Tag Archives: publishing

Using styles enables global control of your book’s typography

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Today I’m mentioning the basic structure of typography. There is one concept which enables typography as we know it in modern book publishing. This is the concept of styles. These styles are contained in styles panels. InDesign has five of them: paragraph, character, object, table, and cell. Styles are also available in word processors—even though they are not nearly so powerful there. What is a style? A style is a collection of specialized typographic defaults that can … Continue reading →

Get a grip about Amazon! They’ll sell your books.

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Writer Folks – Time to “Man-up” about Amazon. You don’t matter that much. « Andy Holloman – Novel – “Shades of Gray”. Andy has nailed it here. Amazon is too large to personally deal with each one of us. We need to be thankful that they’ll let us in—at all. Lulu is just as bad for the same reasons. The point is: You do not have to use them!  

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Getting set up to freely create your type

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One of the more daunting aspects of book design for the inexperienced is page layout. Most people have Word experience and as I have said countless times already—Word cannot do professional page layout. In fact, it is worse than that because Word’s feeble attempts give you bad habits and poor expectations—which must be corrected. I’m assuming that you have your preferences set up; and that you have designed a good, efficient workspace that fits your style of … Continue reading →

Learning to walk in freedom, Part 7: Galatians 3:15-19a

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Today we talk about two things where most people really mess up: covenants & morality. God‘s solution is always unique and edifying. ___________________________________ Galatians 3 Verse 3:15 Dear brothers and sisters, here’s an example in human terms. Just as no one can set aside or amend an accepted contract, so it is in this case. It is always good to get these truths into everyday experience. We need to look at our laws to see how they … Continue reading →

Self-publishers need excellent typography

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Things have changed so much in book publishing, that you must understand the new paradigm and why this means you must understand typography. Self-published authors must learn the art of communication with type. This is an excerpt from Writing In InDesign 2nd Edition which will be released as soon as possible. Here’s a link to the 1st edition _________________________________________ Writing within InDesign Here I am again recommending a road less traveled by—not unusual in my life and work. … Continue reading →

If Apple launches their Self-Publishing Program? | Good E-Reader – ebook Reader and Tablet PC News

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What does it mean for Aggregator Companies if Apple launches their Self-Publishing Program? | Good E-Reader – ebook Reader and Tablet PC News. I would assume this must be good, right? More options for we the authors. But that remains to be seen. How will this affect you? I’m not sure it will affect me at all—unless, of course, Apple uses this like Amazon is doing, to cut off competition.

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A look at the ebook revolution: known & unknown

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Four years into the ebook revolution: things we know and things we don’t know – The Shatzkin Files. I received a link to this from Joel this morning. It’s a good review and an eye-opener, if you haven’t been paying attention. Mike says: “One could say (and I would) that the ereading revolution is coming up to its 4th anniversary since it was late November 2007 when Amazon first released the Kindle. There had been dedicated ereading … Continue reading →

Book Making: Lightning Source vs. CreateSpace from Michael Marcus

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Book Making: Lightning Source vs. CreateSpace again. I’ve always been happy with Createspace. I like Lulu for many things. I’ve never tried Lightning Source, but this leads me to believe I’ve not missed, much.  

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Why I switched back to Fontographer 5.1

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Personally, I started in Fontographer in the early 1990s and gradually built a little sideline of designing fonts. They were selling a little on Myfonts.When OpenType became viable with the release of InDesign I needed to find something else. My old version of Fontographer would not run in Mac OSX very well. Thomas Phinney, then of Adobe, told me I had no option but to go to FontLab. This transformed my career. I learned how to write … Continue reading →

Writing in InDesign gives you layout power

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I’ve been working on a new expanded version of “Writing In InDesign” for my peers in ministry. (I haven’t figured out how to add the updates into the first edition.) I may write “Drawing In InDesign” first. Then I’ll do a radically expanded 2nd edition of “Writing In InDesign”—but that’s all in flux. I also received this in an email this morning: From Don in Colorado: I was up until 3:am reading Writing in InDesign. I can tell you’ve put … Continue reading →