple (with the new ID update) will get epub 3.0 fixed layout for iPads and ePub 3.0 reflowable for all iDevices. They all come from one document. No trying to track changes over two or more. When I need to revise, that revision is an export from that master document.

    Alas, there’s but one thing wrong for authors who’d like to use InDesign for publishing. The cheapest way they can join the ID club is a $20, single-app membership in Creative Could. It’d be absolutely great if InDesign, in a year or two, would create an author’s package like their current photographer’s package, which has Photoshop for $10 a month. An inexpensive author’s package would be great and might mean that ID sets the standard for publishing like Photoshop does for photography.

  2. I agree with your basic workflow, Michael. I was addressing what this friend said. He couldn’t use InDesign, because he didn’t use it enough. Actually, writing in InDesign as soon as the book allows it solves this problem.

    I also use Scrivener. But increasingly, I am so frustrated by its clumsiness in writing/editing that I use it less and less. Plus, I can only use it for fiction. For non-fiction, I build an outline in InDesign and then fill it out. Drag-n-drop editing in InDesign is very fast and easy to use.

  3. David,
    I think I still have a $25 credit with you, and I need to come up with a question soon.
    Thanks for the information.

    Hyde

  4. I received this comment in a personal email [name deleted for privacy] from a friend who is a reader and who became a friend:

    “Just finished your recent blog post. Very encouraging and true. With your encouragement I made the transition and it makes a big difference.”

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