Forbes has a fun article called: The Man Who Took on Amazon and Saved a Bookstore It is this type of technology which will let the local bookstore compete against Amazon. The Expresso Book Machine can publish out-of-print titles and much more. Of course, Createspace can do this also. It will be interesting to see how Expresso develops. I’m checking it out to see if they will list my books. For those not familiar, the Expresso … Continue reading →
From the Shatzin files this morning: “I think the questioner in this case was also trying to pull us into a discussion of video, audio, interaction, and linking, which I resist for two reasons. One is that, so far, the preponderence of ebooks that have sold any appreciable quantities have not had any of those attributes. They’re just the same words as in the printed books made reflowable for a screen. The second is that my world … Continue reading →
I regularly provide production help to Christian authors, as led by the Spirit. Feel free to contact me. What I want to do below is give you some idea of the options I offer. We can also negotiate custom relationships. Radiqx Press Production Charges Most of my books are done as a whole, so editing, proofing, formatting, exporting for upload are all part of the same process. I normally charge $60/hour for my billable time. To prepare a … Continue reading →
This infographic shows a lot of what goes into a good font. More than that it enables you to talk about it. I do not agree with all of it. But it is very good. For example, for me aperture is about the openness of the c, s, and characters like that. The poster calls the opening of the u the aperture. We’re probably both right. It’s copyrighted or I’d put it in this posting and talk … Continue reading →
Today I want to talk about an area of ePUB and Kindle design which is never mentioned. The reason it is not mentioned is that only iBooks and Kindle Fire have the capability. There are a few peripheral apps that can: Bluefire on the iPad & Readium on Chrome, plus there may be more on Android, but I have no way to test that. There is a huge difference between the two options You can clearly … Continue reading →
Use a companion font for the heads & subheads This font family needs to be carefully chosen. It needs to have enough contrast to the body copy font to make the heads stand out. But it must have the same, or a very similar, x-height. This way you can use it comfortably for things like run-in heads, where the first few words in a paragraph are used as a contrasting low-level subhead. Your family choice should probably … Continue reading →
As typographers and book designers, we need a minimum three-font family—regular, italic, and bold: Italic is necessary for periodical names and emphasis. Bold is used for proper names and headers. As you saw at the start of this paragraph I used a bold through the colon to emphasize an important point. In my books I use my Bold Sans Serif. But regardless of which font family you choose it must satisfy several basic requirements of book design. … Continue reading →
Today, in the digital arena, a font is simply a complete set of characters for a given style: In InDesign, for example, a font can be set as any size from a tenth of a point to 1296 points. Below I am showing you the font used for my books, named Contenu Book (which I designed), showing some of the 563 characters available in it. Notice the three styles of numbers (among other things). Contenu Book This … Continue reading →
I’ve been working on the third edition of Writing In InDesign due out around the first of the year. As usual, I am writing a lot, rearranging everything, doing everything I can to make it more helpful and uplifting to my readers. It will also include the exciting new advances in ebook design and formatting now possible with InDesign CC. But this is just a quote about why we do what we do: ♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦•♦ So, I’m a writer … Continue reading →
A Gizmag article this morning is intriguing, This really looks promising. It’s a mouse/stick the size of a sharpie that will draw on the surface of your choice. I’ve never liked tablets. This might be the clear deal.
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