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I can't comment on the suitability of these ideas for people with specific handicaps, there's zillions of different ideas out there. I'd caution newbie authors though, that anything you do to stray from the conventional in typography will mark your book out as unusual, and perhaps unprofessional. If you want people to concentrate on the text in your book, and not your typographical skills (or lack of them), go with: standard size (about 63 characters per line), single line spacing, full justification, and a normal serif font like Times New Roman or Bookman Old Style. And make sure your paragraphs are indented and do not have additional spacing between them.
Mod
I tend to prefer Georgia a bit over TNR.The tweaks for Fully Justified above were (as stated) to avoid the 'unprofessional' look of Word where the person doesn't have access to better software suitable for typography.
1.5 spacing 11pt georgia full justified is what i run with. its easier to read in print.
Christina wrote: "Why not just create a large print version instead of 1.5 line spacing? You're looking at adding a dollar or more to the product price with the number of pages that adds. Then there are those of us ..."I suppose larger print would be one solution, except for the fact some people appear to have difficulty with not enough white space. As well, large print version costs add up as well, so simply opting for larger print isn't really saving much, if any, on printing costs in the long run.
But having three version available depending on people's needs does sound better than an author basically saying "screw the people with special needs."
K.P. wrote: "1.5 spacing 11pt georgia full justified is what i run with. its easier to read in print."I use 12pt, with 11pt for certain things that need to be handled differently, like a character's letter to someone.
I am reworking my print versions to get rid of the ungodly full justified spacing Word puts in too often when WordPerfect 6.X compatibility isn't used.
As a test I took a draft I had printed for the Wife in 6x9 format, single line spacing, using Georgia font (normal 12pt), applied the WordPerfect 6.X compatibility, and compressed the font 0.5pt, with hyphenations set at a max of two consecutive. The print file went from 408 pages down to 372 (a reduction of 36 pages), there are maybe one dozen hyphenations scattered through 147,000 words, and the layout looks professional.
The wide gaps Word normally leaves in too many places are basically gone now.
I'll be going through my two released books next, which might lead to a few sales as the cost of printing should be reduced.
R.F.G. wrote: "As a test I took a draft I had printed for the Wife in 6x9 format, single line spacing, using Georgia font (normal 12pt), applied the WordPerfect 6.X compatibility, and compressed the font 0.5pt, w..."
One point to remember if you use Createspace, and probably any other print-on-demand publisher: If you change your page count you'll need a new IBSN. It will also be considered another edition, whether 2nd, 3rd, etc.
One point to remember if you use Createspace, and probably any other print-on-demand publisher: If you change your page count you'll need a new IBSN. It will also be considered another edition, whether 2nd, 3rd, etc.
Ken wrote: "One point to remember if you use Createspace, and probably any other print-on-demand publisher: If you change your page count you'll need a new IBSN. It will also be considered another edition, whether 2nd, 3rd, etc...."Not entirely true. It depends on how many pages. I had a change of 11 pages and didn't require a new ISBN.
G.G. wrote: "Not entirely true. It depends on how many pages. I had a change of 11 pages and didn't require a new ISBN..."
It wouldn't work that way for me. I shortened my book by a few pages (I don't remember how many) by reducing font size, and was told I would have to get a new ISBN and issue a new edition.
It wouldn't work that way for me. I shortened my book by a few pages (I don't remember how many) by reducing font size, and was told I would have to get a new ISBN and issue a new edition.
In this case the test book has never had an ISBN as the only copy to be printed is for my Wife. I need to sit down and focus on editing once Her Grace allows me some time.I use Lulu for POD print and unless you're changing the basic format to another (epub, 6x9 paperback, 6x9 hardback, different quality paper, B&W versus Full Color) or slapping a new cover on, the ISBN normally remains the same if the change is considered a minor revision. The last time I checked the change I tested today would be considered a minor revision.
Per the US Copyright Office it's not considered a new edition if minor editing has been done.
Ken wrote: "G.G. wrote: "Not entirely true. It depends on how many pages. I had a change of 11 pages and didn't require a new ISBN..."It wouldn't work that way for me. I shortened my book by a few pages (I ..."
