Some people tell us that they have a manuscript already typed and printed but they don't have the original computer files and more. Others had their manuscript typed on a typewriter. They don't want to re-type the text nor pay someone to do it for them. In these cases there's only one thing to do: scan the entire manuscript.

Personally we don't recommend it for many reasons: to begin with, the quality will be noticeably worst. Your book will also be limited to the actual size of sheets of paper. Very little can be done with the layout of the pages. If your manuscript was printed or typed on a peace of paper of 8.5” x 11” (letter size), than your book will be of that size. And forget about corrections, even the minor ones. Your manuscript is final.

Of course all these problems can be solved or, at least, minimized. But it will take you so much time and money that the idea of re-typing the manuscript becomes an interesting and viable option. Even if you find a good OCR software, chances are that you will need to spend a lot of time correcting those pieces of text that the software, for some reason, could not decipher. So do yourself a favour and get your manuscript re-typed into a computer file.

If you are going to take this task on yourself or if you will give it to someone else to do, there are some very important points you need to keep in mind:

When more doesn't mean better: the more resources a software has, the more complex it will be. Unless you are already familiar with a certain software, stick to some think simple. You don't want to spend hours learning a software just to give life to your book. The book itself is your final goal and the software is just the means to achieve it.

Word processing vs publishing software: the first one, as the name indicates, is devoted to the processing of text. It's simple to operate and to learn, but can be limited when it comes to more complex layout. Also, this type of software is very unstable - and even unpredictable, mainly when dealing with large amounts of data or when is opened in more than one computer. On the other hand, a good publishing software can be very stable and reliable but can be very complex and difficult to learn and use. Its infinite number of features was designed to deal with much more complex environments, and depending on your book subject and layout, chances are that you will never use them. So keep in mind your own limitations (yours and of your computer system) and use your good sense to make a decision. As a simple rule, follow this: if your book is a novel or is more than 90% plain text, go with a word processing software. But if your book has lots of pictures and artwork or you plan to give it a different, more complex look, maybe you should opt for a publishing software.

stability: you probably heard a lot about computer stability. What you need to know is that computer stability itself is not your only concern. Almost certainly, the computer file with your book will “visit” many other computers before it‘s laid on paper. And in this process of transferring files from one computer to another, strange things may happen making the book you have at the end somehow different from the one you created to start with. So bare in mind that stability is a real issue on digital printing and unfortunately this is particularly true when dealing with word processing software.

compatibility: again, when going from one computer to another, software and hardware compatibility is very important. Mac or PC? Which version of which software? Even the printers you have connected to your computer and the ones connected to your printer's computer may influence the results. This is one more reason to keep it simple when writing your book. The simpler you keep it, the less chances you have to encounter any compatibility problems along the process.

reliability: security, security, security. Once your computer crash, it CRASHES FOREVER!!! Everything you have may be gone in a second. So as often as you can, create security copies of your work, also known as backup copies. As many as you believe will make you feel comfortable. You can create backup copies in a second hard-disk, in a second computer, on an internet-server, on CD, DVD or tape. It doesn't matter. The important thing is to make them, if possible daily or even twice a day. Also, you may want to think in terms of versions. Instead of saving your changes on the same file that you had yesterday, you could create new files, with new names, with new versions. This way, if tomorrow you regret a change you did today, you can go back to yesterday's version.                  

There are many things that can be said about images in a book but all of them depend on one simple detail: expectation.It is very important that you clear about your expectations. Decide what quality you want for the images on your book. Of course you want the best but the best, sometimes, is not affordable. So depending on the type of image you have and the quality you expect, you may need to go one step further and spend an extra cash on paper, artists and/or equipment. Or you will need to give up and live that or those images out of your book.

But before we even begin to talk about your images and your expectations, let's make one very important thing clear: what you see on your monitor will hardly be what you get on paper. Going back to what we said earlier in this course, sooner or later you will need to digitalize all your material if you want to self-publish your book. This means that at one point your images - all of them, will need to be digitalized. You can take a digital photo, scan or draw using a graphic software, it doesn't really matter. And in consequence, at one point you will be able to see and work on your images through a computer monitor.

What most people ignore - or forget, is that although they are working on their computer, although they are seeing their images on a monitor, that is not their final objective. It doesn't really matter if the image is beautiful or not on the screen. What really counts it that it will beautiful on paper. So you must at all times be asking yourself how good this image will be on paper while seeing it on a screen.

The truth is that there are many differences between monitor and printer. The first one is obvious: on the monitor you are working with “light colours” and the printer works with “chemical colours”. Second, every and each of these “light colours” are made from a combination of three “primary colours”: red, green and blue, also known as RGB. On the other hand, the “chemical colours” are the result of a combinations of four completely different “primary colours”: cyan, magenta, yellow and black, better know as CMYK. If that is not enough, both monitors and printers need to be calibrated. How can you guarantee that the monitor that you have at home is calibrated with the printed that your self-publishing company uses? IMPOSSIBLE!

Once we had a customer that came in with a job to be printed. The results were less than adequate. Red - or magenta, was everywhere. All images were overwhelmingly red or with red overtones. After some talk the mystery was solved. The room where the images were worked on had red walls. The presence of so much red around the monitor made all images look pale and the customer put more red into each image to compensate. A week later, second print of the same images proved our point and the customer was much happier.

But colour won't be your only reason for apprehension.Resolution is by far the most common problem we have encountered so far with files sent to us by customers. Images that looked very sharp on the monitor don't always print as sharp. Monitors work with a 72dpi resolution (dpi = dots per inch). Whatever you do on your monitor, 72dpi is what you see. On the other hand, printers work with any resolution you give them. And they will print respecting that resolution. But you will begin to clearly see a decline in quality for anything under 300dpi, i.e., you must keep the resolution of your image equal or above 300dpi if you want to have a good quality on printing. As you can see, you need a resolution 4 times bigger than that used by your monitor. And that's not all!

There's one other aspect on resolution: the picture size. To begin with, monitors see images in pixels, points, columns, inches, centimetres or any other unit of measurement. For printers you must think only in terms of inches if you use the imperial system or centimetres if you prefer the metric system. So you need to stick to them if you are working for printing. Than you need to consider the final size of the image on paper and try to keep that size with a resolution of 300dpi or more.

Just to give you an idea on how tricky the relation between resolution and size is, try this: create an image of 1“ x 1“ with 300dpi. Print this image. Than, transform it to 6“ x6“ with 50dpi. What did you do? You multiplied the size by 6 while dividing the resolution for the same amount. As you can see, there's no difference on the screen. Now print it. You will get a complete different result. What does it mean? That no matter what you do, the screen always show you the same resolution - 72dpi. On the paper, the resolution and size are respected and what you have is what you get.

Our reasoning for this experimentation is to prove you three points: First, you need to keep the resolution equal or above 300dpi for the size you want to print. Second, you can compensate size with resolution, as long as you keep the resolution over 300dpi (if you have a photo of 1.5“ x 2.5“ and want it at a size 3“ x 5“ on your book, begin with the resolution of 600dpi and compensate by doubling the size while dividing the resolution by two. Third and equally important, if you take a photo of 3“ x 5“ with 100dpi, bring it to 300dpi won't improve its quality.

With all this in mind, what do you need to do to ensure a good quality of your pictures?

First, it's never too much to repeat, keep your resolution equal or above 300dpi at all times. This is very important to remember for those who like to download pictures from internet and use them in their books. Internet was created for the screen. In consequence, 99% of the images you download from internet are very small in size of very low in resolution. And nothing you do will change that.

