by Bobbie Christmas
Q: I am trying to decide how to lay out my nonfiction book. The book will be six by nine. Can I use a .75-inch margin (top, side, bottom, and spine) throughout the book? What font should I use? Some say Times at twelve points. Do I single space the lines?
What layout elements do you recommend?
A: First I must say that professional book designers know much more about preparing a book for publication than most of us writers. We may be familiar only with programs such as Microsoft Word. Although Word is great for word processing, it is not the best program for book layout and design. The pro designer with experience and the right design software can be much more creative than we can be with just a word-processing program. Professional book designers do charge a substantial fee for their service, though.
If you are determined to perform the layout of the book yourself, I can give you a few pointers, although my background is primarily editing. I did take enough design courses to be able to tell good design from bad, but I am far from a professional designer.
Caveats aside, for design standards I looked at The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition (CMOS), to see how it is designed. After all, it is the ultimate resource on how to edit and produce books.
The CMOS book is about six by nine inches. Each page has an ID at the top of all content pages. The subject number and chapter name are on the left side of the even pages, and the subject name and section number are at the top right on the odd pages. Even pages are on the left and odd pages are on the right. All pages are numbered at the bottom, at the outside edge, so that even numbers are at the far left on the left-side pages and odd numbers are at the far right on right-side pages. The pages feature margins of about three-quarters of an inch on the spine, bottom, and right sides. The top margin, however, from the top of the page to the page ID, is a little less than half an inch.
CMOS differs from some reference books, because it uses a numbering system to identify subjects. For example, chapter one, titled Parts of a Book, starts with item 1.1 and ends with 1.117. An index tells the subject of each numerical section. Still, the overall design is open and easy to read, and if anyone knows about books, it would have to be the folks at the University of Chicago Press, who literally wrote the book on producing books.
Although CMOS appears to use eight or ten-point Times New Roman, it’s a huge book of more than a thousand pages. It would become even larger and more unwieldy if printed in twelve-point type. I like twelve-point type, myself, and Times New Roman is easy to read and highly recommended. Certainly shy away from cute fonts or sans serif fonts such as Helvetica, which are better for headlines than for body text.
Yes, the lines in a book should be single-spaced, with no extra spaces between paragraphs except to indicate a scene change or, in the case of nonfiction, a change in subject matter.
In the end, design often comes down to what you like. Go to a bookstore or check your bookshelf for a relatively new nonfiction book. Be sure it comes from a major publisher; that is, not an indie or self-publisher. Look it over and see if you find it easy to read and pleasant to the eyes. Study its design elements.
Ask yourself these questions and see if you want to follow the same design. Does each chapter have a special symbol or other design element at the beginning? Does the end of each chapter have a symbol or slug (sometimes called a dingbat) at the end? What is the font size? Is the type full justified (straight on both left and right sides), or is it ragged right (each line ends wherever it ends and is not stretched out to meet an imaginary straight line on the right)? Make your choices for your book design based on what you like and what worked for you when you studied the look of other books.
Q: Ever heard of [printer name deleted]? They gave me a great price and seem to know what they’re doing. Do you have any printers you recommend?
For my first printing I want to produce only 500 to 600 copies in case I notice errors or want to change something. The book will have a hardcover and ten illustrations.
Do you have any advice on the actual printing process?
A: I haven’t heard of the printer you mention, but I have a favorite, the one that printed the second edition of my award-winning book on creative writing, Write In Style. Send me a private email, and I’ll send you the name.
No matter who you choose to use, each printer has its pluses and minuses. One company may have a great price for printing but may be too far away from you, so shipping costs would eat up your savings, for example. Some printers may cost a little more but are great with customer service and communication, which could actually save you money by avoiding mistakes and misunderstandings.
The internet allows us to find printers all around the globe as well as customer comments about those companies. Be sure to research your potential printers and see what past customers have said about their experiences with that printer.
New print-on-demand (POD) technology allows us to print fewer copies at a time, and we don’t have to stockpile hundreds of books in a climate-controlled warehouse to protect our investment. Unless you have presold hundreds of copies, remember the rule of thumb: self-published books often sell no more than one hundred copies. The books that sell the best are the ones written by speakers, well-known personalities, and other strong self-promoters with a built-in audience.
If you know you will have to warehouse copies for an indefinite time, POD might be a better choice. With POD, you can buy as few copies as you need, sometimes as few as one, and as you said, if you find errors in the first copies, you can easily fix the flaws before printing the next small batch.
The drawbacks of POD are that many POD printers offer only paperbacks, not hardbacks. In addition, the cost per copy is often higher than traditionally published paperbacks. The advantages, though, are that you don’t have to warehouse large numbers of books and don’t invest in inventory that may sit in storage for years. Because paperbacks cost less to produce than hardbacks, your cost is reduced, a fact that may keep your selling price within a more acceptable range and help you sell more copies. You can see there are ups and downs to the POD process, but POD has become quite standard for self-publishers.
Because you’ve chosen to produce hardcover books, you may have to produce hundreds of books before you can get a price break based on volume, but please be sure you can sell the volume you choose to produce. There’s an adage that goes “The last one with the merchandise loses.” You don’t want to lose by having hundreds of unsold books getting moldy in storage.
No matter what your decision, you are wise to order only a few books at first, for the reason you mention—you may want to make changes—and because you won’t be left with thousands of unsold copies if something happens and the books don’t sell as well as you expected.
As far as the actual printing process, ask for samples from the printer you are considering. Not only may you get some interesting books, but you can also compare those samples to samples from other printers. Ask for the names of past clients. Call those self-published authors and ask about their experience with the printer.
At some point you have to trust you’ve made a good decision and commit, but don’t do it until you are armed with as much information as you can find.
Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style: Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing, and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Read more Ask the Book Doctor questions and answers at www.zebraeditor.com.