Note: Custom Cover Layout is a separate Process done by a Graphic Designer. Custom Cover will be a separate charge. The following requirements refer to the interior of the book.
Interior Book Layout Requirements
for Indigo Heart Authors
Definitions:
BOOK LAYOUT = conversion of PRINT READY interior book materials into a standard Trade Paperback book layout format (typically 6 x 9).
PRINT READY = materials that are already formatted in the style in which the author wants them to appear in the final copy. For instance, special Fonts are already set to the correct size and weight, headings are already in place in the correct size and weight, images are already color corrected and inserted in the correct place.
BOOK INTERIOR DESIGN = Decisions about Font styles, heading styles, paragraph alignments, image manipulation and placement, and anything else that is non-standard and which impacts how the interior book materials will look once published. These decisions should be made by the author ahead of the layout.
Interior Book Layout includes the following:
1. Setting up the Template according to final published size and style (6 x 9 Trade Paperback)
2. Creating the Front Pages (Title Page, Copyright Page, Table of Contents).
3. Creating the Back Pages (Author Bio, Publisher Info, and Bar Code Pages)
4. Copying the PRINT READY interior materials into the Template.
5. Creating Chapter Breaks.
6. Formatting Chapter Headings.
7. Setting Text Font (one font only), Text Size (one size text only), Text Alignment (blocked style for Trade Paperback) and Paragraph Formatting.
8. Spell Checking, Grammar Checking, Alignment Checking.
9. Creating Headers and Footers.
10. Inserting Page Numbers and Adding Page Numbers to Table of Contents.
Depending on the size of the book this layout process should take between 8 to 12 hours typically. This is time it takes for a book layout for PRINT READY materials. That means the AUTHOR has organized the document to look the way he/she wants the final copy of the book to look. I.E. All materials are in order and PRINT READY images are in place, etc.
**Anything beyond this will require design decisions and extra hours of formatting. Image correction and manipulation also requires extra hours of formatting. I will have to charge for this extra time if images are not already PRINT READY.**
A few imbedded quotations and other special features can be done easily, but if a book has many special characteristics or a large number of headings, sub-headings, special fonts, fonts sizes, font weights, etc, then I will have to charge extra for this time. The fancier you get, the longer it takes to format.
To be clear, Book Layout and Book Design are two different jobs. I can give feedback on design decisions, but the author had to make the final stylistic choices.
How to Get Your Book Ready for Layout
1. Combine all documents (chapters, sections, author’s bio, intro, etc.) into one Microsoft Word Document with the Title of the book as the name of the document. It may seem obvious to the author when he/she has several files, however, it can be confusing for the person doing the layout to have to work with several documents. Combine all files into one. In other words, if you have separate documents with Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc, combine them all into one document in the order they go in, as if you were giving it to someone as ONE single manuscript to read.
2. If there are special font settings, such as Italics for quotations or Bold on some words, make sure you put that in the document. Those are design decisions you need to make ahead of the layout.
3. Make sure you title each section or chapter exactly the way you want it titled in the final product. If chapters are called Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc, then title them as such. If sections don’t have Chapters, but instead have other titles such as Section 1, Section 2 or Part 1, Part 2, then title them as such.
4. Make sure the document you send contains all of your most recent revisions. We can revise again after the first layout is done, but try to keep old versions separate. We don’t want to layout the wrong version of your book.
5. To help with #4 above, before emailing your document to Karen please change the name of the document to include the current date (the day you email it). That way we can be sure we have your most recent version. This keeps us from accidentally formatting an old version of the document with the same title. So the name of the document you submit should say the TITLE of the book and the current DATE.
Example: My Life with Dogs - Sep 30 2011.doc
6. Make sure all images are in place where they go in the document and that they are print ready images. If you don’t have print ready images go ahead and put them in the document where they are supposed to go, but also please put all of the images in a separate folder on your computer, and then email them as attachments separately so that they can be corrected and resized and then re-inserted in the documents. There will be an extra cost for image manipulation. Please talk to me about this before you make a decision about images.
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