I found this super interesting (after I’d recovered from the panic attack I had over the amount of tabs you have open), thank you. Loved seeing how you made your cover, and I’d never even considered the complexity of book formatting (😱)—all those pesky widows and orphans to deal with!
Very excited for your self-publishing venture, and looking forward to diving in to Memory once HH comes to end (a time I’m dreading, tbh).
Thanks, Chloe. I'm never sure how these little share-outs will be received. It's weird to work out in the open and some days I question if it's a reasonable thing to do. The hope is that shining a light on some of my struggles will prove useful to others.
One of my students at work always has about 200 tabs open. So many that he can't even read a single letter on any of them. I spend meeting with him with sweat pouring down me as I stare at his screen, unable to hear any of the actual words he's saying to me.
Circling back to this, instead of finish my grades today. I 💚 behind the scenes, always. It's inspiring to see how you do this. For our MFA graduation, I made postcard-sized book covers of everyone's book - complete with back cover blurbs from their favorite authors. Put them together in Canva and glued them to little blocks of wood. It was so much fun.
I look forward to holding my very own copy of TMOMS in my hand.
Very interesting Ben - I hope you'll continue with some other aspects along the way? Good to know you went with Lulu, I met a rep at the London Book Fair and liked their vibe.
Thanks, Troy. I’m happy to share as much as folks are interested in hearing about in this process. I would much prefer to have an agent and the support of a publisher but if this particular book has a moment, that moment is right now.
Wow, Ben. Suuuuper interesting. I didn't realise typesetting was like this. Sorry if I missed it, but did you import the words into InDesign from a certain file format? Does it have any page limit? How much memory is it using? (I'm just thinking of what happens with e.g. a 600 page book!)
Is this the main software people use for typesetting?
Thanks for the great vid and insights. Wish I had the skills in design haha.
Thanks, Nathan. I write my drafts in MS Word so i just imported my novel docx into InDesign and from there it's a game of pushing and pulling the tracking between letters to make the pages come out right. Back in the day it used to be a lot worse, but CPUs are so powerful these days, pushing text around in a 600 page document is not that big a deal. InDesign is pretty much the industry standard for laying out all print publications from magazines to novels.
Ben! This was soooo interesting. I’ve done some typesetting, and this took me back to moments of tracking and forcing breaks and moving this so this, that, and the other needed moving—ad nauseum. It’s like a word version of Tetris. But I never did anything book length. What a project. Can’t wait to learn more and especially when I can have a copy of Harmony House and that fabulous cover on my shelf. ♥️🔥Thank you for the generous shares!
Hi Ben, your video was quite interesting for authors who are planning to publish books. I have good contacts in the traditional publishing industry in Turkey (having been on the Editorial Board of a semi-academic journal on Translation and having translated and published a few novels), so my issue is to be able to finish any of the 3+ books I'm working on simultaneously. However, I am interested in finding out about self-publishing and on-demand printing options in the English-speaking world. I would be glad to get any suggestions or pointers in that direction. I'm a regular Kindle reader, so self-publishing on Amazon is a natural choice, but I've heard some intriguing stories about that and of course, there is the whole story about how Amazon wrecked the publishing industry. Any thoughts?
That’s great for you, Levent. It’s nice to have an established foothold in the traditional publishing lane. I’m glad this was somewhat helpful to you. Thanks for reading. A lot of people do publish on Amazon KDP. I did that with my first novel 10 years ago but this time around I'm going with Lulu so I can distribute across all online channels and in physical stores.
I have not had to type-set a full novel in such a LONG time. Watching your video has given me goosebumps of excitement to get to my short story collection I'm putting together for release next summer! One thing I found fascinating is that you designed the cover using Photoshop but did the typesetting in InDesign! I never considered doing that. I just do the cover design and typesetting all in Photoshop. Granted, when I did it, it was for a 6-book series so I liked being able to have a row of artboards for each book so I could design the paperback and ebook covers for all 6 books in one REALLY HUGE file. Thank you for sharing your process. I love formatting a book and zapping all those widows and orphans with tracking and kearning! It's maddening but exciting when the end result looks as professional as a traditionally published book.
I found this super interesting (after I’d recovered from the panic attack I had over the amount of tabs you have open), thank you. Loved seeing how you made your cover, and I’d never even considered the complexity of book formatting (😱)—all those pesky widows and orphans to deal with!
Very excited for your self-publishing venture, and looking forward to diving in to Memory once HH comes to end (a time I’m dreading, tbh).