Second, if the software that you are working with allows you to choose, work always in CMYK mode.

Third, if time and money allow you, print some samples on a similar type of printer that you will do your final job.

Forth, present your printer with printed hard-copy of all your photos so they know what they are trying to match.

Fifth, be realistic with your expectations. Although digital printing improved a lot in the last years, it doesn't make miracles. The quality of your pictures in your book won't be better than the original pictures themselves - unless you hire an specialist or contract one to work on your original photos.

Sixth, bare in mind that no matter what you do, you will only have superior quality on your photos if you print them in colour. Even if the pictures are black-and-white. This happens because the colour printer will print your blacks and greys with a combination of all primary colours (CMYK) which can give you 8 times more tones of grey than black alone.

Seventh, if taking pictures with your digital camera, try to use always the highest possible resolution. It's always possible to lower the resolution but it's impossible to increase it after the fact.

If your images are very important for the final appearance of your book, try to negotiate with your printer two hard-copy proofs with possible changes in between both. This might help you get closer to what you want.        

What is editing?

Maybe we should begin with by telling you what editing is not. Editing is not proofreading. The person editing your book might even find some mistakes, but it's not her or his objective. It's not the editor responsibility to correct your english although that might happen as a “sub-product” of the edition. Editing is not ghost-writing. The editor will not write your book for you based on your synopsis summary you put together.

Editing is the act of prepare your book for publication. What an editor does is read your book, try to understand your message and re-arrange in a way that it will better understood by your public. The edition may comprise the addition of text, the subtraction of text or the re-ordering of text. The editor may believe that something is missing in your text and need to be added so people will better apprehend your message. Or maybe you went too far and your text is unnecessarily redundant. In this case some text has to go away or your reader might get tired, bored or confused. Confusion is also the main reason to re-arrange your text.

You must remember that you know your subject beforehand. You know where you are coming from and where you are going to. Your reader doesn't. As a first and “educated” reader, the editor will recognize these flaws in the flow of your text and correct them.

Who can edit your text?

There are many professional editors in the market. If not through internet, you can ask at your university, a school near you or a library. You can call publishing companies and they might help you with that. If you don't want or can't pay for a professional editor, you have other options. The university itself can be a great source of editors. Among professors and students you will definitely find someone to help you. And they might do for curiosity, for kindness or for a small fee. Some just want the experience and have their names credited in the book. It will add to their résumé.

What is important is that you find the right person. You should not ask a doctor to edit a book on Political Science. Or a politician to edit a book on pharmacology. Look for a professional editor or a person related to the subject of your book. Other authors might also help with this task. Their experience - their success and failures, can be of great assistance.

How much does it cost?

If you plan to contract an editor, better discuss price beforehand to avoid surprises. Some editors charge per hour of work and their experience will dictate their price. Some may charge $25/hour while others will charge $250. Or they might charge per page. In this case, the number of pages might not be the number of pages you believe you have. Usually this page will be a letter size (8.5” x 11”), with 1” of margins all around and double-space between lines. Be sure to ask the editor when discussing price. By defining the number of pages of your book with these attributes you can also get an estimate from the editor charging per hour, although their time will depend more on how much work he believes your text need. Finally, you will find editors that will base their prices after reading your manuscript or part of it. They will estimate how much time they will need to perform their task and charge you accordingly.

What to expect from an editor?

Criticism. If you expect the editor to lay compliments on your book, save your money; don't contract an editor. Remember that no work is perfect. There's always space for improvement, no matter what, no matter who. And the editor is there to point out where he believes improvements may be done to your text. If you are not prepared for criticism, don't look for an editor.

On the other hand, you might not like what you will get back. It's a risk you will need to take. Just remember that when you contract a job from an editor, it's as if you were contracting an artist. The work is done and payment is due. You might not like it, but the job is there anyway. Our only advise is that you take it as it is, give yourself time to digest it and later use it in its entirety, partially or not at all. Just avoid being defensive about your work. You are the only one to loose.

And remember: even if they are wrong, chances are that you will still be able to get something from it.        

What is proofreading?

In simple terms, to proofread is to read with the intend of finding errors. Gramatical, syntactical, ortographic, morphological or semantical. Different from the editor, the proofreader will correct your text not necessarily improving it. While the editor was trying to make your text better and more legible, the proofreader will only try to correct possible mistakes. His intention is not - or should not, to try to make your text better by changing its structure but only correct gramatical errors. It's, most of the time, much more technical and objective than that of the editor.

Nethertheless, your text will improve with the work of a proofreader. If not for its legibility, by the simple fact that the absence of simple mistakes will make the life of your reader much easier.

Who can proofread your text?

The software. Most word-processing and publishing softwares carry some sort of proofreading routines. Most even give you the option of which english you want to use: british, canadian, american, australian, you need to choose one and stick to it. Some electronic dictionaries can be linked to the software you are using and - at least for the most well-known ones, the proofreading routines will be much more thorough.

Second, you. After writing and re-writing your book, leave it aside for some time. You will notice errors that you had not noticed before. But remember that two pairs of eyes are better than one, and three are better than two. Proofreading is a process in which “too much” doesn't exist.

English teachers, university students in linguistics, avid readers, detail oriented individuals, educated professionals, almost anybody is a potential proofreader. Did you ever experienced a problem that was solved by the least expected person? In the same way, an error may be found by the least prepared person. If by itself this is not reason enough, bare in mind that no matter how many people proofread your book, chances are that you will still find errors after the book is printed.

How much does it cost?

A proofreader and an editor work in very similar ways. Sometimes an editor will also proofread your book. So prices may vary depending on number of pages, number of words, difficulty of the subject and experience of the proofreader. As prices may vary a lot and it's better to have it all very clear before giving your manuscript to the proofreader.

What should you be aware of?

First, as already mentioned, be aware that no matter how many people proofread your book, chances are that some errors will still “fall through the cracks”.

Second, also mentioned above, never forget which “english” you chose. First on the software, than with the people that will proofread your book. If possible, limit yourself to those that you believe master the “english” of your liking.

Lastly, when giving your text to be proofread, on paper or on computer media, ask your proofreader to make the corrections without deleting the original mistake. If you have a lot to learn, you may also find out that your proofreader made a mistake himself.        

One of the best ways to make something disappear is to make it predictable. But what is to be predictable in terms of books? Simple, be like the other books.

People read books all the time. They open their books and although they don't know its content, they have some expectations about its layout. They might not know it consciously, but the want a title page - maybe even two. They want a copyright page, maybe a dedication page, a foreword, a preface or introduction - even if they don't read them. They expect to find a table of contents. The expect even the white pages that allow the book to “breath”. This is what we call traditions.

In design there are many rules, sometimes too many. But they are there for one reason: to make the life of the person receiving the message easier. To make the message itself more clear and direct. Some professionals prefer to consider these rules more as guidelines. Standards and codes of conduct that most of the time, most of the people takes as widely accepted, but that can be broke, for the right reasons.

That's the whole idea of design and layout: right reasons. You can do almost anything on design as long as you do them for the right reasons. But that's not enough. Everything in layout has a reason to be, an objective to accomplish. If you “brake” a rule, if you change your “path”, you must know where it will take you. Because in design and layout nothing happens without consequence.

If it is not clear yet, what we are trying to say is that you don't need to follow the traditions, but do it for the right reasons. And be aware that there will be consequences.

Having said that, let's see what the traditions in a book are.

