Tag Archives: Interior Book Design

Are you a New Author?

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DID YOU KNOW?


Writers Beware is one of the first websites all new authors need to read before they look for a publisher or at self-publishing. Along with this you should read ‘The Ultimate Author Checklist.’ an great PDF full of information from an excellent Marketing website.

Both websites are excellent resources for authors. Writers Beware informs and keeps us updated of things we need to be aware of. It lists Vanity Press and all the ongoing scams which are ripping us off due to writers not doing their research correctly. It is also continually updated. What a lot of writers do is Google publishing or ask in writing groups we belong to. The problem is Vanity Press know how to use SEO’s to their advantage and Writing Groups get a lot of Scammers in them or people who say they know what they’re doing when they don’t.

The Checklist is more about setting yourself up as an Author, getting social media working for you, making or paying for a website and so much more. We give this PDF out to our clients no matter how far along they are in their journey.

SEO’s (just in case you don’t know what they are.)

Search Engine Optimization. Part of this is keywords businesses use to get their sites and adverts in the top spots on Google and other types of search engines. Because it is at the top, you are more than likely to go and click on them, and they have you… unless you know the ropes of what they are offering, which is why research is important part of life.

Many of you will use your own keywords during your publishing and marketing days to help readers find and buy your books. Publisher Rocket is great for finding good Keywords for your genre. (It was formerly known as KDP Rocket.)

Costs

The first thing you need to be aware of is the cost of publishing. Many say it is FREE!  It isn’t. Uploading a manuscript and book cover to KDP and other distribution websites is generally FREE, though some do charge fees. (Ingram Spark and Lulu). All Vanity Press businesses will charge you large amounts of money. Not only that, they also charge BEFORE they do any work on your manuscript. You will also be asked to sign a contract which you need to read and understand. A lot of these contracts give them copyright of your manuscript in all types of publishing, be it eBook, paperback or hardback. Each one will cost you more money to produce. If you wish to get out of the contract, they can take ninety days or more to hand back copyright. You will need the associated paperwork to prove to distributors like KDP that the copyright has reverted back to you.

Vanity Press

The main worry about Vanity Press is they don’t do the work they promise. They don’t pay out the royalty; they charge you for storage of books they print, some expect you to buy copies in their hundreds and of course you pay for freight, which they charge more for than they should. I know of one person who did their own freight, and it came out $400 cheaper… This is why WRITERS BEWARE is a must read.

Another thing you all need to remember… When you have work done in your home, building a deck, car maintenance etc… You don’t pay them until they have finished the work. You pay AFTER the work is finished. NEVER pay a contractor in the writing world until you have approved the work they’ve done for you, unless it is a deposit, which many businesses use these days, so they don’t get scammed by clients. Sadly, this does happen and has happened to my business.

Research

Research every contractor you work with. Seek out the details you need by asking the right questions. Get to know what those questions are by reading blogs. Ask for sample edits from various editors and find which one you feel more comfortable working with. Do the same with graphic designers and illustrators for book covers and images you may wish to use. There are certain things contractors need to know to do their job correctly.

This is a post I wrote a while back about Fiverr and Graphic Designers...after all you get what you pay for!

Editing

Do they edit in the English Language you use—British, American, Canadian, Australian, etc?

Do they edit in your genre?

What type of editing do they offer?

Line Editing, Copy Editing, Beta Reading, Proofreading?

How much experience do they have?

Do they have qualifications, or have they learnt on the job?

Do they have good reviews (ten or more good ones)

Graphic Design

Do they buy stock photos?

What DPI do they work with?

What type of file do they save too?

Are the fonts they use for commercial usage?

Proof of purchase of any fonts and stock photos?

You can use photos you have taken as long as you can prove they are yours.

Reverse check any sample images they give you. (some lie or steal other peoples work)

Ask other Authors and check out their covers.

Check reviews (ten or more good ones)

The last thing you want is to be sued by a photographer or font designer for copyright infringement.

Formatting or Interior Book Designer

As well as being an Author Consultant, bringing contractors together to build books, I also work as a formatter, and turn manuscripts into a professional files to upload on KDP and other distribution websites. There are many formatting apps around now, though many are not as professional as people seem to think. Pick up a paperback printed by a traditional publisher, and you will see what I mean. Look at how it is set out, how tidy it is. If you are contracting out for formatting, you will be paying more than $10 to get a professional finish. Note the differences between eBooks and print books. There are quite a few, including page numbers- which don’t start on the first page of the manuscript, header and footers, endnotes/footnotes, images and in eBooks Alt Text for images so people who are sight impaired can read the image.

