Charlie’s Choice

Weekly Tips to Help You Write,

Publish & Promote Your Work 

HEADING INSIDE: A LOOK AT

HOW A BOOK IS FORMATTED 

      In last week’s column, we looked at the goals and the skills needed to create a quality book cover: front, spine and back.  This week we’ll expand our understanding of book design by reaching inside to learn more about the goals of a good book designer and the techniques that he/she calls upon to make it happen.

      Neither publishers nor authors need become experts in design. There are always skilled professionals to carry out these chores. The role of the publisher and/or author is to be able to evaluate skillfully whether the design, either cover or interior, will boost or deter sales. Believe me, design does maintain a powerful influence over sales, as you will realize after reading this short column.

The Designer’s Dictionary

      One of the first requirements is to learn the jargon of the designer. As you know, many specialties have their own lexicon, and interior design does too, of course. Understanding these few key words and phrases will help you comprehend what the designer is saying as you discuss ways to improve your format.

BOOK BLOCK,  also known as Text Block, is the inclusive term for all matter that appears between the front and back cover.

FRONT MATTER represents all of the material that is printed in the front of the book between the front cover and the body or main text of the book.

THE BODY This is the central and most important segment of the book. For fiction, it is the story; in the case of nonfiction, it is the narrative. Whether the book is a how-to, a history, a true crime or a scholarly work, the body carries all of the information the author seeks to pass on to the reader.

BACK OF THE BOOK Any material that is added after the main body of the book is considered part of this category. That includes  things like an index, appendix, special notes, references, etc.

FONT This term refers to a complete set of type of a single size and face (style).

SERIF Serif fonts like Times Roman feature decorative enhancements on their vertical lines; sans serif fonts like Arial have none. It is generally thought that serif type is a bit easier to read, particularly because the little footers lead the eye from one word to the next.

MARGINS While I am sure you know this term from all the way back in your grammar school classes, I add it here because it takes on a special significance when used in a discussion of book design. Books usually present a great deal of type. That, of course, is what a book is all about…a document to be read. It is important to offer the reader the opportunity to take a quick break and rest his/her eyeballs. In addition, it opens up the page, lessening the overwhelming impact of a solid, heavy copy mass.

JUSTIFY This represents an action to adjust the spacing of a line of type so that all the lines end evenly forming a straight margin.

RAGGED RIGHT OR LEFT  In these cases, no effort is made to justify the type. That is why you find in most cases, varying lengths of lines as the typographer attempts to end a line with a complete word. Many literary agents insist upon raged right composition, claiming it is far easier to read than justified copy. As a result, it has become the most common formatting in our industry.

LEADING This term refers to the vertical spacing between lines…the varying amount of white space the typographer may choose to use in his/her layout. Obviously, a greater amount of leading will help each line to stand out in a large block of type. But there are specific ratios that are the most effective based on type size and type design. There is often the concern that the “tail’” or type on a higher line might clash with the height of the type used on the succeeding line.

TRIM SIZE This is the finished size of the page. The most common trims are 5.5 X 8.5  and 6 X 9. I have used both sizes for my books, depending on which I felt was most appropriate. Wherever possible, it’s a good idea to keep your trim sizes uniform so that they will all fit well into a single size shipping carton.  It is also important to remember that in the case of many book covers, the background color goes all the way to the edge of the page. Therefore  you must allow in the neighborhood of ¼ inch for what we call Bleed. Your printer can give you exact specs for the bleed required.

SIGNATURES Multiple pages of a book are printed at the same time. I know this is a confusing concept, but you may grasp it if you take a piece of paper and fold it in half four times. That will give you 16 sections on each side. A standard sheet-fed press will print 32 pages at one time, 16 on the top of the sheet and 16 on the bottom. The backs and fronts must be carefully matched before running the press. On a web press, the number printed at one time is 48.

Additional Considerations

      Here are a few thoughts that may help you in evaluating the format your designer presents.

      Reading newspapers, as so many hundreds of thousands did regularly, accustomed our eyes to a very narrow column, much shorter than the average column of type in a book. Of course, that would mean a huge waste of space in a book, and force the price sky-high because of the large number of pages you would need.

      So the gurus of the industry set parameters based on a great deal of “eye-to-page” study. These figures are affected by many variables such as the vocabulary the author uses and what he/she is writing about. The standard that is generally set is about 60-65 letters per line, so you can see how the subject matter (long scientific words, for example) and an erudite author’s mode of polysyllabic expression can affect that finding.