I stand corrected. I hadn't changed the font size for mine. It was only a re-edited version. I'm guessing that changing the font and/or the size warrants for a new ISBN since the overall look is different.
R.F.G. said: "Per the US Copyright Office it's not considered a new edition if minor editing has been done."
True. They practically say that unless you added new chapter(s), it's not considered a new edition. Same for titles, since titles are not Copyright. (I like that they don't force you to waste your money. :P )
Rob,I'm sensitive to UV light as I don't have a natural lens in my left eye (the natural lens in the human eye filters out UV giving humans color range, clarity, and sharp focus). Since many types of paper reflect UV which irritates me I avoid reading where sunlight hits the paper.
On trying to do different versions to fit different needs I'd say you do what you reasonably can.
G.G.,For Lulu I think for font to qualify as a format change (requiring a new ISBN) it would have to include a very different font or font size, i.e.: going from an original of 11pt to 18pt or 24pt, though it would be easy to use the description to indicate why the version was different.
What would be considered a minor typographical change (tightening the spaces on fully justified) otherwise wouldn't qualify as an actual format change unless something changed recently.
Other POD companies might have different rules.
I'm not sure I understand the concern with ISBN's. I guess if you sell through bookstores or to libraries it might matter, but how many indies do? I just get an ISBN because a book doesn't look right without one, I'm unaware of any downside to getting a new one.
Richard wrote: "I'm not sure I understand the concern with ISBN's. I guess if you sell through bookstores or to libraries it might matter, but how many indies do? I just get an ISBN because a book doesn't look rig..."Different people use different platforms to distribute books, and as is to be expected those differing venues have differing ways of dealing with similar modifications of books.
With Lulu whether it's an epub or a print book it has to have an ISBN to get distributed beyond the Lulu Store. Want the epub or print book you have on Lulu listed on the websites for B&N, Books-A-Million, Angus & Robertson, etc, it has to have an ISBN.
One book in epub, 6x9 PB, or 6x9 HB formats will have three ISBNs, a different one assigned for each of the differing formats. The numbers are assigned through Ingram (in the US) as a way tracking books, their formats, and such for ordering.
Just because a print copy isn't in the brick-n-mortar store doesn't mean it isn't in the e-store.
I'm not 100% sure but I believe you lose all the reviews from the old ISBN.
G.G. wrote: "I'm not 100% sure but I believe you lose all the reviews from the old ISBN."That would be another issue and the reason I'll revise a project rather than replacing it whenever possible.
I think they work off the ASIN. I did a fairly major revision of
and I still have my Amazon reviews linked.
Richard wrote: "I think they work off the ASIN. I did a fairly major revision of and I still have my Amazon reviews linked."The ASIN is an Amazonian version of the ISBN, and is only issued by Amazon.
Well, for me it's virtually the only place I sell books. Reviews on here are nice, but nearly everyone here is an author, not a reader.
I've had e-book sales on Amazon (US, UK, DE), the Istore (CA), B&N, and a couple others I can't remember at present, with a few scattered reviews (none on Amazon).I tend to not worry much about reviews, though perhaps when I have a few more books released I will want more reviews done, or not.
I've always been pretty happy with TNR 10pt with line spacing set at "at least" 14pt. I hyphenate manually (making it very rare) and adjust the spacing to prevent odd looking word gaps. Using WordPerfect 6.X sounds interesting -- I'll have to try that. I use Word 2000 and Word 2010 interchangeably, but our print versions have been finalized on Word 2000. We’re thinking or switching to Goudy Old Style or Garamond for the next print edition. I think they look a bit more elegant. Of course, selling print editions is a whole ‘nother kettle ‘o fish.
Owen,I uploaded the revised typography for my first book, single line spacing, Wordperfect 6.X compatible, at 100% scale I condensed 0.5pt, font was Georgia, and I was able to lower the print version cost by about $4.50.
When the proof gets here I'll check for print oddities and if there are none I'll hit approve.