Technology Growth

Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds, changes and updates happening all the time. If you’re not a techy person, then you do need to research every detail about producing a book. It is hard work if you want a professional outcome.

Always remember paperbacks and hardbacks need to be justified with a line spacing of 1.15 cm at the most. Indents shouldn’t be more than 0.5 cm. Learn how to use STYLES in WORD if you write in WORD. If you use an app, you still need to make sure these things are correct. This means you need to learn to use the app correctly, watch the videos, or talk to someone who knows what they’re doing. Keep yourself updated with the changes.

Websites and Social Media

Most authors have websites, though these only work if you use them, share the posts, and have a marketing plan. You need to know about SEO’s and keep your website relevant. Post at least once a week. Talk about your books and yourself, about your writing, how your muse helps or hinders you. There are plenty of ideas out there which you can write about.

Social media also seems to be slipping to the wayside, especially Facebook with all their rules and regulations, people getting banned for weeks or months. I’ve noted a lot now use Instagram and TikTok, if you’re not camera shy like I am. You can get Book Trailers made for YouTube or you could read one of your books on video and share the links.

Marketing

An excellent resource for Marketing is ‘The Ultimate Author Check List.’ It is brilliant, and even I still need to finish reading the document and put things into place. Marketing will cost more money and this should be the only one going cost with your books. If you are a techy person, you maybe able to make Teasers and Adverts to use, remembering each social media website has criteria your advert needs to fit.

Once again, be careful of scammers, especially from those who approach you! Most are dubious. I like to work with people who have reached out to me or have read a review. Word of mouth is a wonderful thing. Don’t forget to leave your contractor a review, especially if they fulfilled all the criteria of the contract.

We welcome questions in the comments area. We are happy to help new authors find the right way to go for their needs. Meanwhile, be careful out there.

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2021

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Happy New Year to all our followers and friends. It has been a wow of a year with many of us working from home. The toll on the human race is still growing though with vaccines, perhaps we can beat this virus and the many strains. Please be safe and take care of each other so we can grow and help each other. We are lucky to be based in New Zealand, where though we are on level one, our lives are closer to normal than it is for many other countries around the world. Be careful out there.

Thank you for continuing to be with us over 2020 and on into 2012. We look forward to sharing your work, books, interviews, educational articles and helping out clients – past, present and future. Let’s get those manuscripts built into books and uploaded to distribution platforms.

We have a great team here at Plaisted Publishing, our contractor list just keeps growing. If you know a small business contractor who works in Editing, Graphic Design or Marketing, please contact us. We’d love to help you help our clients and grow each others businesses. 

This year we will be introducing you to our contractors, each with their own expertise in a certain area of publishing. You will get to know them and what they can do for you if you are planning to publish a book. We do Interior Book Design in house and have over six years experience in Fiction, Non-fiction, Anthologies, Memoirs, Poetry, Children’s Picture Books and Family History Books/Family Reunion Books.

We also off help with Family History Research and have twenty years experience gathering information for various books we’ve made over the years for reunions and birthday celebrations. If you’d like to talk to us about Family History, please contact us here or email at plaistedpublishinghouse@gmail.com

We are also looking for Content Writers within the publishing world. If you write educational material for Independent Authors, please contact us, we’d be delighted to hear from you. It is important for us all to continue to learn and grow in the publishing world with the ever changing technology we use.

We will also be opening a page to favourite weblinks for educational purposes. If you know of a great website please email us the link and we’ll check it out prior to posting the link on the page.

At present we are updating out website. We will have a library of all the books we’ve assisted with over the last six years along with a list of Author Names. Eventually we hope to also add a profile of each author as well and send those links out to each client so they can share and celebrate each others work.

Our magazine has been on hold for the just over two years now. We hope to re-establish the magazine with a new title, new and easier layout with less formatting work involved. We hope this magazine will be every two months. Here is hoping all this scheduling will work. By the end of this year, we may need a PA…

Distribution Platforms we use
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
Lulu
Ingram Spark
Smashwords
Draft to Digital

Looking into using
Kobo
Barnes and Noble (Nook)

Here is hoping for a wonderful year. Take care and be safe. 

Claire Plaisted
Business Owner

Courtesy Lost in the Digital Age…

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Over the years, I’ve had bad experiences with clients. I’m sure we all have and we move on and forward, take it as a lesson learnt and not repeat it. Most of the time it works, however when COURTESY is lacking then I will take a stand. It doesn’t take much to message someone who you were working with to produce a book and let them know you’re going to use someone else.

