Got a little off the track, didn't I? Life has a way of interrupting the most earnest work. In the meantime, though, it has come to my attention that this blog, as I conceived it, really isn't needed. There are so many good, quick advice sources out there and better and newer ways of self publishing that I am getting close to obsolete. Yay! That's a good thing. We are marching forward. Take a look at Lulu.com if you want a quick, easy and profesional looking publication. I've seen beautiful work though that site.
Today the NYTimes has an article about all those abandoned blogs out there. Too much to keep up with. Amen. I will try to keep this one going, though, just with a different frame of reference. I'm working on that now and I'll be back here as soon as I have it figured out, which should be soon, like this month (June 2009.) I am thinking about chronicling my adventures as a free-lance cleric: no church, will travel. Not kidding.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Blocks, etc.
A block is four pages. When you pay for the paper a book requires, you pay by the block, which means that your total pages will always be divisible by four. You might use only three of those pages, but there will then be one blank page.
White paper is cheaper than beige, a lighter weight cheaper than a heavier one. Talk abou this with your printer. A 60 ppound paper is probably what you want.
I did a really dumb thing on the first book I formatted. I thought of a page as the sheet of paper, with a front and a back. If we said "Blank page," then I visualized a sheet of paper, blank on both sides. This is not what it means to a printer. A page is one side of a sheet. A sheet of paper equals two pages. That makes a world of difference. Some things you will want on the right side, as you hold the book open, such as acknowledgements and the first page of a table of contents, if you have one. Some people want all chapters to begin on the right. I did that once, and it cost a lot and wasted a lot of paper. Since I use section headings, those are always on the right and the back of that sheet is blank, so that the chapter starting off the new section starts on the right. After that, chapters can start right or left. Blank pages: enough and it looks custom and classy, too many and it looks amateurish. Look at books, well printed, expensive ones, and take your cues from them.
Headers. Really what you want is a way to place your page numbers. A header is more appropriately what you use on a traditional manuscript that you are senfding to an agent or publisher, but your computer may put page numbers into that category. If you are good with your computer, you can get a very sophisticated set-up with your name on the top of one page, the title on the next, and the page numbers alternating upper right and upper left. I am going to assume that if you can do that you don't need this blog. Go for the page number insert for center bottom of the page. Again, put up your experiment page and play around. Find your "insert" menu- it may be under "file" or "edit." Practice with it. It will automatically insert the numbers but it may not insert them high enough onthe page to show up when the page is printed. I had an entire book come back without page numers because they were below the bottom margin for that formatting size. Experiment and print out.
Coming next: You are a publisher: What you don't need to get started
White paper is cheaper than beige, a lighter weight cheaper than a heavier one. Talk abou this with your printer. A 60 ppound paper is probably what you want.
I did a really dumb thing on the first book I formatted. I thought of a page as the sheet of paper, with a front and a back. If we said "Blank page," then I visualized a sheet of paper, blank on both sides. This is not what it means to a printer. A page is one side of a sheet. A sheet of paper equals two pages. That makes a world of difference. Some things you will want on the right side, as you hold the book open, such as acknowledgements and the first page of a table of contents, if you have one. Some people want all chapters to begin on the right. I did that once, and it cost a lot and wasted a lot of paper. Since I use section headings, those are always on the right and the back of that sheet is blank, so that the chapter starting off the new section starts on the right. After that, chapters can start right or left. Blank pages: enough and it looks custom and classy, too many and it looks amateurish. Look at books, well printed, expensive ones, and take your cues from them.
Headers. Really what you want is a way to place your page numbers. A header is more appropriately what you use on a traditional manuscript that you are senfding to an agent or publisher, but your computer may put page numbers into that category. If you are good with your computer, you can get a very sophisticated set-up with your name on the top of one page, the title on the next, and the page numbers alternating upper right and upper left. I am going to assume that if you can do that you don't need this blog. Go for the page number insert for center bottom of the page. Again, put up your experiment page and play around. Find your "insert" menu- it may be under "file" or "edit." Practice with it. It will automatically insert the numbers but it may not insert them high enough onthe page to show up when the page is printed. I had an entire book come back without page numers because they were below the bottom margin for that formatting size. Experiment and print out.