R.F.G. wrote: "Owen,I uploaded the revised typography for my first book, single line spacing, Wordperfect 6.X compatible, at 100% scale I condensed 0.5pt, font was Georgia, and I was able to lower the print ver..."
I took a simple approach: got several copies of recently published books sci-fi books from the library that were in in 6x9 format, and fiddled until a page I printed overlaid on those matched margins, line spacing, font size, and characters per line. That's what we've been going with.
I am going to compress things some on the next edition, however. Our last book was 490 pgs, and the one before was 674. Those do run a lot to print.
Owen,Printing through Lulu they have minimum setting guidelines on margins and such so I went with that. For now I'm shooting for the minimum number of pages with a really decent quality look.
My next step will be large print and white space needed editions on the 50# economy paper that runs a lot less per page than the 60# (which was the only option there was when I released my first two).
R.F.G. wrote: "Owen,Printing through Lulu they have minimum setting guidelines on margins and such so I went with that."
I believe Createspace does also. Cost hasn't been a much of a driver yet. It might become one in the future, if print sales pick up. Right now, our kindle editions outsell print by considerably more than 50:1.
Owen,My e-book sales have been split between venues, one result of not actively promoting. Zero sales on print, mostly due to the original price, so I'm doing what I can to make the print version as price-attractive as possible.
Going from $11 and change to $7 and change on the Lulu page should help. The economy 'different needs' versions should be better on price as well.
Who knows, I might start promoting a bit after this.
R.F.G. wrote: "Who knows, I might start promoting a bit after this..."We haven't done that either. Turns out Amazon knows vastly more about selling our books than we do. So we just concentrate on writing more. Seems to be working OK so far.
TNR is too narrow for books and was made for newsprint. also, do you have a license to use TNR for your books? because it comes with ms word doesnt mean you can use it commercially. make sure the fonts you use are free for commercial use or you own the appropriate license!
K.P. wrote: "TNR is too narrow for books and was made for newsprint. also, do you have a license to use TNR for your books? because it comes with ms word doesnt mean you can use it commercially. make sure the f..."We've discovered that issue with a couple of fonts we bought, but not this one. We like it: nice and clean and easy on the eyes. Goudy Old Style and Garamond are nice too. Most of the other serif fonts we find kind of clunky looking. But it still remains more of vanity issue than anything, until people start buying them.
cool beans owen. i actually find tnr difficult to read even with bifocals (have to jack up the view percentage). if it works for you and you have the license go for it
K.P. wrote: "cool beans owen. i actually find Tnr difficult to read even with bifocals (have to jack up the view percentage). if it works for you and you have the license go for it"Ours is not the current Word TNR. My fonts all date from the 90's when I was in the actual print publishing biz for a few years. So it maps to TNR on a new version of Word, but that's one reason we create print galleys in my ancient machine with all my old fonts (some go back to 1992).
I actually did create a PDF on Jordan's new machine once, and the log file listed fonts that could not be embedded because they weren't licensed. (I don’t dare try to install 20-yr-old fonts on her machine.)
BTW: Does anyone remember bitmap fonts? Font cartridges? There was Times Roman installed in the old HP LaserJet 2’s (I think - circa 1987-89) that was one of the most beautiful fonts I’ve ever seen. I loved it. At some point, we used Swiss 7?? Narrow for a san-serif font (I think it was originally bitmap, but I’m not sure), which is much nicer than, say, Arial Narrow. They came in maybe 3 fonts sizes and that was it. But they were great. These days, we have tons of flexibility, but the quality just isn’t as good.
(Putting my cane away now.)
lolz most of the fonts i own are from 1998 with some new ones recently. i remember those bitmap fonts. still use them for game programming. not all of us young guns have access to new tech ;)
K.P. wrote: "... not all of us young guns have access to new tech ;)"Maybe that's a good thing? ;-)
I'm using Bookman Old Style for print. It's quite wide, and works well at 10pt for a 6x9. I find TNR a bit spidery, BOS is more like the font you get on the Kindle.