We all lose jobs or clients at times, though when you’ve worked hard for them including FREE work, then surely it would be a COURTESY let me know they are going to use someone else. I’m upset at the lack of a message, especially after all I did for them. I feel bruised and USED. Like I said another lesson learnt. From now on I won’t be doing any FREE or CHEAP work for those caught out by SCAMMERS mainly because I don’t want to find a post on Facebook saying BOOK LIVE on a manuscript I was waiting to format without realising I wasn’t getting it this time… 

No they don’t have to chose my business to do the work even though I’ve redone three books at cost, organised an new illustrator and redesigned several books due to copyright infringement, where they could’ve gotten sued. However, to find them using someone else for interior design without even messaging me is just bloody rude. They could at least tell me WHY?

Finding out why… apparently they didn’t like my FEES for Book three.  Get this… I sort out one book making sure DPI was correct, formatting was situated correctly, checking each part for approval, then once approved I make an ebook and I’m asked to upload to their distributor. Then the paperback. No charge. Then we come to the first and second book in a series both of which had copyright issues for which the author could’ve been sued. I find an illustrator, we redo both books and I upload to distributor in ebook and paperback. All approved by client. I only charge $20 USD for uploading due to author being scammed.  Now the third book is sorted the same way. I put in real charges this time and yes they knew this.  Consultation, sizing of images, formatting of words, approvals, uploads…making ebook and paperback and more. I charged $180 USD. I should’ve been more with an hour rate, though I was still trying to be nice due to them been SCAMMED. I’m not sure how the illustrator feels, though I’m sure they are out of pocket as well.

Now I feel like they SCAMMED me…All the hours I worked on these books and I get paid $220 USD. Way below the minimum wage in the USA and in NZ if I add up the actual hours of work.

DISILLUSIONED IN BUSINESS

Publishing Confusion – Part One

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YOUR TIME ISN’T FREE – EVERY MINUTE IS WORTH…?

There are lots of new writers out there each and every day. There is also a heck of a lot of confusion in writing groups. The same questions get asked constantly, people give inaccurate information to each other, few do their own research to find the information they need to publish a book. The main issue is paying for publishing.

Paying for Publishing – Confusion

What is the new writer really asking? What should your reply be if you’re trying to help them. We really need to look deeper than saying things like ‘don’t pay for publishing it’s Vanity Publishing and Publishing is FREE’  If you say publishing is FREE then you obviously don’t value the time it took you to write, to learn the processes of how to publish. Not everyone is good with computers, websites, marketing, graphic design, etc. And these aren’t even the start to building your Author Brand

There are steps to publishing a book and getting it accepted by a distribution website, the same as there is a process if you wish to try traditional publishing. It doesn’t matter which way you go, you will PAY for various things along the way. Now you want to know HOW or WHY, or WHAT THE HELL…

With Traditional Publishing you will pay for the work they do via royalty share for the life of the book. This is how they make their profit. If they don’t see a profit in your book, you won’t get a contract. Of course prior to that is the time it takes to find an Agent, write proposals, etc. It is all time consuming and your time shouldn’t be FREE.

With Independent Publishing you will pay one off FEES for various areas you don’t have the skill set to do yourself.  If you are willing to lean, it makes it cheaper, though please remember your TIME is not FREE. Everyone should have an Editor even if it is your job in life. We all miss things in our manuscripts. The best part of Independent Publishing is you get to keep all your royalties and copyright. If you’re good at Marketing, you may earn a decent income.

AUTHOR BRAND – AND WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

Step One:  Writing a first draft of your manuscript. WRONG. The first thing you need to do if you wish to earn a decent income as a writer is research your Author Brand. What is this? you ask. Well it’s developing you and showing everyone who you are and what you can do. A bit like a Resume. Once you’ve listed what you know about yourself you can REASERCH what you need to do to get there. What do you need to learn? What way do you wish to publish? How does Publishing work. Do you want to try Independent Publishing or Traditional Publishing. Both have different processes you will need to learn.

At this stage I’m looking into Independent Publishing. You’ll need to research the genre you write. Who’s in the top 100 on Amazon? What are their book covers like? Why are they a best seller? What is their book blurb like? How many novels have they written. How did they find their fans? What are their websites and social media sites like?

There’s so much to research before you even start to write and though you can learn from other writers and authors, you will find some things don’t work for you or are incorrect. RESEARCH is still the key to develop your Author Brand and any learning curve processes you will need.