      In contrast to the way potential readers see the cover copy, the interior of a book is generally studied  from a distance of between one and two feet away. Bear this in mind when you analyze the type used by your designer, for sometimes designers can be carried away by an artistic consideration, and hand you a format that really isn’t ideal for reading.

      I have searched Amazon for several decent books on interior formatting, but came up relatively empty handed. Most pertained to Kindle or were promos for individual designers. I was lucky enough to find The Non-Designer’s Design Book on B&N.com in an updated version released in February, 2008, and tracked it down on Amazon as well. The original edition has been around for years. These are both 5-star books by the highly respected Robin Williams.

      At a recent meeting of a well known writers’ organization, I overheard a tense discussion of writer’s block that made me bristle. So next week, we’ll turn our attention to writer’s block and a number of other ridiculous myths that have been associated with our profession. See you then.

      Keep Writing!

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FIVE COMPETING MAGAZINES FORM

MARKET CAMPAIGN TO START IN APRIL 

Five rivals in the print magazine world have seen the sense of combining efforts to promote readership and restore this segment of the industry to its rightful status. Conde Nast, Meredith,, Time Inc, Hearst and Wenner Media have joined hands and hired Young & Rubicam to do the creative for the project.  

Advertisements will be placed on the pages of the five participants. Other members of the Magazine Publishers of America will be invited to join the campaign, according to an article in Media Week. 

Jack Griffin, President of Meredith’s National Media Group, explained in the Media Week story that “Industry leaders are joining forces to solve problems. I think it’s an opportunity to speak up at a time when the media landscape has gotten very confusing.”   

In addition to this new campaign, four of the participants were joined by News Corp to create an additional organization temporarily labeled Next Issue Media. The goal is to create open standards for digital reading applications for magazines, newspapers and books. The consortium hopes to create a consumer storefront of quality paid content along with an advertising platform and  audience measurement tools.   

Although it is headed by John Squires, formerly an exec with Time Inc and someone known as a “doer,” very little has been heard from the group since its formation at the end of last year. I have been able to locate only three blog editions. 

Its website states “The future of publishing is happening here.” And the bottom of the screen states, “For more information, come back soon.”  I came back, but found nothing new. Just the same problem I faced the first time…the type did not fit on screen, and there was no way I could adjust to read it all. 

Not a very exciting launch for such an impressive quintet of periodicals.

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NATIONAL ENQUIRER OPENS A

PANDORA’S BOX AT THE PULITZER PRIZES 

You  may laugh when hearing that the National Enquirer, the scandal sheet found in grocery stores throughout the country, has submitted its application for a Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s most revered award. Word has it that their action has shaken some timbers at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, where the prize office is based. 

Yes, much of their coverage is an anathema to any self-respecting journalist. Doctored photos, biased and inaccurate stories, even blatant lies, almost too preposterous to believe. 

But this time they beat the national press at its own game, covering a top candidate for the Presidential nomination, John Edwards. And the only thing trashy about that exclusive newsbeat was the man they wrote about and what he did. 

The Enquirer broke the news of Rielle Hunter’s pregnancy and worse yet, the use of campaign donations as hush money.  Smelling a story in a small comment by the Huffington Post, the tabloid’s “bird dogs” went to work and within a month had confirmed publicly what the Huffington article first sensed, but apparently feared to state.  

As painful as it may be in the pristine halls of the Journalism School, one has to “give the devil his due” if the awards are to continue to have real meaning. Top notch digging and reporting of a disgrace at such a high level in our political structure deserves recognition.

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PRIMIR STUDY CLAIMS PRINT BOOK SALES

REACHED THEIR PEAK IN 2007 

In its study “Trends in Books 2008-2012, Primir, the Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization, cited 2007 as the year in which print book sales reached their apex. A combination of the economic malaise and the growing strength of digital books were principal causes of the current slippage. 

The study predicts that by the time the economy stabilizes, the book industry will be much smaller and very different from its present composition. 

However, it does point out that book content in paper/printed form will continue to be a major factor during the forecast period that ends in 2012, although sales levels will fall somewhat. With book content spreading to multiple media channels, potential fall-off in sales at traditional bookstores will undoubtedly occur.  

