Tag Archives: Design Issues

Believe your book will change lives

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Susan, at Marketing Christian Books, makes an excellent point this morning—even for non-believers. You have to believe your book will change lives to market it effectively. This is contrary to the publisher’s position which is to believe your book will make them money. That may drive your publisher, but it will not drive your readers. Here’s a quote from Susan: Do I believe that my book has the power to help someone change their life for eternity? … Continue reading →

Kindle image size rules change again

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Again, Kindle image size rules change. Not a whole lot, but the new outrageous Kindle image sizes become more understandable. I was reading a Kindle formatting guide, from Amazon, the other day which said full-width images needed to be 3000 pixels wide. This is not that bad. However, in Aaron Shepard’s Publishing Blog today, I read the following paragraphs: But not long ago, I received one of those dread quality notices from Amazon, in this case warning me of … Continue reading →

Old Hermann Zapf film from 1967

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Today I ran across this Old Hermann Zapf film [look at the end of the post]. It’s an old film, 1967. But, it starts out with Hermann freehanding large caps with chalk on a chalkboard. It’s breathtaking. The letters look remarkably like what we finally see in Zapfino. It was produced by Hallmark during a visit Mr. Zapf made there. Here’s a quote from an article on Linotype where they have a lot more info: Hermann’s account of … Continue reading →

Some new year self-publishing trends for 2018

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Sarah, from Marketing Christian Books, has shared some new year self-publishing trends for 2018. There are five things to mull over and I think she’s right. Independent publishing will continue to grow. But this is a mixed blessing. The number of books is growing like crazy, but the number of readers hasn’t changed much since 2012. Amazon will continue to streamline operations for book publishing. There’s good reason to believe that Createspace will disappear and print books will … Continue reading →

2018 ebook conversion guide using InDesign CC

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I thought a good way to start the new year would be a 2018 ebook conversion guide. Things changed quite a bit in 2017. Plus, CC 2018 added some handy new features. Remember, I have a seemingly unusual attitude. I believe that spending a lot of time hand-coding a book is a waste of time. The good news is that InDesign CC now works well enough to make writing code unnecessary. 2018 ebook conversion guide As you know, … Continue reading →

The ebook future grows complex

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The ebook future grows complex — more confusing as far as I can tell. Right now in my work, ebook design is being largely constrained by the limits of Kindle. I’ve mentioned this several times. Increasingly Apple ebooks are becoming a problem as the Apple marketers constantly change their marketing lingo. At least monthly, Apple bounces one of my ebooks because I am using what they told me to use, i.e. the iBookstore, and now they don’t … Continue reading →

InDesign CC 2018 adds borders to shading

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I’ve waited a long time to write this: InDesign CC 2018 adds borders to shading! This is one I’ve been pushing for over the past decade or so. I was excited when they added paragraph shading. I never could understand why the borders weren’t added at the same time. Regardless, the InDesign team added them for this update. Finally, we have a good sidebar solution for ePUBs This has always been a major hassle in ePUB design. Sidebars simply don’t work … Continue reading →

Class Project MacDonald’s Light Princess free book

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In the new video course, InDesign CC Book Production, Putting the book together, one of the books actually produced is a Class Project MacDonald’s Light Princess. The Light Princess is a delightful, whimsical fairy tale by one of the major influences of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald. The cover is simply a book designer’s bit of humor. I thought you might like to have a copy to read. By clicking on the cover or the link in … Continue reading →

New release: InDesign CC Book Production, putting books together

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With this final release, InDesign CC Book Production, Putting the book together, my video coursework for book production is complete. This course removes the difficulty and relives the complexity of producing excellent quality, professional books. This is a very practical course. There is a lot to learn, but none of it is very difficult. It is very complex though. It is the goal of the course to make the complexity easy to understand and relatively simple to execute. If you have … Continue reading →

First course of book production has been released

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Today, my first course of book production has been released. I’m building video coursework for using InDesign to produce books on Udemy starting with basic typography. Actually we start with the very beginning, where you must choose: Book size Margins Column width And more This first course of book production lays a solid foundation This is the largest lack in most self-published books today. Much of it is not the fault of the author or designer—it’s the tools they are using. … Continue reading →