Category Archives: Writing In InDesign

What we need in a font family for books

Skilled Workman Posted on by

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 →

The special characters you must use in your books

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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 →

Writing a book? No Sweat! Right? It’s what I do

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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 →

How can I make the next book better?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

How can I make it better the next time? This is the plaintive question I get every time after I have set up, formatted, and uploaded a book for a new author. It is also one of the most common questions I see in the FaceBook and Linked-In groups, Google+ communities, and specialized author forums in which I spend time. It is coupled with the question, “How can I get the print version set up?” There are … Continue reading →

Contrary to common opinion, InDesign CC has helped ePUB export a lot

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In the ePUB world, it is amazing how much bad press is given to InDesign. In fact, the coverage given to coders and developers of ePUBs matches the hype received in the media by Obama. But we won’t go there. I just received yet another posting in an author group I am in this morning. The writer stated that InDesign does not handle embedded fonts in ePUBs well. This is simply untrue. In fact, InDesign ePUB export … Continue reading →

The new Self-Publishing Handbook is released!

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My handbook for the new breed of self-publisher is out! Why do you need to read this book? As I have become involved with the amazing variety of the new breed of authors—self publishing pioneers, it has been stunning to watch and listen as they discuss the problems they are having because they are working in Word. If they are dealing with quality issues, Word rarely has an answer. In fact, it’s sad to see that there … Continue reading →

Does quality matter in the new publishing paradigm?

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As I have been experiencing, learning, teaching, and writing about on-demand self publishing over the past decade or two [I actually started self publishing ebooks in 1993 or 4], one area of book design has slid right past most of the new authors. This is quality. We won’t even discuss how quality dropped in the slide from letterpress to offset. That’s back in the dark ages, pre-digital. Silly person! That doesn’t matter any more. The one that … Continue reading →

Just released a 69 page preview of my Self Publishing Handbook

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The book is due out in May, 2013. It will be called: Practical Professional Self Publishing Handbook The book is written for those authors who recognize that professional production is key to having their books taken seriously. They are also tired of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars every time they release a book. In addition, they are sick of the need to be constantly contacting their designer to get special previews, gift editions, updates, and all … Continue reading →

Graphics In InDesign: an excerpt from “Practical Professional Self Publishing Handbook”

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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 news. InDesign is actually more closely related to FreeHand than it is to Illustrator. Ole Kvern and I have commented on this many … Continue reading →

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

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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 ones in Linked-In groups, or GoodReads groups, and many more, the common lament is, “How do I do this in Word?” The … Continue reading →