Category Archives: Recent Posts

A short note about ebook licensing for your fonts

Skilled Workman Posted on by

As a font designer, Monotype is the biggest and best. They have all the top sites: fonts.com, myfonts.com, itc.com, and several more. They are the sites used by the pros, primarily. At the least, the pros sell their fonts there also. These places are where my fonts are sold, in most cases. Ebook licensing is very new I have the entire Adobe library and several others, maybe 4000 fonts total. None of them are licensed for anything other … Continue reading →

Pictures on Kindle remains a crap shoot

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I don’t do this as often as I should (read other people’s books on self-publishing). It’s not because I don’t think they have good things to offer. Mainly it’s the result of a reasoning and a fact. First, I don’t want to accidentally plagiarize someone while writing. So, I tend to keep others’ writing out of the memory banks. Second, most non-fiction on book publishing is far too expensive for my little budget. But I picked up a copy … Continue reading →

New free images from Getty

Skilled Workman Posted on by

As you know, most of the free image resources are not worth the time to look through them. The Getty Search Gateway has a huge quantity of images. Getty’s new offering is better than most, because it is well catalogued with a good search engine. Careful! You can waste a lot of time…

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Enhanced typesetting and new inaccessible Kindle format?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Back to scratching mud Aaron Shepherd is convinced that this is true. The .kfx (which Aaron believes stands for .kf10) is a post-uploading process done to your books over the first month or two after uploading. What it means as far as he is concerned is this: In practical terms, this means there is no longer any effective way to proof your book before or after publication. You can get it looking absolutely perfect in a KDP proof, and … Continue reading →

More on Kindle Problems…

Skilled Workman Posted on by

A continuation of the Kindle formatting issues On one of the Facebook groups I participate in, there’s been some general poo-pahing over my most recent posting on the problems with Kindle formatting. I can understand it because many in that group only upload very simple novels. But the problem may be worse than I thought. So, I thought I better give some samples. In the process I found that Kindle has indeed destroyed the Kindle version of this … Continue reading →

Is it time to bail on Kindle?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Aaron Shephard is close to giving up in Kindle. [You may need to search as I could not find a post-specific link.] He’s found evidence that Amazon might, and probably will, destroy your formatting well after it has been published. As you can read below about the new KFX format, Amazon simply does that to your book. It’s out of our control and we have been given no tools to produce KFX files.   I suspected all of this, … Continue reading →

It’s time to harangue Adobe…about fonts

Skilled Workman Posted on by

There has been a brouhaha building as designers around the world are realizing that Adobe has shot itself in the foot. InDesign Secrets has an article today which covers most of the issues: Adobe Drops Fonts, Leaves Users Stranded by:  David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion | August 21, 2015 If you have installed the standards sets of fonts from your old software releases: CS2 through CS6, make sure you keep a back up. InDesign CC (2015) does not install them … Continue reading →

Canva adds a nice type glossary

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I got an email today about a type glossary at Canva. It’s nicely done. I even learned a new term: Gadzook I wish they’d used a prettier pair of ligatures. They can get real pretty (though the ones from Contenu below have quite a ways to go to reach that level). So, who knew and who cares? These are all terms you need to know to discuss type, fonts, typography and so on. These terms are a good … Continue reading →

A new reality: spam books?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Aaron Shephard gives us an interesting post today about a new category of books designed to use Kindle Unlimited to rip off readers’ minds. A post on spam books I’m not surprised, nor concerned. But for your edification, it’s happening. It’s a natural outgrowth of the marketing mentality which puts sales above everything. What do you think? I don’t think it really matters, unless I accidently buy one of these pieces of junk.

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Why you need an extended keyboard

Skilled Workman Posted on by

writing in English class, silviac I’ve talked many times over the years about needing an extended keyboard. Creative Pro has a good article about the two Enter keys and their different functions in InDesign.  But this is just the beginning of the advantages. The numerical pad on the right must be used for keyboard shortcuts for styles. Applying styles by shortcut is a major factor in production. It can cut your formatting times by 75% or more … Continue reading →