Introductory pages

When opening a book in the bookstore or at home to read, the reader has some expectations. You might consider them outdated, anachronous and useless but, nevertheless, they are expected and appreciated by most readers. They not only prepare the reader’s mind and spirit to what will come after, but also perform some more practical and important tasks. So before you cast aside these front pages all together, let's see what they are and what they do for your book.

Title Page: the very first page of the book. Here the title and sub-title of the book as well as the author’s name appears, if possible in the same way it goes on the cover. Some people add publishing company logo, some artwork or a simpler version of the cover itself. The trick here is to remain simple. Title, sub-title, author - with some artwork if you think it can bare one.

On the back of the title page comes what is known as the copyright page. Begin it with the copyright text. Look at some books and choose the one of your liking. There are many versions out there but the message is essentially the same. To protect your work from unauthorized reproduction and/or distribution. For those who applied for CIP - Cataloguing in Publication, this is the place for it. The CIP is very important if you believe that your book will end in a Library. Bookstores can also consult it to help them classify your book. The name of the artist - or artists, responsible for your cover design and layout also comes here, unless you intend to have a page mentioning all illustrations in your book and the people responsible for them. If this is a reprint or not the first edition of your book, add this information here. Finally put here information on the publishing company as well as the printing company. Although thorough, this list is not exhaustive. By consulting other books you will be able to find more information that might go here.

From this point on, until the beginning of the book itself, all sections should begin on the right-hand page. If you need to leave the left-hand page blank, do it. Trust us when we tell you that the extra cents you will pay for your book are well worth its professional look.

The first page after the copyright page is the dedication page. Some people prefer to leave two blank pages, so they won't have any text facing the dedication. Sometimes, a small excerpt of another book, a citation or any small paragraph that introduces the book or stirs up the readers curiosity is added in the same page or by itself just after or before the dedication page, always respecting the right-hand page rule.

Some books have acknowledgements and these are different from dedication by the fact that they refer to people that directly helped on the book, while dedication has no direct connection with the making of the book itself. Some people prefer to add the acknowledgements to the end of the book instead of the beginning.

The preface or introduction follows. Here also some variations are not uncommon. When it has two pages, some people put it facing each other - an exception to the right-hand rule. Also, depending on the content of the introduction, some authors add it after the table of contents, mainly if it is part of the book, for example, by introducing the personages of the story.

Finally you have the table of contents. Sometimes numbered, sometimes aligned to the right, the possibilities are enormous. Here again, the main point is legibility. The table of contents exists to help the reader find a specific part of the book so you don’t want to make it any harder than it needs to be. Following the table of contents you can have a table of pictures or list of graphics and tables. It all depends on your needs and the needs of your readers.

Parts, sections and chapters

Usually books are divided into chapters. Sometimes related chapters are put together creating sections or parts in your book. For example, your book could have part 1 with chapters 1 to 6, part 2 with chapters 7 to 14 and part 3 with chapters 15 to 18. Traditionally, each one of these parts and chapters follow the rule of the right-hand page. You can go even further by having the title of the chapter, by itself, on the right-hand page and the chapter beginning on the text right-hand page leaving one left-hand page blank in-between them.

Last page

Traditionally the last page of the book should be blank. If the last page is a right-hand page, you should add a blank sheet at the end of the book. Some books have the words The End in that sheet.        

Page layout deals with the arrangement of all elements of a page. And they are not few. It has to deal with the text and everything that comes together, i.e., fonts, sizes, types, spaces, lines, paragraphs, justification, images, tables, columns, etc. It also has to deal with margins (top, bottom, inside and outside) as well as page numbers, headers and footers.

Page size

It all begins with the page size. The page size - height and width, can be virtually of any measure you want. Your limits, minimum and maximum, will be defined by the printer and binder you chose. There are some standards here also, but they are only guidelines and you can do whatever you want. To define your page size, other more important factors should help you decide. They are:

Financial: by contacting different printers, you will identify the formats that are better price wise. Some places work with two basic standard sizes: 5.5” x 8.5” or 8.5” x 11”. Others include also a third size: 6” x 9”. If you stick to one of these sizes you will definitely save money. First, because some printers charge you more if you get out of these sizes, simply because their structure is already mounted to work with these sizes and anything that gets out of it will need “special treatment”, which means, more work and, in consequence, more money. Second, because no matter what size you chose, your book will be printed in one of these standard sizes and trimmed after. Paper trimmed is paper wasted. It's paper that could have text on it. Just imagine: your book is is size 8.5” x 11” and has 100 pages; if you bring it down to 8” x 10”, the number of pages will increase - perhaps 110, to compensate for the smaller space for text per page. On the other hand, the printer will still print your book on a 8.5” x 11” sheet. His costs per page remain the same so he will need to charge you 10% more for the printing to cover the 10 extra pages. So, by sticking to the standard sizes, you avoid waste and by avoiding waste, you save money.

Thickness: the thickness of your book might help you decide its size. If your book has a small number of pages, you should choose a small size for your book. If the number of pages is enormous, you should consider a bigger size for your book. The idea is to keep the book proportional. As an object that must be handled, you want it to be comfortable and attractive. Of course, if you want it to be disproportional for any reason, go for it. Rules are there to be broken, as long as they are broken for the right reason.

Use: who will use your book? When? Where? Under what circumstances? You must ask yourself these questions when defining the size of your book. Is it a children's book? An art-book? A guide book? A novel? A technical work-book? Each one of these and many other types of book require attention. There's always a size the better suit one's need.

Competition: side-by-side with the use, the competition should be of your concern when choosing the size for your book. What are the sizes of the books put in the market by your competitors? Are they good? Do they work? Is the customer expecting that size? Even bookstores will take into consideration your book's size when accepting or rejecting it.

Contents: here we could break content in many sub-factors: font-size because your public maybe young children or elders, chapter length might be too small or too long for your taste and that of your reader, number, size and importance of images, photos, graphics and tables that can't be reduced in size nor broken into different pages, presence of bleeding pages, layout that may require extra space on the page.

Page orientation

You can have three different formats of book. The portrait one is the most common one. Books of this format are also know as “vertical” and have the height longer than the width. 95% of all books - if not more, are done in portrait format. It's a book easy to handle and read. If there's a format that we could call traditional is the portrait.

But if you prefer - and your book requires, you can opt for a landscape format. In this format books seem to be “horizontal” with the width longer than the height. This format might look more elegant on art-books, weeding books or any book predominantly composed of images. Children's books are also very common in this format. It works very well for books where elements should be put side by side and not one on top of the other.

Finally, mostly neglected, you can decide for a square book. Here the length of height and width are the same. A square book has the same qualities of a landscape one. This is due in part to the overwhelming majority of portrait books.

Fonts or typefaces are the different styles and shapes a letter can take. It is not our intention here to give you an extensive lecture on typefaces but suffice to say that they exist today in thousands, maybe tens of thousands, making your task of choosing the right font - or fonts, even more difficult.

When choosing a font, think in terms not only of its style but also its size. Some styles work very well on small sizes while others are better on bigger ones. Bare also in mind that different styles with the same font size can show different sizes when printed. Finally, test. The only way to know that a font is right for you is by printing. Take a page of your book, change its font style and size and print. Do it again and again until you are happy with your options.

What we will try to do here is to give you tips and show you ways that will help you choose the right font for your book.

If it is true that there are tens of thousands of fonts available, it is also true that 99.9% of them are not to be used in your book. They are called “fantasy” fonts and don‘t follow any rule, standard or principle. They might be used on book covers, banners, posters or other graphic material, but are unfit for the text of a book.

