Books For Authors
Writing In InDesign, 2nd Edition
[Paperback & e-books]
David Bergsland
(from the publisher) You can publish directly from your writing! Print, PDF, ePUB, & Kindle InDesign is the best tool available for authors desiring to control the look and function of their book as you write: print or ebook. There is no better way to help the reader understand what you have to share. From your basic InDesign document(s) you can easily export the best PDFs for print, colored PDFs for reading online or on your iPad, ePUBs for iBooks, Kobo, and Nook, and a Kindle version for Fire and the older versions. No other application has nearly the control over typography.
This book gives you a solid background in typography, page layout, and book design while providing you with the latest instruction on the creation of on-demand books for the best providers (print, ePUB, and Kindle) used by the new generation of self-publishers in the 21st century. Experience the joy and satisfaction of controlling the look and presentation as you create your world in words. Your book becomes a much more meaningful creative experience. Your readers receive the love and care you send their way. It’s a wonderful way to write!
Experience the joy of creation!
Here's some brief words as you start though this second edition of Writing in InDesign. You will discover that what I am doing is working creatively within InDesign to produce completed books almost as a fine art exercise while maintaining excellence and production needs.
What I want to share with you is a method, an attitude, a ministry of service to the reader which is enabled by the typographic power of InDesign. I am discussing one-person self-publishing, direct communication from author to reader.
One of the wonderful things about the new publishing paradigm is the control we get as artists, authors, and designers over the entire package. A modern book is released in multiple sizes, versions, and formats. The content and design remain fluid as we shape the book while we learn and grow. After they are released, we can easily adjust content, layout, and presentation of our books in response to emails, FaceBook, Twitter, and the whole host of contemporary social networking online.
This book contains an extravagant amount of additional training in the appendixes.
A: Basic Typography Part One Here you get the information you need to use fonts professionally. This covers why and how typesetting (what we do in InDesign) differs from typewriting (what you might do in Word and Office).
B: Setting up styles: Typography Part Two Here is the conceptual knowledge on how to set up a functional default set of paragraph and character styles, plus an intro to object styles. You’ll modify these for your use.
B2: A set of default styles Here are step by step instructions for setting up a set of defaults which will get you started. You will modify these many times as you proceed in your book design journey. But, you must start somewhere.
C: Image production & formats The difference between vector and bitmap. How to make a graphic in InDesign. How to convert them in Photoshop for use in ebooks. What formats should used and why.
C2: Cover design You increasingly need to be concerned about how readable your cover is when reduced to thumbnail size on a Website. This is true of your print covers as well as your ebook covers.
D: Uploading your finished book This covers step by step procedures at Lulu and Createspace for print books and for downloadable PDFs at Lulu and Scribd.
E: Designing your ePUB & Kindle Here are design tips & techniques for converting your printed book to an ePUB. Included is a simple conversion process for your Kindle version.
F: Repairing the XHTML and CSS For those of you still using CS5.5 or earlier. For those of you comfortable in these two coding languages, here are instructions on how to crack open your ePUB and make it fancy.
(from Michael) There is a battle in the self-publishing business. Lots of self-pubbers (including me) think they can format decent book pages with the ubiquitous Microsoft Word. The opponents (mostly professional designers) insist that pages assembled with Word look terrible.
I've used Word to make more than 20 books. They probably don’t look too much worse than books that were composed with Adobe InDesign or Quark Express, which are used by traditional publishers and some self-publishers. I've done test pages, if you care to compare Word and InDesign.
Ironically, some of the ugliest books I've ever seen were formatted with InDesign (and some of the ugliest were formatted with Word). Knowing how to use ‘professional’ software doesn’t mean someone recognizes or is capable of good design.
David's book is extremely useful. Sadly (and ironically), I think its pages are ugh-lee. In a typical page, multiple typefaces, a mixture of margins, lack of hyphens, a distracting squiggle and light bulb icon make it a chore to read.
So, if you want to learn how to use InDesign, this book is a fine choice. However, don't use it as an example of how to design a book.
$17.99, order paperback from Amazon.com
$7.99, order Kindle from Amazon.com
$7.99, order Nook from Barnes & Noble
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