Type and Design Tips for self- and small publishers POST #3

Ok, now we get to the real stuff that no one tells you. Let’s say you’re using Quark or InDesign, you’ve flowed all the text of your novel or stories into the pages, and you’re done, right?

No, you’ve just started.

It’s a bit like you just pulled your cake out of the oven, but you haven’t even started to frost it or decorate. And just like with cake, frosting isn’t just some frivolity. It’s an expected part of the cake-eating experience. And as anyone who has looked at the Cake Wrecks website knows, there’s a huge difference between a well done professional frosting job and a crappy one (whether amateur or not).

A book is the same. If the frosting is applied by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, you end up with the titles in Papyrus or Comic Sans–or worse, the body text of the stories…! And that’s just the beginning.

First let’s talk about FOUR types of pages you have to design.
1. Blank
2. Chapter Opening or Story Opening
3. Main pages of the book — left-facing pages and right-facing pages

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.