Step Two: Social media and websites. To build your fan base you need to start chatting, sharing teasers, photos, information about you, your stories. It depends on which social media sites you use. This is where your learning curve begins. Guess what you need to do…Yep RESEARCH… This time you need to learn how to build a website and how to use social media to your advantage and which ones are best for you!  How to make a newsletter and get readers to sign up. Once you decide what you need to learn and how to use them, the real work begins. For many, it’s not as easy as it seems, especially when social media keeps updating their technology, causing frustration due to having to learn something new…AGAIN.

Also remember you’re supporting yourself at this time. (unless you have another job). Think about how much you’d expect to earn each hour you research, each time you do something to move forward. How much an hour are you worth? This is the FREE part of publishing, though only if you consider your time is worthless

Interior Design – Fonts and Genre you Write

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Nothing is FREE when you publish independently unless you’re a tech expert and know everything. EDITING, INTERIOR DESIGN (Formatting) BOOK COVERS & MARKETING, etc. Can you do everything? I know I can’t which is why I use CONTRACTORS for my manuscripts and developed a business to help other Independent Authors.
 
I’ve seen so much BAD INTERIOR DESIGN, it makes me want to leave reviews with one, two or three stars. Never mind the lack of flow and EDITING in stories I try and read, along with BOOK COVERS. The worst part is, most of these books could be saved with some professional help. 

This post is about INTERIOR DESIGN, something I love to do. In fact I’m pedantic with formatting books, be it choosing a paperback size, a FONT for headings and Chapters, INDENTS or an image to use as a break between paragraphs. It all makes a difference and those little STARS used as breaks are—in my opinion about as unprofessional as you can get.

FONTS

The fonts an author uses for Titles, Author Name and Chapters can be hard to choose. However, I like to look into the genre of a manuscript when making a choice with my own work and I advise my clients what may work for their story. 

When writing romance I’d chose a type of Calligraphy with swooping curves that draws the reader to the book cover, catches the eye though readable. Some of these fonts can be over the top and unreadable. Leave those well alone. For Romance I like Tangerine. Not overly fussy like some Scripts and is FREE for commercial use.


For Horror, Thriller and Ghost Stories who want something that looks a bit scary. One of the ones I like is Chiller, though if you look online you can find plenty to use. Make sure the fonts are FREE and can be used Commercially or you could be sued for Copyright Infringement.

             

Murder and Mystery fonts can stay with the romance or thriller fonts there again, what about the age group you’re writing for? What would you use for a book aimed at Teens or Young Adults? Something simple or…Scooby Do…ish? Like the one below.


How about this one?

There are so many different fonts to use in your writing which could attract readers to your work. Think carefully before you choose what to use. Talk to your graphic artist about the font to use on your book cover (if you’re contracting out to someone), they know the ropes on what to use. Some of these can be used in the interior in the front matter of the manuscript as well as Chapter Headings. Think outside the square and be daring. 

All the above fonts are for commercial use and downloadable at 1001 FONTS. 

FONTS FOR BODY TEXT!

Nothing is simple, though the body of the text is much easier to decide. It has to be readable to the literacy age of the person you’re marketing your books to – better known as your audience. Most authors of adult books use Times New Roman size 12. It’s generic and usable in most books. Some in the book industry tell you not to use this font, ever. However, like everything with Independent Publishing, it is up to you, the writer. Always do your research and ask others who have been publishing for advice. Everyone has an opinion. Some authors decide to blend their Title and Chapter Fonts with the body text, this can mean decided the line spacing is different as well.

I use Garamond size 12 at 1.08 – 1.15 cm spacing. When it’s an indented line I use 0.3 – 0.5 cm indents, this is decided on the size of the paperback you are making, the smaller the paperback size the smaller the indent. Putting it mildly it looks ridiculous with large indents in a pocket book. I find Garamond is easy to ready and goes with all the Title and Chapter Font’s I use. However, children’s books are totally different.

Childrens’ books should always have a bigger font size, so as they learn to read they can follow the words with a finger underneath the sentence. This also means your spacing can be bigger. There is one font I love for childrens’ books and it’s close to how children form their letters when they first learn to write. Comic Sans size 16 (at least) with spacing at 1.15 – 1.5 cm. The spacing depends on the literacy age of the children or even the adult who is learning to read or reading a new language, after all, English isn’t everyone’s first language and it is a complicated language to learn due to word usage.

Remember to do your RESEARCH and have fun with your creativity!

FIVERR and the Pros and Cons of Formatting

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FIVERR and those who offer Formatting, also known as Interior Book Design, through this platform can be awesome and then not so much. Authors, especially new ones, need to know how to research and get the best. It’s time for those questions again. All Authors need to know what questions to ask to find a good business to help them get the work done. The company also needs to know various things so they can get your Formatting correct without too many edits.