BOS is cool. what do you think of book antiqua, garamond or goudy? i was thinking of changing up fonts trying to keep prices down (my thick books are killing trees).
Richard wrote: "I'm using Bookman Old Style for print. It's quite wide, and works well at 10pt for a 6x9."How do you handle hyphens? Do it yourself or auto?
I checked out the Wordperfect 6.X compatibility option for justified text, and R.F.G is quite right: it's looks quite a bit better! (In Word 2000, sp3.)
dont auto hyphen usually results in hyphen explosions? is the spacing off with full justification?
K.P. wrote: "dont auto hyphen usually results in hyphen explosions? is the spacing off with full justification?"Quite often, in my experience. Especially with a wider font. That's why I don't use it. I also don't like that my version of Word might decide to hyphenate a word like hypertext as hy-pertext, not hyper-text, even if either will fit.
But other than not allowing more than 3 consecutive hyphens, I haven't played with it much (for example, I haven't messed with the hyphenation zone to try to find an optimal value). I just avoid hyphenation as much as I can. It would be nice to save some time there, however.
I haven't had an issue with hyphens, using the default settings in Word. Even when the column is narrow wrapping around illustrations, I get maybe one or two per page. I wonder if this is an issue with older versions of Word, fixed in the later ones? I use Word 2007, which is only a bit long in the tooth. I'd also humbly submit it depends on the length of the words that you use :-)
Course now you point it out and I look back, some of the hyphenation choices are a bit odd. I wonder if readers notice though, I hadn't up 'til now.
Rob wrote: "With everybody apparently using MS-Word to generate the PDFs required for print, even the ones with a tech background, I'm really starting to wonder: "Why no LaTex"?"I'm not familiar with LaTex. I recall people used it back when I was a working stiff for challenging text layouts.
As far Word, first, I've been using it since 1987, so I'm very familiar with it and I like it. I prefer Word 2000, but Word 2010 can be whipped into shape if you know what your are doing. I have not used Word 2013, but I hear it is inferior.
I've created documents of up to 200,000 words in Word with no issues. I have had several large documents (more than 4, all over 100K words) open at once with no issues. I work on a PC from 2007, running XP sp3, with a dual-core processor that wasn’t top-of-the-line then, and 2 GB of RAM, so hardware is not an issue. (I can run the system out of memory, so that I have to save and shut down Word, if I try very hard, but I have never broken it.)
However, an author friend or mine running Word 2013 on new system with 10x the capability of mine and Win8 reported some problems dealing with doc files over 75K words or so. The problem might be Win8 (which is pretty awful), or maybe modern versions of Word are less robust. (Although I’ve no complaints about 2010 in that regard -- lots of other, yes, but not that one.)
Word is not a layout program, even Word 2010, although they tried to make to one. As rule, I include neither graphics, beyond the odd map, nor tables, in our documents. (The exception is a document that includes two tables, each 2-column and over 400 rows, and that is no problem.) If you are just dealing with just text, Word is fine. The made 2007 way too complicated and screwed up the menu horrifically, but if you can get used to, or figure out how to add the commands you need to little tool bar, it’s OK.
If you are including many images etc (which I used to have to do professionally, back in the 90s) Word is unsuitable. I used Pagemaker back in the day for that, and LaTex may well be better. So it all depends. But for producing Kindle editions (again with limited graphics), Word 2010 is very good, because it has a nice options for saving HTML for upload to Amazon. (Word 2000 is awful in this regard.)
I sympathize with your issues with Smashwords. Some people have good luck with the meatgrinder, others do not (as many have commented here). I’m afraid I found about their operation to be, on the whole, ill-conceived and amateurish, and resolved to have nothing more to do with them. Many people feel differently, of course, but I feel the problem is them, not Word. In essence, they decided to force people to submit Word docs, then failed to write adequate software to handle them, and so resorted to trying to train their users to produce the sort of document their software can handle (most of the time).
I hope that is of some help.
Rob,LaTex may be a good program, but suitability (in part) lies with the software people are experienced with.
