Announcements » The Skilled Workman

April 5th, 2013

If you want a true glimpse of printing: current letterpress printing here’s a video

If you have 40 years in printing as I do, this video is a real joy. If you are a new self publisher, it will give you a much better feel for printing.

http://vimeo.com/62635922

Here’s a glimpse of traditional printing, before on-demand printing

But actually, this is close to on-demand letterpress. This will

Continue reading If you want a true glimpse of printing: current letterpress printing here’s a video

April 3rd, 2013

Great free resource for old books on calligraphy & penmanship

I found this link in an article on CreativePro this morning.

International Association of Master Penmen • Engrossers • Teachers of Handwriting

This organization [IAMPETH] began as a group where penmen could get together and share techniques and ideas not just about doing fine penmanship, but teaching the art as well. In this day of computerized type, hand pen work is

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April 2nd, 2013

The Book designer's Book Typography and Fonts package

Make your book professional

Self Publisher Book Typography & Font Only $49.99

For self publishers the conversion from Word to InDesign is a huge leap. The goal is a professional look to their book designs, but immediately the problems of typography raise their head. In Word that is not so much of an issue because

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March 30th, 2013

Graphics In InDesign: an except from

This is the first portion of the new Practical Professional Self Publishing Handbook due out before summer this year.

InDesign is the true replacement for FreeHand

Many designers are still upset that Adobe took FreeHand off the market. We remain convinced that FreeHand was a far superior vector drawing program to Illustrator. Actually, I bring good

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February 28th, 2013

Nook dying? B&N could go DRM-free and hook up with the iPad

Now I admit, I’m going on the words of others. I personally bailed on the Nook app and B&N a while ago. I am saddened by the troubles of the local B&N—it’s the only bookstore in town.

I was hoping for viable competition to Amazon, but it is just not there. As they are stuck in

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February 19th, 2013

The crusade against sloppy ice cream melting all over your hand

Tonight to celebrate our 37th, Pat and I went and had some of best ice cream we’ve ever eaten. The new Mom & Pops ice cream parlor on North Riverfront brings to mind a new clean, modern version of Baskin Robbins owned by locals with better ice cream. As Minnesotans, we spit in ol’Man Winter’s eye

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January 30th, 2013

The sadness of Word & how it's damaging self publishing

As I have become more social online, the prevailing grief for me is listening to all the new authors whose main problem is that they are using Word. Whether it’s one of my Facebook groups like Christian Indie Authors or Indie Christian Authors, a Google+ community like Christian Authors, or the authors who tweet, the

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January 1st, 2013

Smashwords now takes ePUBs!

This is really big news. This is especially true for someone who writes and works in InDesign. Up ’til now, I’d finish a book and spend a full day to: export the PDFs, export the KF8 file for Kindle, and export the various ePUBs for the iBookstore, Nook, and Kobo—then uploading to Createspace for print, Kindle

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December 28th, 2012

The use of InDesign & Photoshop is essential stewardship for DIY publishers

This morning I am reading an article by Marc Coker (the founder of Smashwords) about what’s coming in near future for authors and publishers. He has some very good things to say. Here’s a quote that is particularly relevant to us.

As a self published author, you’re the publisher. You’re running a business. The lifeblood

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December 20th, 2012

Access the stuff in dock

I found this interesting. Bob Levine pointed out in InDesign Magazine that Word’s DOCX file format is a glorified ZIP file.

“Change the extension to ZIP, unzip it, and you’ll find all of the document’s original assets, including the images as individual files in a folder. More importantly, InDesign can access the original high-resolution images

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