First thing. Remember how long it took you to write your novel!  Well, Formatting isn’t done in an hour! I honestly wouldn’t touch any business who says they can format your work for $10 in an hour. There is bound to be something wrong.

Today I watched a video about Formatting. Some useful information, and with the book open on the screen, they showed the results. It was the results which caught my attention. Two things wrong from what I saw.  First, the indents looked too big and secondly, the text wasn’t justified. Though, this doesn’t matter on eBooks, in PRINT it is a MUST…Go look at any traditional book, and you’ll see the right hand edges of the text are straight. If PRINT books aren’t Justified, they look horrible. I’m exceptionally fussy, and I won’t even read a manuscript unless it is justified. It’s the first thing I do on a clients manuscript. I will also teach a client how to do this, so they know for next time. You will also find 99% of what I write on my blog is JUSTIFIED. Those articles not Justified are usually SHARED LINKS. I think having your text makes it look nice and tidy.

If you are going to offer a SERVICE to an AUTHOR, please make sure you know what you’re doing. It’s a hell of a learning curve and, unlike many, I’m self-taught and learnt the hard way. I’ve learnt so much now that I’m updating my own books as well as past clients.

QUESTIONS to Ask an INTERIOR BOOK DESIGNER

1. What type of books do you format?
2. What fonts do you suggest for my genre?
3. What size fonts will you use?
4. Do you use the same font for Headings & Titles or blend fonts to work together?
5. What book size do you suggest for Paperback and hardback?
6. What is the best indent size?
7. Do you Justify text?
8. Can you do Contents pages and Linked Contents for eBooks?
9. Headings, Page numbers – Starting at Chapter One, Dropped Caps and Header information?
10. Can your format full-colour children’s books for Paperback and eBook?
11. Do you have samples of your work?

You could probably add a lot more to this list. Make sure you have a good look at the traditional books you see. They can give useful pointers in how you may like to have your text laid out.

QUESTIONS FOR CHILDREN’S BOOKS

1. Font and font size are important, depending on the age of your readers.
2. Do they have experience with Full-colour children’s eBooks  and PRINT
3. Do they have experience with BLEED!  Will your book have a bleed or not.
4. How do they turn a full-colour book into an eBook and PRINT, so it comes out correct.
5. Will they check the IMAGES are 300 DPI if need be?

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

This once again depends on experience and what you want your book to look like.  It can also depend on how long the book is. Is it a Novella, Novel or Saga? Is it a Children’s book and if so, what kind?

HELPING AUTHORS.

Once again, as with assisting new authors with bad work, generally from FIVERR Businesses is something we do at Plaisted Publishing House. It can be trying and tiring work, especially if it is a full-colour children’s book. I have assisted with two of these in recent months. If you only pay small amounts, it should clue you in, they may not be as professional or experienced as you might think. I dislike seeing people ripped off, especially if they are on a budget like most Independent Authors are. We’re not all rich, and many of us have jobs outside the home to pay the bills.

Don’t complain about paying someone either. A slightly higher fee could mean better work and that you’re less likely to need someone else to do edits. Remember you pay the plumber to do their job! I have seen bad work. I’ve seen good work. Please do your homework and RESEARCH before you hire anyone.

KNOW WHAT TO ASK, WHEN TO ASK AND MAKE SURE YOU SEE SAMPLES. IF YOUR INSTINCT SAYS ‘HELL NO’ THEN LISTEN TO IT. IT COULD SAVE YOU MONEY.

BAD FORMATTING! 

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF BAD FORMATTING FROM FIVERR FOR AN EBOOK. WHEN I WENT TO HELP THE AUTHOR, I LOOKED AT THE MOBI FILE, AND THIS IS WHAT I FOUND. I NEVER DID TELL THEM…TO HORRIFIED.

 

 

 

GOOD FORMATTING! 

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I DID TO MEND THE ABOVE FILE (DIFFERENT PAGE) AND MAKE THE IMAGE LOOK LIKE THE PAGES FROM A PAPERBACK BOOK. 

NEEDLESS TO SAY, IT CAN TAKE A WHILE TO SORT THINGS OUT. MAKING SURE IMAGES ARE THE RIGHT DPI AND SIZE – ESPECIALLY FOR PAPERBACKS.

One last thing. I’m still learning. I will always be learning my trade, updating how things are done as technology changes. I’m happy to learn the same as I’m happy to share the Pros and Cons of looking for the right contractor, be it an illustrator, editor or interior book designer.  

PLEASE RESEARCH!  NEXT TIME I WILL TALK ABOUT EDITING