Self-Publishing Question #47 of 52: Why should I hire a typesetter to format my book? It seems so easy to do myself!
Quality book layout is not about the software; it’s about the skill, training and experience of the person using the software.
Just because you have purchased professional page layout software, don’t assume that you can now lay out text like a pro simply by using the software’s default settings. Experienced typesetters rarely use the default settings. Instead, they rely on their years of training and experience to adjust the settings for better results, sometimes line by line, word by word, or even letter by letter. It’s these tiny adjustments, often imperceptible to the reader, that make the difference between professional and amateur-looking page layout. So, instead of spending upwards of $700 on software (not to mention upgrading your computer so it can run the software!) in the hopes that you can save money by doing the layout yourself, hire a professional.
Self-Publishing Question #48 of 52: Does a proper page layout make a book easier to read?
Yes. Successful page layout invites the reader in and subtly leads the eye from one section to the next. The right fonts, careful spacing, and a pleasing arrangement work together to make reading a pleasure instead of a chore. An experienced typesetter has the tools to carefully adjust justification, word spacing, and letter spacing to give your text an even “color” that’s easy on the eyes, and that delivers better reading comprehension as a bonus.