I've been using Word for 20 years, and Open Office Writer off and on for maybe four years. I can get around in either, though Word and Writer don't always play well together.
If you've been using LaTeX for years, there's no reason to stop now, because you know more of the ins and outs of making it work.
I'd use OO Writer more, but some things I have to go around my elbow to find my ear-hole, and I have a lot of work already done in Word -- this is why some programmers with Access 97 databases keep using the old software, porting code from Access 97 to newer versions is a PITA.
If OO Writer is an easy fit for you, you can save in doc format.
**Full Disclosure: I worked in an IT office for enough years, and any software not approved by an office located in another state wasn't allowed on the computers. Using innovative software usually isn't a decision made by employees.**
K.P. wrote: "dont auto hyphen usually results in hyphen explosions? is the spacing off with full justification?"I did the autohyphen with the WordPerfect 6.X compatibility, very few hyphenations, using Word 97 SP2.
It's all about time, for me. Word's what I know, worked with since the dawn of time. My only real beef with it is the way illustrations jump around the page, but I've grown used to that. It's spell-check is excellent, which is important to me. Also, everyone has it.
As for hyphenation and spacing, maybe my eye is untrained, but it looks OK to me, as in the sample above.
Richard wrote: "As for hyphenation and spacing, maybe my eye is untrained, but it looks OK to me, as in the sample above."Richard, I had more than a few places where Fully Justified without the compatibility lead to four or five short words being spread out across an entire line.
i use word 2003 (been using it since 6 unlike sis who used it since 1 or 2). i was using wordperfect 8 until upgrade... i'll have to check that compatibility mode. i use page plus these days for print...only have word to get the ebook editions in order (smashwords and the like) then it gets fun >_> if only there was a perfect word processor out there.oh brother wp 1750ds, i miss you...
Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors...
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The Dark Colony (other topics)The Dark Colony (other topics)
I posted the following and since this group has a Technical Section I thought it might help if I spread the wealth. This post is how to make a Word doc (pre-2013) ready for uploading for a print version. I hope it helps.
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If you're like me, when it comes to print versions of your work you want to craft the best-looking product possible. Some people harp on how TP print is the best, it's how things have always been done, ad nauseum. My response is horse feathers, there are some tweaks we can do for readers the tried and true haven't done due to minimizing manufacturing costs no matter what.
First, while single spacing is the norm it tends to screw with some readers, whether they have a form of attention deficit (causes ranging from dealing with the long-term effects of multiple injuries to prenatal environmental issues [mama took too much acetaminophen during gestation], and etc...) or the reader just get lost in text blocks, single spacing has its drawbacks.
Try 1.5 line spacing to capture those readers who otherwise would give up on trying to read a print book.
Second, Justified versus Left Justified is a peeve some TP fans are adamant about, even if Left Justified helps keep many readers from losing their place. If you're like me, you don't have a budget to go out and buy the best professional software for typography, you're stuck with an old copy of Word (97 in my case). Word tends to bite when it comes to Justified, unless you have a pre-2013 version you can tweak.
For a better looking Justified in Word try emulating WordPerfect 6.X, which I've tried and it does look a lot better.
http://wordribbon.tips.net/T005984_Be...
Compressing slightly also helps, and a setting of 0.5 to 0.75 appears to be the optimum range.
http://www.ehow.com/how_8553532_fix-m...
Third, hyphenation when done properly augments your print the same way it does with the TP tomes. In this case, I'd suggest you play with the hyphenation setting but do limit the number of consecutive hyphenations to two or three. One complaint some people have is the indie published works with a river of hyphens running down the right side of the page.
Fourth, turn your source file into a PDF with your fonts embedded, a free PDF creator like CutePDF will work, and you cant set the output to the page size you need.
There are other methods to further spiff up your file preparatory to uploading, but with luck someone with more experience and knowledge will chime in an say: "Nice try amateur, but these steps are even more better..."
If this little 'How To' has helped in any way, hoist a vintage PBR in my honor as it would be too foamy if you mailed it to me. And for now, I must attend to Her Grace and Wife; they're arguing over the necessity of a diaper change.