The Benefits of Professional Typesetting
January 20, 2009 by michele52
Filed under Book Interior Design
Today, the tools to arrange words on paper are everywhere, and it’s easy to assume there’s nothing difficult about typesetting your own book.
Books look easy to do, but they’re not. Book typesetting has its own set of rules that must be followed for a professional look. Break even a few of these rules, or lay out your book with word-processing software, and the gatekeepers in the book industry will immediately know it is self-published.
Word-processing software simply doesn’t have the same spacing controls available in a page-layout program. And even if you buy the proper software and navigate the very steep learning curve, chances are that you won’t get the same results as an experienced book designer who has been trained to create pages that draw the reader in and are easy to navigate.
We have redesigned many covers and interiors at the request of distributors who simply would not carry a client’s book as it was originally prepared.
Just as with the cover, a professional interior design helps to establish your credibility to the buyer, who is as yet unfamiliar with your content. A competent designer starts by creating a unique interior design just for your book. He or she takes into account your audience and your subject matter, so that it will begin to appeal to them before they even begin reading. Then the designer and the author work back and forth, making any necessary adjustments. Design is always the result of collaboration.
If the design firm you choose doesn’t offer proofreading, then be sure to hire an experienced proofreader to read the layed-out pages on your own. And if you think you can skip proofreading the layout because your book was edited, please reconsider. For some reason, errors just show up more readily in formatted text than in a manuscript. We always find errors, sometimes many errors, and so will your readers, if you skip this essential quality-control step.
What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com
Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design