However, the study states that it will “take years for e-books to penetrate all aspects of the traditional print book market. It points to the economy as the prime driver of change in the short term.  Not a thrilling  forecast, but one that seems more and more likely as the challenge of the

e-book grows more robust and the economy continues  its sluggish return to normalcy

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ANALYSIS OF THE E-BOOK MARKET

PRODUCED BY BOOK BUSINESS MAGAZINE  

After reading the Primir study, I thought this examination of the e-book market published recently in Book Business Magazine would be of great value to our readers.

The E-book Price Wars 
The average prices of the top 100 e-books on the Amazon Kindle best-seller list and the Sony best-seller list for the first half of 2009 were $8.26 and $10.38, respectively. For the second half of 2009 (up to mid-December), the average price for the top 100 Amazon Kindle titles dropped to $6.76, while Sony's average price dipped to $9.25.

How Much Do E-book Readers Read? 
Among e-book users, 63% have read between one and five e-books in the past year.

Who's Reading and on What?

• The largest group of e-book readers are in the 18–25-year-old age range, making up 25% of e-book readers. (The percentage/group size drops as one moves into the older age ranges.)
• Four out of five e-book users read their e-books on PCs or Macs (mostly PC). About one in four read e-books on a device other than a PC or Mac, including dedicated reading devices or smartphones.

Read vs. Buy:

About 90% of the U.S. adult population has never 
purchased an e-book.

About one in five (20%) adults has read (not necessarily purchased) at least one e-book in the past 12 months.

A Manly Format? 
The e-book format is the only reading format statistically known to draw more men than women: About 12% of men bought an e-book in the past 12 months compared to almost 9% of women. 

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RECLUSIVE SALINGER TOUCHED A CHORD AND

NEVER HAD TO PROMOTE HIS PERENNIAL BESTSELLER

One wonders what it says about the continuous need for promotion that we usually hear about. J.D. Salinger produced a masterpiece that now still sells approximately 250,000 copies every year despite the fact that he led so reclusive a life, avoiding personal contact with the rest of the book world and the millions of readers that made Holden Caulfield, the teenage hero of The  Catcher in the Rye, a legendary figure in American literature.

It certainly stands as an inspiration to all of us writers who dream of resonating with the reading public. 
 

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Charlie’s Choice

Weekly Tips to Help You Write,

Publish & Promote Your Work 

THE BOOK COVER:  A READER’S

FIRST IMPRESSION OF YOUR BOOK 

      The old saw, “You can’t tell a book by its cover” just isn’t applicable to our industry. Far too many potential buyers have been turned off by a second-rate cover that didn’t reflect the quality of the content on the inside pages. A book’s title and the graphics on its cover must combine to give the customer a true sense of what he/she will find inside.

      Covers have come a long way since their initial function. For many centuries, they served essentially as protectors for the prized words and pages they covered. These hand-bound volumes were wrapped in strong materials like wood and leather. Many times they would be decorated with gold, silver and precious stones.

      It wasn’t until the early 18^th Century that mechanical book binding techniques came into vogue. And as that technology moved from cloth to paper, graphic representations became essential for book covers. Today in the digital age, the book cover remains equally important in its latest incarnation when wrapped around an e-book.

With or Without Professional Help

      Technology has moved swiftly and effectively to meet the demands of publishers and authors. A complete industry has developed that inludes literally thousands of skilled cover designers available for a fee, as well as a number of programs that allow a budget-conscious author to design a cover using ready-made templates.

      Many of us in the publishing world are strong advocates of hiring professionals to complete this job because the cover is so vital a tool in the sales of your book. However, there are now hundreds of books self-published in which the author has chosen to use a self-help program like www.bookcoverpro.com. If you click on “self help book cover design templates” in your favorite search engine, you will find many others. I also list several at the end of this column.

      Selecting a pro to design your cover requires a good deal of care. Your choice will be a very personal one, and for that reason I hesitate to recommend specific designers. I suggest you start your search by heading to the Internet and search under “book cover designers.” Many names will pop up. Check out that designer’s gallery to view a variety of covers he/she designed, and narrow down your choices. (Two excellent lists of qualified designers appears at the end of this column.)

      As your next step, contact the designer and determine whether you feel you two would be compatible. Explain what your book is about, and ask whether he/she has designed covers for similar books. If they are not displayed in the gallery, ask the designer e-mail them to you. In addition, ask for a price on a four-color (I assume you want color) cover for the size you require.

      It is difficult to guide you on prices, for they vary greatly among designers. I would suggest that the very lowest price a designer will charge is $200. However, a more realistic range would be from $400 to $600. You will also find designers that charge $1,000 and up, but I feel you can receive a very competent design at the middle range.  A good source for budget design is a design school located near you.