Among the other 0.1% of fonts, you will find the ones that will suit your needs. You have more feminine curved fonts and more masculine straight ones. You have more classic fonts with serif and more modern ones without them. You have more mechanical squared fonts and others that emulate hand-writing. As we said earlier, all you need to do is test them until you find the right one for you.

And while thinking about them, consider also these more practical points:

Variations: Choose a font that allows for bold and italic as it may prove itself very useful. But don't overuse them. Italic and bold work very well in short passages but maybe overpowering when used extensively.

Repetition: Avoid using too many different fonts on your book. Confine yourself to the minimum required. If possible, use only one. If not, try not the mix too much but use fonts that are visibly different, mainly if they will be used indistinguishably side-by-side. The repetition is also important when talking about different texts of the same level. For example, chapter titles should all use the same font style and the same size. Image captions should be always of the same style and size also. And this is valid for everything: footnotes, sub-titles, page numbers, headers and footers.

But fonts are not all that it has to be said about fonts. Yes, there's more to the text than meets the eye. There's also what is in between the text. The distance between letter and words on one side, and the distance between lines and paragraphs on the other greatly influence the way a text in read. So, when testing your different fonts, test also the distances between letters, words, lines and paragraphs.        

All rules here presented are more like guidelines. As any other rules in design and layout, they are to be respected or challenged as long as it's done for the right reasons.

Margins

Margins are that blank space between the text and the edge of the paper. The first thing you need to know is that margins are now defined in terms of a book and no more as if you were working with single sheets of paper. This means that from now on, the four margins of your book must be known as top, bottom, inside and outside margins. Top and bottom should not be a problem for you. For inside margin, understand it as the margin closest to the spine of the book. The outside margin, also known as face margin, is the margin opposite to the spine of the book.

There's a fifth element to the margins of a book. It's called gutter and it represents the extra white margin on the spine of the book to compensate for that part of the page the remains concealed by the binding of the book itself.

To define the size of each one of these margins, the first thing to know is the size of the book itself. Each book size, binding method and contents ask for a different combination of margins. The table below refers to the most common binding method, perfect-bind, better known as paperback; and the most common type of book, a novel. Understand these margins as the distance between the closest text to the margin, i.e., if you have a footer and/or a header, the margins below represent the distance between the edge of the paper and this footer and/or header. In conclusion, the margins are to be taken for what they are: recommended minimum values. Personally we prefer margins that are 1/16“ to 1/8“ bigger than the one present here:

Chapters

There are many ways to reinforce the beginning and end of a chapter. Most people like to begin a new chapter on a fresh new page. Others go a little bit further and make all they chapters follow the rule of the right-hand page, i.e., all their chapter have their first page on the right-hand page of your book. But you will also find books where not even a change of page happens. This is common on books with very small chapter and their existence is almost unnecessary. As if the continuity of the text didn't ask for new chapters.

If each chapter has a title, make it stand by using a different font, a different size, a bold and/or italic style. Give extra distance from the text as well as from the top of the page. If your chapters don't have titles, just numbers, make them really big, align to the right, number them in romans, or with letters, or symbols. If the chapters don't have nor titles nor numbers, mark its beginning by differentiating the first letter of the first paragraph. Make the first paragraph itself different and increase the distance between this first paragraph and the last of the previous chapter or the top of the page.

Whatever your choice, you can make it even clearer by “flowering” the end of the previous one or the beginning of the present one by adding some art-work. Small symbols, clip arts, patterns or even excerpts of poems. Anything that graphically denounces a break in the flow of the text.

The important here, again, is repetition. Do to all chapters what you did for one. And once again, if you want to “break” also this rule, do it for a good reason or don't do it at all!

Paragraphs

When doing the layout of a paragraph, there are many elements that you can play with. Justification is only one of them. From the two most common types of justification - left or justified, your choice is very simple. If you go for the easiest to read, you will choose left. If you are more concerned with the overall appearance of the page, you will go for the justified.

You can also increase the distance between paragraphs and create an indentation on their first line so it's easier for the reader to identify them. What you really want here is to make a layout that is as clean and legible as it is possible.

Headers and Footers

Here we are talking about additional information, not fundamental, but sometimes helpful. For example, the repetition of the name of the chapter and the page number might help the reader identify the part of the book being read. On the other hand, by repeating the name of the book and/or the author, no real information is being given to the reader, so you should be really parsimonious with their use.

But if you decide to go with headers and footers, you should guarantee that they are clearly identifiable as so by using different font, sizes and styles. Also try to keep it at a reasonable distance from the main text body. And as it is for everything else, consistency is mandatory.

Page numbers

Almost every book has page numbers. Some exceptions occur like poetry books, small children's book, or art-books. For all books with page numbers some facts must be taken into consideration when numbering your book.

First, remember that now you are thinking in terms of book pages. When positioning the page numbers on your page, remember that from one page to another they are supposed to bounce left to right keeping themselves close to the inside or outside margin of the page. But if you don't want to think about this, simply place the number at the centre of the header or footer.

When it comes to numbering, there are different ways of thinking about it. Some people begin counting pages for numbering purposes from the first page of the book. In this case it really doesn't matter how many introductory pages you have because the page numbers just go right through them. Others begin the numbering only where the text itself begins. For them, introductory pages are not numbered or, if they are, they get an independent count of their own, probably with a different format like roman numbers.

Whatever your choice, you should respect one tradition: title page and copyright page should not show page numbers.

As the first impression your reader will have of your book, it's very important that it be clear, direct and unambiguous. There is always many different ways to interpret a book and hence there are many distinctive covers that might work for you. Just give your cover to ten different professional graphic designers and you will probably get ten great different covers, all of them suitable.

But how to know if a cover works or not? How to guarantee that it is not only a nice cover for you but also something capable of conveying a message to the potential buyer? Yes, because that's what you want with your cover. Gather the main ideas of your book and compress them in on single image composed of art and text.

If there are many different covers that might be perfect to your book, there are some common characteristics to all of them. As anything else in design, these characteristics or principles are only guidelines and are to be respected or challenged, as long as the challenge is clearly intentional and for the right reasons.

Book size: have always in mind the size of your book. The amount of information you put on a cover, be it in form of art or text, is fully dependent on the size of your book. A book that is 5.5” x 8.5” has clearly less space available than a book of 8.5” x 11”, twice its size. On the other hand, you don't fill the spaces only because they are there. Sometimes emptiness can be very eye-catching.

Keep it simple: don't add elements to your cover just because you can. If it doesn't fit the idea behind your book, forget it. Keep your cover as simple as possible. It will just make it easier to the buyer to understand the message.

Blend x Contrast: blending is good, as it is contrast. Sometimes you want elements that blend to each other, that complement each other. Other times you will prefer contrasting elements so one of them, more important than the others, will stand up and be more evident to the reader. The important here is to do it with meaning and clear.

Special effects: Shadows, distortions, glare, fog, it all work as long as it serves a purpose. Don't abuse of them because you will just make your message more confusing

Fonts: The should be, by itself, the most powerful element of your cover. Use a font that tells a story in itself. This is the point where fantasy fonts are welcome. The internet is a great font of free fonts, as long as you know what you are looking for. Once you find the font you want, try it on different sizes, with different characteristics. You should try to use only one font on the cover and when it's not possible, ensure that the second one is as flat and innocuous as possible.