Coming next: You are a publisher: What you don't need to get started
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
There was a pause...
A quick check-in before continuing in my next post. Sorry there was a long delay between my last post and this one. I was proofing one book and writing furiously on another. That's the thing about blogging for me - it seems to take a lot of time, and when I am on a hot writing streak, blogging has to wait. Also, I was writing a major turning point in my book series, The Curtis Family Chronicles, and it was tough. Every book has an arc of emotion and action, and so does a series, and I am at the top-most point of that arc right now. (Apogee?) It takes it out me and doesn't leave room for much else, but I will be back with more of my step-by-step process later today. WWW
Monday, July 21, 2008
Things to do #1 A, More about formatting
I'm still on formatting and your computer, and you may wonder why this is first. This seems like one of the last things you should do, right? I'm writing about this first because you will save yourself time and anguish later and you will need the information you get from formatting when you talk to a printer. One of the first things a printer will ask you is "how many pages?" That's how you will find out what it will cost to print your book. You can tell them X letter- sized pages and they can estimate - most printers are good at that, but you will get an accurate price from the start if you can tell them that you have X pages formatted to 6x9. And that is not the literal size - there is what is called a "trim size" that means it is a little less than 6" or 9". You will want to be sure that that size is the most economical - ask your printer - but I have always found that it is.
As I said in an earlier blog, you can take the letter sized pages of your completed manuscript and magically zip them into a 6x9 format at the touch of a key, but you can also select your format size frn the gitgo and type your manuscript into that size from page 1. I am doing that with my new ms. and it's the first time I have tried it this way. The one thing different is that my computer insists on making the space between graphs slightly larger than a single space. Your printer won't care - what you will eventually be sending to them is camera- ready and they print it as is. It will mean, however, that your ms. will be a little longer and therefore cost more, so you decide. And no, I can't figure out why my computer does that and I can't make it stop, but it looks good and makes it a little easier to read.
Other things having to do with book size: print size and font. I stick with Times New Roman for the text font. For chapter headings, achnowledgements and other titles, I use Caslon Open Face, but that is only because my book series uses that font on every cover. It has a vaguely old look. Experiment with fonts, but remember that just because you like it, it won't necessarily be a good choice for 200 pages or however long your book is. Some people like Arial because it is very clean. Look at some commercially printed books and see which have a good look to you, then find the closest font on your program. There are ways to download new fonts for free, but you don't need that for your ms. text. You have enough choices.
Many commercially printed books have a 10 point sized type face. I find that too small. I pick an 11 or 12. Many of my readers are "mature adults" like myself and they appreciate being able to read my books without a magnifying glass. You will find a top of the screen icon that lets you pick font and type face. If you don't know how to do this, use your sample pages I talked about last time and explore. Single space. Put a character's thoughts in Italics. The rule now is no extra spaces after a period, but I don't observe that. Brought up in the two spaces after a period era, anything else looks cramped and wrong to me. And hey, since I'm the publisher, what I say goes.
Blocks, headers, and those pesky extra pages in the beginning of the book. WW
As I said in an earlier blog, you can take the letter sized pages of your completed manuscript and magically zip them into a 6x9 format at the touch of a key, but you can also select your format size frn the gitgo and type your manuscript into that size from page 1. I am doing that with my new ms. and it's the first time I have tried it this way. The one thing different is that my computer insists on making the space between graphs slightly larger than a single space. Your printer won't care - what you will eventually be sending to them is camera- ready and they print it as is. It will mean, however, that your ms. will be a little longer and therefore cost more, so you decide. And no, I can't figure out why my computer does that and I can't make it stop, but it looks good and makes it a little easier to read.
