We see a lot of interesting\u00a0things come in\u00a0at Gray Dog Press. And it’s not just the content of\u00a0a manuscript it’s how some of them come to us “ready to go”! Laying out the text for a book is considerably different from just about anything else I can imagine. While not necessarily difficult, there are conventions to follow, techniques to consider, and styles to use. If anything it’s time-consuming.<\/p>\n
In most cases, really, I have to emphasize\u00a0most<\/span> cases<\/span>, what we get and is considered ready to print is far from it. Some authors will\u00a0not take the time\u00a0trying to set it up which is usually better than the one who spends hours formatting and then finds out little if any of that time will be kept on the final product.<\/p>\n It’s not too much like the sign at the\u00a0service station: Rates: $50\/hour, $75\/hour if you help, $100\/hour if you worked on it first.\u00a0\u00a0If we have to take the time to undo what was done so we can get it going in the right direction and end up with something that is printable it can easily add 10%-20% to the cost of the layout.<\/p>\n We can usually run through the entire text of an average\u00a0novel in a couple of hours and have the bulk of it set up. Then it’s a matter of details such as defining and applying styles, setting sections and page breaks, headers, footers, hyphenation, and going after those pesky widows, orphans, and\u00a0runts. That’s where\u00a0time gets eaten up. You can probably paint the bedroom walls in an hour or so, but finishing that\u00a0trim work seems to go on forever.<\/p>\n So when someone asks, “What do you want me to send?” Although cash is the first thing that comes to mind, I give them the following…<\/p>\n 1) Regardless of what method you used when you were writing the manuscript, when it’s ready to head our way\u00a0collect everything into one file. Sending 30+ files just adds to the time I’ll be charging to put it all together.<\/p>\n 2) Don\u2019t waste time on formatting. If you can’t figure out how to get Roman numerals in the front matter and Arabic in the body don’t worry about it. Headers and footers are the first thing to go. Also, use page breaks to go from one chapter to another, do not ENTER, ENTER, ENTER, a dozen times to start the next chapter on the following page, again, it takes time to get rid of that.<\/p>\n 3) Don’t insert or embed images. Simply use a bold line with something like: “image-001.jpg goes here” and we will try to get it as close to that location as possible. Going from the 8-1\/2 X 11 format\u00a0the manuscript\u00a0in to the 6 X 9 format you want your book made into is going to move text and images around. We will be using something other than Word or Open Office to finalize the book and\u00a0moving from those to something like InDesign images do not copy over.<\/p>\n 4) Send the images separately. If it\u2019s more than a few, put them in a zip file. Make sure you have at least 300dpi\u00a0for photos, and 600dpi for line art. And a raw photo is always better than one you have doctored to crop out the black sheep of the family. Let us know who he is and we’ll take care of him.\u00a0If the best image of X you have is about the size of a postage stamp, no, there is nothing I can do to make it the cover image on a 6 X 9 book. Either pick something else or find a larger image.<\/p>\n \u00a05) If you want a professional looking book then, no, using Comic Sans\u00a0(Or Papyrus, or Monotype Corsiva, or…) for the\u00a0text and some other goofy thing for the headers is not going to work. We have plenty of fonts for just about any situation. But when you get down to it, there are really only a couple dozen that are used in book design for the body. And many more for the headers and titles. the key element is for the font to be properly licensed and embedded into the run file. Most of the free fonts will not work to get a quality result.<\/p>\n Sometimes we can save you a lot of time, aggravation and money if you ask what we need and how we need it. In many cases we can work with you to save a bunch on the\u00a0layout of your book. Really! Just ask.<\/p>\n \nSpecifics on Sending us Your Stuff<\/h2>\n
Just Ask Before You get Too Far<\/h2>\n
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