Additional text: Title, sub-title, author. That's all you need on your front cover. Any other text that won't help you sell your book, will hinder it. But what can help you? The testimonial of a famous person, the good critics of a magazine, a good review from a newspaper giving your book “enough” stars, the accreditation from an association. In summary, anything that will praise your book high enough to justify its presence of the front cover (remember that you still have a back cover to fill).

Bleed: already mentioned but never too much to be remembered. The bleed is very important, but you must know what you are doing. You want to have your background artwork going 1/8” or 1/4” - depending on printer's requirements, beyond the edge of the book, but you don't want to put essential information there.

Colours: colour composition maybe a very complex topic and goes beyond our scope so we would recommend you take some time to study about colour theory. Primary colours, complementary colours, the unconscious meaning of colours, all of this can assist you or jeopardize your project.

Spine and back-cover: have always in mind that the front-cover doesn't exist all by itself. It's part of something bigger. Your front-cover must compose with spine and back-cover. And this might even help you. That's what we will see ahead.        

When we said that the front-cover is the first-impression someone will have of your book, we were not entirely right. Many times the first contact that someone will have with your book will be with the spine. It will be the spine of your book against the spines of other books, amidst dozens of other spines of dozens of other books. To make it even worse, those books will probably be on similar subjects, aiming at the same public. And you need your book to be visible and your title to be legible. So how to stand out?

Spines should be very simple in contents: title, maybe subtitle, and author. Maybe the name and logo of your publishing company, very small, if you have a reason for that. The challenge here is by using the right fonts and the right combinations of colours, make your book - more precisely your spine, stand out in the crowd while still giving the message you want and blending nicely with front and back covers.

At the same time you must accomplish all this, you must respect the limitations of space to ensure that your spine will look clean and professional. For that purpose, you should always leave a distance of no less than 1/16” between any text and the spine edge. Also, your text should be read downward to follow the standards of the industry. Finally, title should go on top and author name on the bottom. The day you become a famous author, you can make your name bigger than the title. Until that day, keep the title bigger.

You should, as far as possible, use for title, the same font and style you used on the front cover. The same goes for the author's name. But you should avoid fonts with long under/over letters. For example, fonts where the g, h, j, l, p, q, t or y are very elongated and might cause problems by going over the spine edge. The same rules on colour composition, simplicity, blending and contrast and special effects that we saw on the front cover apply here.

But how thick your spine will be? This will depend on two variables: the number of pages of your book and the calliper of the paper you will use. To know how many pages your book will have, you need to have your text finalized. You must take into consideration all pages of the book, not only those that are numbered. The calliper of the paper represents the thickness of the paper. All you have to do is ask your printer what is the calliper of the paper that will be used on your book. If you take the number of pages and divide by two, you have the number of sheets. Multiply it for the calliper of the sheet and you will have the thickness of the spine.

But you don't need to wait until your book is ready and you have chosen your printer to have an approximated idea of the thickness of your book. If you have an idea of how many pages your book will have, look for a book on your shelf and measure how thick it is. Or you can use the numbers below as reference. But remember that they are just for reference. Different papers from different brands, even of the time type, will have different calliper:

For example, to know the thickness of a book of 240 pages printed on a 24lb paper do this:

240(pages) ÷ 2 = 120(sheets) * 0.00475(calliper) = 0.57” or approx. 9/16”(book thickness)

But even when you have the final numbers you must take into consideration that even the paper supply companies consider the calliper of a paper as an approximation.

As you can see, precisely define the thickness of the spine is almost an impossible task. Add to this the fact the digital printing is not as accurate as offset printing and we always recommend that you blend your spine into your front and/or back cover. This will take care of any imperfection on the printing as well as the rough measure of the spine thickness.        

Try to remember. Last time you bought a book or chose a book from your library “out of the blues”, which steps did you take? Were you attracted by the cover and the suggestive title? Did you know the author? And after taking the book in your hands, what was the first thing the occurred to you? If you are like most of us, you would turn the back and try to get some information that would substantiate your choice. And assuming that you are satisfied with what you read, you would probably take the book.

That's how you need to think about your back cover: one more step to success. If you think about shopping a book as a process, where each step leads to the next, you will understand the importance of the back cover. For some it's the final step on the process of decision. For most buyers it's an unavoidable step that might keep your book in their minds or simply make it disappear.

But what to put in the back cover? Anything you want. There are so many options that is difficult to decide what to live out. Testimonials from relevant people, endorsements, approvals, excerpts of a good article on a magazine or newspaper, everything is valid. It ca be about the book or about its author.

A small bio of the author might help, but it must confine itself to relevant information, i.e., facts that will help you “sell” the idea that the author is uniquely prepared to talk about the subject and enjoy special qualities that give him - or her, a singular perspective on the topic.

An excerpt of the book is also a good idea. But it must be something that will catch the reader right on the first phrase. Something that will make your potential buyer anxious to know more.

A portrait of the author might give the reader a sense of affinity that could help sell the book, but it must be a professional picture, of a good quality, otherwise it will make the book look unprofessional.

Artwork also might help. A background that relates to the front-cover and spine will give a sense of continuity. An image the complements the message passed to the buyer on the front-cover will reinforce it. Some small clipart - or cliparts, may be a good choice but only if it accomplishes a goal. The important here is to use - if needed, an artwork that won't compete and disturb the text. Text is what the buyer is expecting and unless you have a good reason to avoid it, give what your public wants.

Sometimes, on one of the corners, publishers like to put a classification of the book: the area of interest and the public target. It might help some people choose your book, but it might also dissuade others. Just use it if your have a very specific public that you are targeting and the area of interest of your book is very well defined.

Finally, mandatory if you plan to offer your book to bookstores - on internet or otherwise, is your barcode. It comes with the ISBN and sometimes, brings the price. Personally we agree with prices on back-covers, but only as a reference. You can incorporate the price to your barcode but there are two problems with that. First, the price imprinted will be in one only currency (US dollar, Canadian Dollar or other). Second, if you change your price, it's one more thing to cover on your back cover.

On the font side, try to respect the same principles explained on the front-cover. To differentiate and distinguish each text element of the back-cover, give preference to graphic effects instead of different fonts and sizes. The simpler you keep it, the cleaner it will look. And the cleaner it looks, easier it will be for the potential buyer to read what you have to say. And as we said earlier, this is very important for the success of your book.        

As we mentioned before, there's more than one way to deliver your message. You can design ten covers and all ten might be equally good for your book. However there are some small details that might retain the difference between a powerful and an ineffective design. That's what we will see here. During the process of creating your design or after having it done, check this points. If your cover carry these “recommendations” you are more than halfway to success.

Bleed: did you remember to create a workspace bigger than your cover? Many people remember to add bleed to the artwork but forget to keep the bleed inside the workspace. When the final file is created, the bleed is lost. It's the same as not have any bleed. If you need a bleed of at least 1/8” all around, your workspace should be at least 1/4” wider and 1/4” higher than the total image of your cover. But if you can give your printer 1/4” bleed all around, than you should create an workspace 1/2” wider and higher.

Why do we suggest that you might not be able to add 1/4” bleed to your image? Because sometimes the lost of 1/8” can be too much in an image, a photo, an artwork. You would be surprise with how different some images look if they loose the “wrong” 1/8”. And to make things even worst, you must consider that depending on the printer you chose and the size you decided for your book, its final dimensions will be slightly smaller than you think. We will talk more about this later at print and bind.

