Book Interior Design: Book Interior Layout & Typesetting
Book interior design and typesetting is the art (and science!) of laying out a manuscript to uniquely suit the content of a book. It makes sense to have the same designer you trust to create your cover, to also perform the book interior design work; developing a harmonious and tasteful look between the book interior design and book cover design.
Competitive prices and no “setup fees”
I offer very competitive rates on book interior design and charge by the finished page; From $4 for straight text, up to $10 per page for more complex works. I don’t charge “design setup fee’s” for my book interior layout and typesetting, and the quality of my work will stand beside mainstream publishing standards, as do all my offerings.
To provide you with a quote, I’ll need your completed manuscript, preferably emailed to me as an MS Word attachment. While the price per finished page will be fixed, we of course won’t know the exact finished page count until it’s finished so I’ll need to estimate the final cost of the book interior design.
How to prepare your manuscript for typesetting
Book interior design really is a blending of art and science, and it usually takes years to master. I use Adobe® InDesign®, a software application specifically created for designing books (among other things) for print. MS Word and other word processors are wonderful at creating manuscripts, but not so good for building books.
Send your completed manuscript as a single MS Word file–not individual chapter files. All spell checking and editing should be complete at this stage; the time to do those things is BEFORE sending off your manuscript for typesetting.
There’s no need to format your manuscript for your books trim size (example: 6″ x 9″), but if you do, don’t ‘fake’ the trim size using the page margins, instead, change the paper size under “Page Setup > Paper Size > Custom Page Sizes” then set your desired trim size.
Create space around headings by using a single return before and after. Style the headings using the “Heading 1″ “Heading 2″ and “Heading 3″ in the MS Word “Formatting Pallette”.
Use the ENTER key at the end of paragraphs and before/after lines that you want to be by themselves, but please don’t add extra returns (by either hitting the ENTER key, or hitting SHIFT-ENTER) as it complicates the design process unnecessarily.
If you want a page to break in a specific place, use the Insert > Break > Page Break, never “design” using hard returns (hitting enter multiple times). Use page breaks to start a chapter on a new page, or when you want a specific element to fall on the next page.
Turn off Auto Format in MS Word for fractions, go to Tools > AutoCorrect > AutoFormat As You Type and un-check the “Fractions” check box. A fraction should be represented as 1/3 (one-slash-three) – not the ‘one-over-three’ special character.
Interior photo’s and artwork: Don’t embed images – use art references/directives. For example, don’t place “picture01.jpg” into the manuscript, instead, place a simple notation such as [INSERT picture01.jpg here]. Place captions immediately below the reference to insert the image. Place this text at the beginning of the line – [CAPTION]
Example:
[INSERT picture01.jpg here]
[CAPTION The author having lunch with the President.]
Tables and charts: When preparing tables or charts, do so with the trim size and print color in mind. Most book interiors are printed in grayscale so it makes sense to set up your table or chart using shades of black to avoid unintended results, and whenever possible, allow rows to break across pages.