Thanks, Chloe. I'm never sure how these little share-outs will be received. It's weird to work out in the open and some days I question if it's a reasonable thing to do. The hope is that shining a light on some of my struggles will prove useful to others.
No, it’s super generous. I think these things plant more seeds that you’ll ever know about 🌱
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
One of my students at work always has about 200 tabs open. So many that he can't even read a single letter on any of them. I spend meeting with him with sweat pouring down me as I stare at his screen, unable to hear any of the actual words he's saying to me.
I think my tab usage is moderate compared to my daughter.
I feel for you. Tab anxiety is real and seriously underrecognised 😆
It really is.
Right now I have (*counts*) 13 tabs open.
I'm going to finish what I'm doing and then close this laptop lid, thus creating a superposition of 13 tabs and zero tabs...
My brain can’t handle that level of mathematics this early I’m afraid
😆
Oh, sorry, I forget I'm so many hours ahead. Come Sunday evening the math will be easy.
Looking forward to it ;)
Circling back to this, instead of finish my grades today. I 💚 behind the scenes, always. It's inspiring to see how you do this. For our MFA graduation, I made postcard-sized book covers of everyone's book - complete with back cover blurbs from their favorite authors. Put them together in Canva and glued them to little blocks of wood. It was so much fun.
I look forward to holding my very own copy of TMOMS in my hand.
That's so cool! I bet you're an amazing teacher. You students must really enjoy their time with you.
Very interesting Ben - I hope you'll continue with some other aspects along the way? Good to know you went with Lulu, I met a rep at the London Book Fair and liked their vibe.
Thanks, Troy. I’m happy to share as much as folks are interested in hearing about in this process. I would much prefer to have an agent and the support of a publisher but if this particular book has a moment, that moment is right now.
Wow, Ben. Suuuuper interesting. I didn't realise typesetting was like this. Sorry if I missed it, but did you import the words into InDesign from a certain file format? Does it have any page limit? How much memory is it using? (I'm just thinking of what happens with e.g. a 600 page book!)
Is this the main software people use for typesetting?
Thanks for the great vid and insights. Wish I had the skills in design haha.
Thanks, Nathan. I write my drafts in MS Word so i just imported my novel docx into InDesign and from there it's a game of pushing and pulling the tracking between letters to make the pages come out right. Back in the day it used to be a lot worse, but CPUs are so powerful these days, pushing text around in a 600 page document is not that big a deal. InDesign is pretty much the industry standard for laying out all print publications from magazines to novels.
That's cool, appreciate the info. Didn't know that. 👍
Ben! This was soooo interesting. I’ve done some typesetting, and this took me back to moments of tracking and forcing breaks and moving this so this, that, and the other needed moving—ad nauseum. It’s like a word version of Tetris. But I never did anything book length. What a project. Can’t wait to learn more and especially when I can have a copy of Harmony House and that fabulous cover on my shelf. ♥️🔥Thank you for the generous shares!
Thanks, Holly. It is a funny and tedious little dance typesetting copy. I'm glad I only have to do it every few years when I finish a novel!
Hi Ben, your video was quite interesting for authors who are planning to publish books. I have good contacts in the traditional publishing industry in Turkey (having been on the Editorial Board of a semi-academic journal on Translation and having translated and published a few novels), so my issue is to be able to finish any of the 3+ books I'm working on simultaneously. However, I am interested in finding out about self-publishing and on-demand printing options in the English-speaking world. I would be glad to get any suggestions or pointers in that direction. I'm a regular Kindle reader, so self-publishing on Amazon is a natural choice, but I've heard some intriguing stories about that and of course, there is the whole story about how Amazon wrecked the publishing industry. Any thoughts?
That’s great for you, Levent. It’s nice to have an established foothold in the traditional publishing lane. I’m glad this was somewhat helpful to you. Thanks for reading. A lot of people do publish on Amazon KDP. I did that with my first novel 10 years ago but this time around I'm going with Lulu so I can distribute across all online channels and in physical stores.
I have not had to type-set a full novel in such a LONG time. Watching your video has given me goosebumps of excitement to get to my short story collection I'm putting together for release next summer! One thing I found fascinating is that you designed the cover using Photoshop but did the typesetting in InDesign! I never considered doing that. I just do the cover design and typesetting all in Photoshop. Granted, when I did it, it was for a 6-book series so I liked being able to have a row of artboards for each book so I could design the paperback and ebook covers for all 6 books in one REALLY HUGE file. Thank you for sharing your process. I love formatting a book and zapping all those widows and orphans with tracking and kearning! It's maddening but exciting when the end result looks as professional as a traditionally published book.