Distance from the edge: this is a very sensitive topic. Inexperienced designers tend to use all the space that is put available to them without considering that the process is not 100% perfect. The printing process can cause some shift. The binding process can cause some shift. The final trimming can cause some extra parts to be left out and others to be kept in. There are too many steps with too many chances that something go wrong and you must take all this into consideration when designing a cover for a book.

That's why it's a healthy habit to keep your vital information at a safe distance from the book edges. Because even if the information is not lost on the final trimming, its presence too close to the cutting edge will make your book look unprofessional. Unless, of course, that's your intention. We are not talking of being unprofessional but intentionally placing some vital information like artwork or text touching the edge or going beyond it as if this element was trying to escape its “prison”. It can create a very effective message if correctly used.

The best way to ensure that your distances are adequate is to talk with a professional designer or with your printer and binder. They are the best ones to reassure you that you are on the right track

Final size: have always in mind the size of your book. Try to work for as long as possible with the final size. Along the process, if necessary, print some drafts of what you are doing just to have a better idea of how your idea works on a real piece of paper. You should do this not only because the size will determine how much information will fit on the cover, but also because some elements - text, artwork or special effects, might render great effects on a book of one size, but not on another.

Also remember what we said few paragraphs above: it's not uncommon that a book be 1/8” to 1/16” narrower and shorter than its alleged size. This means that a book of 6” x 9” can be as small as 5 7/8” x 8 7/8”

Colour, colour combination and black-and-white: remember that in digital printing, you have only two options: colour or black-and-white. Some places might offer other options like two or three colours, but this is not the rule. 99% of print-on-demand companies will offer the choice between full colour cover and black-and-white.

Fonts: The fonts you choose for your cover must reflect the message you want to send. You can't use a classic font like Times News Roman if you want to send a message of fear and terror to your reader. The same way, you can't use - or should not use, a fantasy font with comic motifs on the cover of a technical book about international trade laws.

In the same way, you should restrict yourself to the minimum possible number of fonts. One is the ideal, sometimes inaccessible, but never out-of-site. Give preference to the use of different styles like font size, italics, bold, expanded, underlined or otherwise. Test your font in all these forms to ensure that it can be used effectively.

Hard-covers: you will need to talk with your printer if you are doing a hard-cover book. First, remember that the cover of a hard-cover book is bigger than the book itself. Also, the spine is thicker because now it needs to encompass the two boards of the front and back covers. Finally, the bleed has to be much bigger, something like 3/4” in all directions. An art in itself. But one thing is sure: there's no way you can use your cover for a soft-cover book on a hard-cover one.

Books without spine: remember that depending on the binding method you choose, your book won't have a spine. Also, for some binding methods, front and back covers are completely independent. If you opt for one of these methods, review your bleeding principles. If front and back covers are treated as two entities, bleed all around will mean that you need to create a bleed also on the “spine edge”.

Image Resolution: when you generated your images for the first time, did you ensure that they were at 300dpi at the size they will appear on your cover? Did you always keep them at or above that resolution? And now, are all the images at 300dpi or more? If you answered no to any of these questions, chances are that your cover won't print as nice as you see it on the screen. Remember that once a resolution is lost, it can't be recovered. It's information that disappeared in thin air and can't be reconstructed. Some make-up can bring back some of its original “glory” but that initial information is gone, forever.        

Before talking about printing and binding itself, let's explore the universe of paper. Because paper is the raw material from which your whole project will made. Everything will depend on paper and by using and the correct choice of paper is very important for the success of your project. There are so many options out there that a prior knowledge of some paper theory can be very useful when dealing with printers.

Paper brand: There are many different brands of paper. Some of these brands are produced by the same mill with the intention of giving the customer options of smoothness, brightness, and other characteristics that we will see ahead. The important here is to know that your printer might have different options of paper and that depending on what you will print, one of the less common ones might be the perfect one for you. On the other hand, be prepared to pay more if you get “out of the beaten track”. You will be dealing with material that your printer might not have in stock and will order only for you.

Paper Weight: when you go to the store and buy paper, usually it is a 20lb or 24lb paper, right? But sometimes, looking at web-sites of printing companies you see a book paper of 70lb or 80lb. How is this possible? In reality there is more than one scale of paper weight used by the industry. So when “shopping” for a printer, you might be faced with the situation where you need to compare oranges and pineapples. These are the bad news.

The good news are that it's not very difficult to make the conversion from one scale to another. Although the number of paper weights is enormous, when it comes to printing a book digitally, your options will likely to be reduced to four different paper weights. If the printer you are dealing with uses the “bond scale”, the paper weights will be 20lb, 24lb, 28lb and 32lb. On the other hand, if the printer prefers the “offset scale” your options will be 50lb, 60lb, 70lb and 80lb. As you can see, the parallel is not so difficult to be made:

• 20lb -> 50lb
• 24lb -> 60lb
• 28lb -> 70lb
• 32lb -> 80lb

One of the first thing most writers think when choosing a paper is to get the heaviest one. There's some logic behind it. First, the heavier the paper, the thicker the book. That is true. Second, with a heavy paper, the “see-through” problem is less likely to happen. That is partially true. The opacity of a paper can change from one brand to another so you can have a heavy paper of one brand that is less opaque than a lighter paper of a different one. Third, that a heavier paper is of better quality than a lighter one. Not true. The quality is essentially the same.

The truth is that when you are choosing the weight of your paper, there are other considerations. We usually recommend our customers a paper based on some aspects of their books: for example, if the book has full coverage image on some pages, we tell them never to use less than 70lb paper. Also, you don't want your book to look too thin nor too thick. Too thin will make your book look disproportional, not worth buying. Too thick and you might have problem with the binding and your book may become too heavy make shipping cost increase. As you can see, not always heavier is better.

Text paper x Cover paper: As there are different paper weights, there are also different “types of paper”. Among them, the two you will be using in your book are “text” and “cover”. It's not difficult to see what they are used for. One detail to keep in mind is that you might have “text” and “cover” papers of the same weight but there are completely different. It's because they are two completely different things for which comparison is not only impossible but useless. Because they can't substitute each other for any purpose, you don't need to worry about trying to compare it. And when someone tells you a paper weight, if you are still in doubt, just ask: “Is this text weight or cover weight?”

If for the text paper you had different “weight scales” to be concerned with, something similar happens with covers. But instead of two different scales based on pounds, here you have two scales with two different metric systems. Some printers work with poundage's, while others prefer points. Without trying to explain each one, the fundamental here is to know their relation to each other. The most common papers for cover are:

• 8pt (points) -> 65lb
• 10pt -> 90lb
• 12pt -> 102lb
• 14pt -> 114lb

Paper Brightness: yes, paper is white, but how many different whites exist out there? We can tell you: many. Basically, the brighter the paper, the more white it is. In principle, paper brightness should not go over 100, but we've seen paper where the manufacturer classified it as brightness 104.

The main point here is that paper brightness goes from 80's to 100's. Pressured by customers, mills are producing papers more and more white. You should try or at least see the paper that will be used before making a decision. If your printer is not in your city and can't send you samples, you can see what your paper will look like by visiting a local printer or a stationary store.

If your book has many colour images, a higher brightness might be better because it would have less influence on the image. Nevertheless, if you print your colour images in two different papers of same brightness, you will notice difference between them. On the other hand, bright paper can be harder to read because of the glare it produces. The trick here is to find a paper white enough not to influence your images, but not too light as to complicate your reader's life.

Acid-free paper: not much to say here. This is a paper with ph neutral. You should always ensure that the paper being used in your book is an acid-free paper. This is valid for text and cover. It will guarantee a longer life to your book.