Other things having to do with book size: print size and font. I stick with Times New Roman for the text font. For chapter headings, achnowledgements and other titles, I use Caslon Open Face, but that is only because my book series uses that font on every cover. It has a vaguely old look. Experiment with fonts, but remember that just because you like it, it won't necessarily be a good choice for 200 pages or however long your book is. Some people like Arial because it is very clean. Look at some commercially printed books and see which have a good look to you, then find the closest font on your program. There are ways to download new fonts for free, but you don't need that for your ms. text. You have enough choices.
Many commercially printed books have a 10 point sized type face. I find that too small. I pick an 11 or 12. Many of my readers are "mature adults" like myself and they appreciate being able to read my books without a magnifying glass. You will find a top of the screen icon that lets you pick font and type face. If you don't know how to do this, use your sample pages I talked about last time and explore. Single space. Put a character's thoughts in Italics. The rule now is no extra spaces after a period, but I don't observe that. Brought up in the two spaces after a period era, anything else looks cramped and wrong to me. And hey, since I'm the publisher, what I say goes.
Blocks, headers, and those pesky extra pages in the beginning of the book. WW
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Things to do #1: Make friends with your computer
This blog is devoted to helping you publish your own work. No clever musings or deep insights. Just a how-I-did-it step by step tutorial.
I am not going to linger over the reasons to self-publish rather than choosing the traditional agent/publisher route. I'm going to assume you are a grownup, you've read the stats. and you've come to the conclusion that for one reason or another you don't want to deal with the traditional publishing world. For many writers, their first question then becomes,"Which of the big P.O.D's should I choose?"( If you are a true novice and don't know what P.O.D means, you should look that up.) You may have a list: Author House, Xlibris, Publish America, etc. Throw the list away. You will pay outrageous fees and waste a lot of time. Some waste more of your money than others (Publish America comes to mind) but will make you think you must pay them large sums of money to do what you can do on the most minimal computer with the help of an independent printing company.
"How am I going to get a slick looking book with all the goodies like a classy cover, ISBN numbers and barcodes if I don't use one of those money-sucking publishers ?" you ask. Because you are about to become a publisher, format your own book, find a printing company, and put out a product that looks just as good as the big guys for a fraction of the cost. That means, for the math impaired, that instead of having to charge $20 and up for your book because the publisher says so, or pay over $11 per copy to buy your own books from your publisher that you then have to mark up to sell, you can bring a full length novel
( my most recent was 385 pages) for around $4 or $5 each and keep your sale price low. You sell more that way, I promise. And my cover is gorgeous, the paper quality is excellent and I had no restrictions on fonts or layout.
The first thing you need to do is become friends with your computer. Take a piece of your writing, (not your manuscript - a couple of pages long is fine) that you have created on Word. If you don't know whether you have the Word program in your computer, you can look at your icons(mine are at the bottom of the screen) for the W. If you have a PC, you have Word. I have a Mac and I have Word too. If you don't have it, you can install it. You need to use Word rather than Appelworks because A'works sometimes creates problems. Don't ask me for details. Just accept the fact you need Word.
Now that you have your written piece and you are on Word, look at the strip at the top of your screen which will list functions. One of them will be File. Put your cursor on File and run down the options. Stop at Page SetUp. Under that, run you cursor down through your choices. One will be Paper Size. Under that, choose 6x9 (the why of that size later) Click on 6X9. Zzzzzip - your page on the screen will shrink, your print will jump around, and you will have created 6" x9" pages. You will have to move some of your paragraphing, headings etc around to accommodate the new size. You have just formatted for a standard paperback.
You should note that Formatting may be listed as an option under other functions, such as Edit. This is why you are working with a sample, so you can try each of these choices, and any others that look interesting. On my computer, the Format under Edit allows for limited options and does not include 6X9. It would seem to make sense that all formatting choices be in one place, but they aren't. With your sample page you can experiment and not lose your manuscript for all eternity. (You won't, but you're always afraid of that, aren't you?)