The Total Cover

      Never overlook the fact that a cover has three very essential segments, each with a specific assignment: front, back and spine. The first portion of the cover to attract the reader is in most cases the spine, unless the shop has decided to display it with its front facing out. It should contain the name of the book, the author and the publisher.

      The front, of course, is designed to give the reader an overview of the book’s quality and content, as we discussed earlier. Whenever possible include either a short testimonial from an impressive person or if you have won any competition, reproduce the medal on the cover.  Experiments have proved that the reader looks at the front for approximately eight to ten seconds. If pleased or curious, he/she then turns to the back cover for more information.

      The back is essentially a selling page. It can include a brief bio of the author and even a photo. It will have a brief précis of the book and several endorsements from respected sources. Of course, the price will also be printed on the back. If the reader is pleased with what  he/she finds after spending  anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds studying the back, the next step will be to open the book, probably peruse the table of contents and skim through several pages or chapters before deciding whether to purchase or not.

Designing the Cover Yourself

      While this subject merits a lengthy discussion, probably a book, I am only going to touch on some of the highlights to be aware of.

      Once you have the dimensions from your printer, lay out the entire cover as a single rectangle, and then section it into the components, front, back and spine. Of course, as I pointed out earlier, don’t forget to include the requirements for bleed, usually about 1/8 of an inch. . (That means the additional print surface beyond the actual dimensions of the cover that the printer needs to allow for clean printing of the colors right to the edges of the cover. Your printer will then trim the cover to its exact size.)

      Your printer can tell you the size of the spine, which is based on the number of pages and the thickness of the paper stock you use.

      Think in terms of the places your book will be sold. A traditional bookstore will probably shelve it spine out. Make certain the colors and typography are highly attractive. However, if your primary outlets will be discount stores, chain pharmacies and possibly airport stores, think in terms of strengthening the front cover, and moving the title up higher because these outlets usually display the book facing out.

      It is wise to insist upon a proof of the cover on paper stock. For some reason the color hues and definition that come up on the computer screen are not always the same as on paper. They can be misleading. To achieve the color you want, use at least 300 dpi in all the images you use to achieve the high resolution that will make your cover stand out.

      As promised, here are several sources for design templates when you do the work yourself: www.templatescollective.com, www.morrispublishing.com/dsn/cover/custom.asp.

and www.bookcoverpro.com.

      While I hesitate, as said, to suggest specific professional cover designers, I can recommend you view www.brennerbooks.com/coverdesigners.html  and/or reach out for John Kremer.’s www.bookmarket.com/101des.htm. These lists contain quality designers.

      Next week, we’ll delve into the related issue of interior design. Just as the cover design has its functions, so the design of the interior of the book has a job to do, as we’ll learn. Until I see you then,

      Keep Writing! 

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GOOGLE’S CO-FOUNDERS PLAN TO

SURRENDER MAJORITY CONTROL 

There’s little need to weep for Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the Stanford U whiz kids who turned a dream into one of the world’s great success stories in little more than 11 years. The pair recently announced they plan to give up their majority stock positions in Google over the next five years.  

That doesn’t mean they won’t continue to influence every aspect of the company. With 48% of the voting rights shared between them, they certainly will continue as company powerhouses. 

The plan is to sell what will amount to some $2.75 billion worth of shares, stretched over the five-year period so that there would be no sudden impact on the company and the two men can never be accused of insider trading. 

The two men, both just 36-years-old, deserve great credit for the organization they have built. 

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DEADLINE SET FOR THE ANNUAL

WRITER’S DIGEST COMPETITION 

Writer’s Digest Magazine has announced May 14 as the deadline for submission to its annual writing competition, now in its 79^th consecutive year. The grand prize winner will be given a three-day visit to New York City for meetings with editors and agents. More than $30,000 in cash and prizes will be given out to winners in a variety of categories. 

The ten categories for submissions include:

• Inspirational Writing (Spiritual/Religious)
• Memoirs/Personal Essay
• Magazine Feature Article
• Genre Short Story (Mystery, Romance, etc.)
• Mainstream/Literary Short Story
• Rhyming Poetry
• Non-rhyming Poetry
• Stage Play
• Television/Movie Script
• Children's/Young Adult Fiction

For more info and entry forms, click on www.writersdigest.com/annual.  

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