Offset x Coated stock: among the most common types of paper you have bond paper, sometimes called offset paper, and coated stock. Bond or offset is the paper for your everyday use at home or work. Most books are printed using this paper because of its availability, facility of use, dullness and price. Because of its opposite nature to coated stock, its also known as uncoated stock. Coated stock, on the other hand, is the paper that after being made receives a mineral finishing that gives its particular smooth and, sometimes, glossy surface. We say sometimes because in fact you can have a matte coated stock, as smooth as the better known glossy one, but without the reflective properties. The main reason for choosing coated stock is the presence of high resolution images where quality is fundamental. Another argument in favour of the coated stock is that it can give an extra touch of elegance and distinction.

Specialty papers: other than offset and coated stock - and among them, you have other options. The most requested one is recycled paper. Also called “eco-friendly” paper, it's the paper that is re-used one second time. You will find paper that is 100% recycled, but you also find paper that has a certain content of recycled paper in it. Also here you have two type of recycled paper. The first one, simply known as recycled, is the paper made from pre-made paper that never got to the marked. The second one, known as post-consumer is the paper made from paper previously used by people like us. Here again you can find 100% post-consumer paper as well as different shares of post and non-post-consumer paper. But that's not all. You also can find papers of different colours, with different patterns and textures. The options are countless. They go as far as your patience to search for them.

Grain direction: no matter what paper you choose, one of the most important points to ensure the best quality to your book is grain direction. Paper is made of fiber and on a sheet of paper these fibers tend to align in one same direction. This makes bending the paper easier in one direction than the other. What you want is that the grain direction is so that someone reading your book will bend its pages on the sense that is more natural to the paper, therefore, avoiding stressing the spine. On the industry, it's commonly referred as the grain running parallel to the spine.        

Offset printing is the traditional way the industry has used for decades. In this process, the entire book, every single one of its pages, is “photographed” and transformed into film sheets. These sheets than are used as “negatives” of your book from which each copy will be made.

To make it simple to understand, imagine these film sheets, also known as “plates” being attached to a roll. On one side, ink is applied and will hold only to the parts where text must appear. On the other side, paper goes through this roller and ink is transferred. As you can see it's a very simple and fast process. Once you have the negatives made, it's just a matter of feeding the paper and let it roll.

Digital printing is a product on the computer era. Although not so recent, it was only in the last years that it became widely spread. Prices of equipment dropped as well as the cost of printing, making it affordable to the general public.

Here the process is different. Everything that is printed is based on computer files. No matter what you have, no matter what you want, every single piece of information will necessarily pass through a computer, transformed into bits and only after, printed on paper. There's no negative, no plate, no transference of ink between media's. The image appears on paper, thanks to the technology that transforms all those bits into dots on the paper and decide how much toner is necessary to reproduce on paper what you can see on your screen.

From the description of these two processes we can recognize many differences and easily explain all the pros and cons of each method:

Price wise: Offset printing has a higher initial cost. The confection of negatives for all pages of a book can be quite expensive. Digital printing, on the other hand, has virtually no initial cost. No negatives are necessary as the pages are printed directly from digital files. But when it comes to the printing of the pages themselves, the cost of offset printing is still lower than digital. The result is that on the long run, offset printing becomes cheaper than digital printing. But here comes the trick: for that to happen, you need to do at least 1000 copies. Some times, even 2000 or 3000 copies are cheaper if printed digitally than on offset

Late Changes: Offset printing is final. Once the negatives were produced, there's no space for changes. If you come back for a re-run and wants to change something in your book, be prepared to pay for extra negatives because the original ones simply can't be altered. Digital printing is a different story. You could even stop the presses at the middle of the printing and change your book. You would probably pay some extra setup-fees, but other than that, the only thing you would need to do to print your book with all changes you want, would be to supply a new file.

Proofs x Job: Offset printing begins with the manufacturing of negatives. So if your proof is made the same way the book will be printed, no changes are allowed after the proof or some extra fees will apply. If changes are allowed before the final printing, it means that the proof was not generated through the same method and, in this case, it doesn't really reflect what your book will look like. Digital printing generate proofs exactly the same way it generates your books. It's only a matter of how many copies to print: 1 or 1000.

Quality: Generally speaking, offset printing offers a better quality. It's mostly true when it comes to colour and graphic images. For text itself, the difference is virtually imperceptible. Offset printing will also render better solid colours and will be, in principle, more consistent. So you might want to consider offset printing for some very sensitive jobs where quality and consistency need to be at their best.

Paper size: This is definitely the greatest limitation of digital printing. While offset printing can be done on sheets of paper of enormous sizes, digital printing is still limited in size to 11” x 17” or 12” x 18” and in certain cases to 13” x 19”. This can be a problem if you want to have a dust-jacket made for your book as they usually are longer than 19”. In this case you have little choice but print them in offset.

Despite all these pros and cons, the truth is that your job will almost certainly be digitally printed. On small runs required by self-published author, the cost of offset printing is in the range of ten times the cost of digital printing. It's pretty difficult to justify this cost unless you have very specific needs.        

Whenever you have a book or any kind of material and you want to print copies of it using the digital method, you only have two option: black-and-white and colour. Different from offset printing, where you can choose one spot colour or a combination or two or even three, digital printing only works with black-and-white or a combination of the four primary colours - cyan, magenta, yellow and black. So when you ask your printer to digitally print your book in blue, or brown or any colour other than black, your are in fact printing your book full-colour.

Some printers allow you to mix and match, having colour pages and black-and-white pages in the same book. But this is a difficult job and you can expect to pay extra to have them make the distinction. More steps must be added to the process and more people might be necessary, which makes the production of the book more expensive.

Other printers even allow you to print the colour pages of your book on a different paper, for example, a coated stock. This can be specially interesting if you concentrate all your colour pages in one only section. You probably saw this before in travel guides. In those guides, the text pages are printed in a very thin paper to make them light. Only few pages, with pictures and/or maps are printed in a much thicker coated stock to ensure good quality.

Whatever you have in mind, talk with your printer before spending hours trying to put your book together. Everything - almost, is possible, but the price to pay can be too high, or the time it takes might not fit your schedule.

And what about print consistency? Well, we would say that if you deal with a conscientious printer, it can be obtained by both methods, digital or offset. On the other hand, if your printer is not so concerned, both methods might failed. The truth is that neither process is guaranteed 100% and you can expect some problems here and there. The secret is to know what is acceptable and what is not. And one more point: be aware that no matter who you choose to print your book, you will hardly get colour consistency between two different moments in time, i.e., if you print your books today and reprint them in a year, chances are that there will be differences between them. One way of minimizing it is by supplying your printer with one copy of your previous batch of books so there's something to act as reference.

The same is valid for the overall quality of the printing. But you must consider that the act of printing itself isn't enough to make your pages shine. It's a conjunction of factors that will define the quality of the printing. First, you need good material. The photos, images and text must be of good quality. Then you need to choose the right paper. You would be surprised how different the same image prints on different papers. Coated or uncoated? More or less opaque? Smoother or rougher? Which brightness? Everything might change the results. You might ask your printer for advice. You might ask him for samples. Even if it costs some money, it might be worth the results.

You also have the option of adding pre-printed material to your book. But before doing that, discuss with your printer. Depending on your binding method or some characteristics of your book some special conditions may apply. For example, on size, dimensions, position on the paper, amount of margins, thickness of paper, all matters.