Do not panic if your Formatting function is not under File. They change these things and a new version may have it somewhere else. You can experiment. Take a deep breath. It isn't as scary as it seems. I knew absolutely nothing when I started this, and as soon as you lose your fear, it's easy. And if you are a young whipper-snapper, you probably aren't afraid anyway.
Next Blog: When to format: While you are writing your ms. or when it's complete? And why are you doing this now, anyway? Shouldn't other things come first? WW
I am not going to linger over the reasons to self-publish rather than choosing the traditional agent/publisher route. I'm going to assume you are a grownup, you've read the stats. and you've come to the conclusion that for one reason or another you don't want to deal with the traditional publishing world. For many writers, their first question then becomes,"Which of the big P.O.D's should I choose?"( If you are a true novice and don't know what P.O.D means, you should look that up.) You may have a list: Author House, Xlibris, Publish America, etc. Throw the list away. You will pay outrageous fees and waste a lot of time. Some waste more of your money than others (Publish America comes to mind) but will make you think you must pay them large sums of money to do what you can do on the most minimal computer with the help of an independent printing company.
"How am I going to get a slick looking book with all the goodies like a classy cover, ISBN numbers and barcodes if I don't use one of those money-sucking publishers ?" you ask. Because you are about to become a publisher, format your own book, find a printing company, and put out a product that looks just as good as the big guys for a fraction of the cost. That means, for the math impaired, that instead of having to charge $20 and up for your book because the publisher says so, or pay over $11 per copy to buy your own books from your publisher that you then have to mark up to sell, you can bring a full length novel
( my most recent was 385 pages) for around $4 or $5 each and keep your sale price low. You sell more that way, I promise. And my cover is gorgeous, the paper quality is excellent and I had no restrictions on fonts or layout.
The first thing you need to do is become friends with your computer. Take a piece of your writing, (not your manuscript - a couple of pages long is fine) that you have created on Word. If you don't know whether you have the Word program in your computer, you can look at your icons(mine are at the bottom of the screen) for the W. If you have a PC, you have Word. I have a Mac and I have Word too. If you don't have it, you can install it. You need to use Word rather than Appelworks because A'works sometimes creates problems. Don't ask me for details. Just accept the fact you need Word.
Now that you have your written piece and you are on Word, look at the strip at the top of your screen which will list functions. One of them will be File. Put your cursor on File and run down the options. Stop at Page SetUp. Under that, run you cursor down through your choices. One will be Paper Size. Under that, choose 6x9 (the why of that size later) Click on 6X9. Zzzzzip - your page on the screen will shrink, your print will jump around, and you will have created 6" x9" pages. You will have to move some of your paragraphing, headings etc around to accommodate the new size. You have just formatted for a standard paperback.
You should note that Formatting may be listed as an option under other functions, such as Edit. This is why you are working with a sample, so you can try each of these choices, and any others that look interesting. On my computer, the Format under Edit allows for limited options and does not include 6X9. It would seem to make sense that all formatting choices be in one place, but they aren't. With your sample page you can experiment and not lose your manuscript for all eternity. (You won't, but you're always afraid of that, aren't you?)
Do not panic if your Formatting function is not under File. They change these things and a new version may have it somewhere else. You can experiment. Take a deep breath. It isn't as scary as it seems. I knew absolutely nothing when I started this, and as soon as you lose your fear, it's easy. And if you are a young whipper-snapper, you probably aren't afraid anyway.
Next Blog: When to format: While you are writing your ms. or when it's complete? And why are you doing this now, anyway? Shouldn't other things come first? WW
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Wordy Woman Signs In
This blog is for writers who have decided they'd like to try self publishing and would like to know more before they start. I have self-published five books, four with my own publishing company Due West Books, LLC, and one with a big commerical P.O.Ds. I have made all the mistakes and I can help you avoid them and produce a better book in less time and for less money than if you had to learn the hard way. When I sign back in, I'll be writing about Step 1 - and it's right on your own computer. WW
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