Finally, we can't talk about printing without mentioning something very important: registration, By registration, understand the capacity of the printer to print the text - or image, on the paper exactly where it was supposed to be printed. For example, if you put a dot right in the middle of a page, will the printer put the dot right in the middle of the page? If not, how far will it be? This distance is called shifting or bouncing and it always happens. The question is how much of it happens and if it substantially interferes with the layout of the book.

Our experience is that it interferes with your layout if you are not prepared for it. So make your layout knowing that the process is made of many steps and each step is a new opportunity for a small shift on your image and text. At the end, if you know that it will happen, it won't disturb you - or your book.        

Binding can be a so extensive subject that a web-site could be created just to explain it in its entirety. So we will try to be as succinct as possible by enumerating the most common binding methods, their pros and cons as well as what you need to be careful about when choosing them.

To begin with, binding or bookbinding is the process of assembling a book from a number of loose sheets of paper. There are innumerous types of binding, each one with different names depending on where you are and who you are talking to. Also, many of these types of binding bare more than one method of being done so it's better that you research about them before making a decision. In this industry, maybe more than in any other, “better be safe than sorry”.

Binding options: when deciding which binding method you will use for your book, don't think only in terms of which one is cheaper, or which one looks nice. Although price and looks are important, there are other factors you need to consider. The most important is practicality. Who will use your book? Where? Under what circumstances? To do what with it? For how long? Each different set of answers will lead you to a different type of binding. So calm down, take your time, and choose the right method for you.

Spiral-bind: also known as coil-bind. This method uses a plastic or metal coil on the spine to keep the pages together. Usually front and back cover are separated and the book doesn't have a spine. There are ways to circumvent this limitation but we won't get into that here as it would need a page of itself to be explained. This king of binding can be quite inexpensive and is ideal for workbooks, calendars, cookbooks or any kind of book that must remain open even when you have both hands busy. For the same reason - the ability to remain open, it is the ideal method for books that require people to write on their pages. One optional feature for this kind of binding, is the addition of an “over-cover”, usually a sheet of plastic, transparent or not, on the front and back covers. It will help keep your book protected from damages of normal use.

Don't confound spiral-bind with cerlox bind or wire-o. These two methods are very similar in principle, although very different in appearance. Cerlox is a method that is being left behind by the industry because of its unreliability. It's being substituted by wire-o, a method that in appearance is very similar to spiral, but that requires a completely different set of machines and supplies. Both methods accomplish similar goals of those of spiral-bound books and are perfect for the same types of books.

Perfect-bind: the most common of all binding methods. Many places will also name it the paperback method. Be careful because if all paperback books are perfect-bound, not all perfect-bound books are paperback. No matter how you call you, perfect-bind is the method in which glue is applied to the spine. This special glue will hold all pages together as well as the cover itself.

If you are using this kind of binding, the grain direction of the paper that we mentioned earlier is extremely important. The wrong grain direction will put too much stress on the glue and eventually cause your book to break or the pages to fall from the book. Almost every book that we saw that had pages falling or had the spine broken were bound with sheets of paper with the grain running in the wrong direction.

The great advantage of this method is its price and its flexibility regarding sizes, thickness and portability. On the other hand, this is a binding method that doesn't allow the book to lay flat, i.e., you can't open the book and expect it to remain open without your help. This makes perfect-bound book improper to books that will need people to write on their pages.

Saddle-stich: this is the method used in some magazines. Here, you print four pages per sheet of paper, two on each side. These sheets are then piled and folded in the middle, being held together by two or three staples. You need to be careful if you are laying out a book to be bound this way because, as you can image, the centre pages will be slightly smaller than the outside ones. And you need to take that into consideration on your layout by adding extra outside margin to your book.

Another limitation of this kind of binding is the number of pages. Most printers will limit the number of sheets they can bind using this method to less than 30 or 40, which restrict your book to no more than 120 pages. Also, this is a book without spine, which can be a disadvantage when put on a shelf with other books.

On the other hand, they have the same advantages of spiral-bound books without all the problems of the coil itself. They are largely used on children's books. Their price can be very attractive when your quantities are large but can be quite expensive when you need just few books.

Side-stitching: similar to the perfect-bound book, it's reinforced by threads that are sewn very close to the spine. It's recommended on books where the glue might not be enough to keep all pages together.

Smith-sewn: the Cadillac of all binding methods. The most expensive, but also the best in quality, durability and easiness to handle. Here the books is divided into sections, always multiples of four. Each section is than printed and folded independently as if they were, each one, to be saddle-stitched. Finally, all sections are put together, sewn on the spine and against each other. The complexity and the substantial number of steps explain why this method can be so expensive. On the other hand, you will have a book to be admired by all your reader for its quality and elegance. It's used mostly on high-end products but it can also be very useful on quality books that will require people to write on their pages.

Soft-cover X Hard-cover: independent from the method of binding is the type of cover you will choose. No matter what binding method is best for you, your cover can be what is called soft or hard. In a soft-cover book, the cover is no more than a sheet of paper, also known as card-stock, much thicker than the paper used on the pages, but still flexible and relatively fragile. On the other hand, a hard-cover book requires the printed cover to be applied to a thick, hard board. This board, not pliable, will much better protect the book from any type of damage. But it comes with a cost and the price of your book may become prohibitive. Nevertheless, if your public can afford this kind of luxury, the use of hard-covers is more than justifiable.

But assemble the books is not all. The binding process gives you many other options, some of them highly recommended, others of very restricted use.

Lamination: almost every printed and binder will offer you the option of having your cover laminated. This process will apply a thin plastic film that will protect your cover from deterioration. There are two types of lamination: glossy or matte. While the first one gives a shiny finish to your book, the latter is almost imperceptible. Lamination, no matter your preference, is highly recommended in all books, not only because of the protection it offers but also because your book will look more professional.

Binding-material: sometimes you prefer your book to have a more classic look. In this case you can substitute the printed cover with what is called binding material. Usually used on hard-cover books, it is a paper or linen based material that simulates leather and is applied to the board instead of the printed cover. It comes in so many colours and textures that it will be almost impossible not to find what you are looking for.

Gold-foil stamping: if you are thinking about using binding-material instead of a printed cover, you will probably want to consider the use of some gold-foil stamping on your front-cover and spine. Here also you can have different colours and different of doing it, even one in which no foil is used and only a deep impression of your text and/or image is applied to the cover.

Dust-jacket: this is the “over-cover” usually applied on top of a hard-cover book that was bound with binding-material. Just bare in mind that this can be a very expensive luxury item because, most of the cases, it will be too long to be printed on a digital printer and will require you to use the services of a offset printer. However, depending on your targeted public, dust-jacket can be a good idea.

Fold-outs: sometimes you want to add maps or diagrams that would be better if they appear on larger sheets of paper. If that's the case, talk to you printer and binder. They might be able to accommodate your needs by applying and extra sheet of paper, previously folded, to the end or beginning of your book.

Hole-punching: when a booklet is part of a series you might want to 3-hole punch your books so they can be inserted in binders. It can be a very good idea if you are giving a workshop or a course and you will be distributing many books that should be kept together.

Die-cutting: in the same way, you might need to have some pages or even the cover cut in a special way that would allow the reader access to the next page. A window, a slit, a perforation that would allow the reader to remove that sheet, all of this is possible and many more things. Basically, your imagination, your creativity and your pocket will limit how original your book will be.

But no matter what you do, don't loose from your sight the rational behind each one of your decisions. Don't opt for things that don't have a meaning, a use or will add value to your book.