Book Designing: Do it or get it done?

As creative writers, most of us face technical problems while writing a book. It is not necessary that every writer should be expert with the technical and printing part of book publishing as well.

As the self-publishing industry is booming throughout the world, more and more writers are finding it difficult to handle the technical part of book publishing. Today there are options of selecting many printers online. Each of them has different printing specifications for book interior, cover and graphics. It becomes almost impossible for a writer to handle all the different printer specifications, irrespective of how technically apt he himself may be. Yes, there are exceptions, but is it worth it?

A 300-page book takes many months to write. After publishing the book, a self-publisher also has to deal with its most important feature – marketing and promotion. Formatting and designing a book takes another two months for a newbie, including several iterations and proofs. Even for a professional designer, it’s a painful job. This is the reason major publishing houses charge thousands of dollars for just formatting and designing books and covers; and yes, they are good, if you have that amount of money in your pocket.

The majority of self-publishers cannot afford so much. Most of them try designing themselves: some succeed, but many give up, completely frustrated. Usually, the online printer rejects their files.

Then there are a few smart ones who look for help outside.

Where?

If your body is not functioning properly, where do you go?

To a Doctor.

When as a patient you visit a doctor, how do you determine that the doctor is the finest?

I remember when I was a kid, my family went to a friend’s family doctor, as my father was having pain near his stomach.

The doctor checked my father’s mouth, counted his pulse, poked and prodded his abdomen, and came back to his desk. He told us that my father had a kidney stone.

We were shocked and startled. How could he know that, just by reading my father’s pulse and touching his stomach?

After a few days, the various tests were done. They verified his assumptions – or should I say his confident conclusion.

This doctor was not very well-known. He didn’t believed in talking much, was always very busy, and never chit-chatted.

Irrespective of that, his clients used to come to him, repeatedly. That showed why he was considered one of the finest doctors. His experience and his techniques were beyond our imagination; but they helped to identify the problem in minutes, and he did it all in a very calm manner.

So if you are having a problem with your book, where will you go? Yes, to a Book Doctor, who deals with such cases every day. You want someone who is so experienced that just by listening to your woes, he will understand exactly where the problem lies.

You need someone who will format and design your book with a professional touch, without wasting his and your time. Time, at the end, is the most important thing in this world.

He will not make you go round and round till you are completely frustrated. He will guide you, help you, and soon your book will be ready for printing. By some unknown magic, this time, the printer will not reject your file.

…………………………………………………………………………..

No, I am not going to promote my site to you, I do not believe in blatant marketing. I am not going to ask you to come to me with your book problem. I believe in destiny: if you are meant to, you will come. I am not even going to give a link here. I am that confident of my services. If you are reading this blog, you are already frustrated with your book designing. Maybe your printer keeps rejecting your book. Perhaps you are going to publish your own book, and are right now just testing the waters.

The book is yours, the choice is yours, and you have to decide who is the finest, who can actually help you get your book published without delays.

My only suggestion is Be Smart.

…………………………………………………………………………………..

Sunny Kapoor (Wicked Sunny)
Owner & Senior Designer
www.publishinggurus.com
Personal Site : www.wickedsunny.com

Editing Your Book: Do You Really Need an Editor?

Creative writing – like old age – is not for the fainthearted. How long has it taken you to write your book? As a writer myself, I would guess at least several months, and possibly even several years. You’ve struggled to put your heart and soul into that manuscript. Maybe it’s a self-help book; maybe a memoir, or other non-fiction. You may have written poetry, or a cookbook. Perhaps you’ve ventured into the world of your imagination and produced a novel. Whatever it is, your book is an extension of YOU.

You’ve certainly read over every single page at least a hundred times, and you’ve revised and revised the text, over and over. Probably you’ve had a friend or family member read your final draft, to pick up any misspellings or grammatical errors. And now, you’re ready to go – time to have your book formatted and published!

Hang on, just a minute.

Have you ever bought a book with a very attractive cover and an interesting blurb on the back, only to find it disappointingly hard going when you began to read? Did you have trouble following the points the author was making? Did you have difficulty “seeing” the characters, getting a feel for who they were and why they acted as they did? Did you even finish the book – or did you put it aside, meaning to get back to it, but somehow never motivated to do so? 

It’s a pretty good bet that book was not professionally edited.  It may have been published by one of the smaller publishing houses, or even self-published.

Books coming out of the major publishing houses have the benefit of professional editing, as part of the contract between the author and the publisher.  (Most authors who work with major publishing houses have agents, who negotiate these contracts. An agent’s fee, of course, adds considerably to the cost of producing a book.)

Now that the Internet makes it so easy to self-publish, more and more writers are turning to this much less expensive and less time-consuming way of getting their books into print and out to their potential readers. And many of them are looking at professional editing as an unnecessary expense in the production of their books. “Hey, I can edit this myself,” they think. “I read a lot, and I talk a lot; I can certainly put a sentence together. And I’ll save quite a few bucks by just giving this one more careful reading, and then I’m good to go!”

Professional writers agree that their editors are critical to the success of their books. It’s almost impossible to be objective about one’s own writing.  You’re too close to it, too involved with it: you need an objective eye to help you make your book the best it can be. New York Times best-selling author Diana Gabaldon (whose wonderful Outlander series has countless fans worldwide) put it beautifully. In one of her books, she thanked her editor for “ever-necessary vigilance against those hordes of errors that breed in the gutters of books, hatching out into the light of day when the covers are opened” (The Outlandish Companion, 1999).

One of my clients told me recently that he believed his book never would have been finished if he hadn’t had the services of a professional editor. “When I’m on a writing roll,” he said, “I just want to keep going, moving ahead, getting my story told. If I have to stop and worry about fixing it up, putting in the commas, trying to vary the vocabulary, I lose my train of thought. I lose my story’s momentum. I just want to get the story down, and then turn it over to you to polish it up for me. I’m a storyteller, not a critical editor. I’ve been thinking about this story for ages, but when I actually started to write it, I realized I needed someone who knows what they’re doing to make it perfect.”

Well, then, what does a professional editor do that’s so special? There are five main services a top-quality editor should provide:

1. Basic Proofreading. Your editor should make sure that spelling is flawless, and that punctuation, grammar, word usage, and paragraph indentation are all correct.
2. Copy Editing.  Of enormous importance is that your editor should make certain that your own unique “voice” is maintained, despite any editorial changes. These may include line rewriting, vocabulary variation, and limited reorganization where necessary, to ensure that the text flows smoothly and consistently. The final version should read the way you want it to read.
3. Editorial Comments and Suggestions for Clarification of Text. Your editor should make suggestions about improving the clarity of your narrative. Finer points of style may be addressed as well.
4. Final Proofreading of Formatted Book. Look for an editor that includes this service in an editing fee. Many editors don’t provide this service at all, and many others charge a separate fee for proofreading after the book is formatted.
5. Frequent Communication with You, as the Work Progresses. Your editor should keep in touch with you, probably by e-mail, throughout the progress of the editing work. The two of you should be working as a team to perfect your manuscript. When edited work is submitted for your approval, your editor should be willing to make any changes you request, at no additional cost to you.

Look around the Internet at some of the websites offering editorial services. You’ll find quite a variety of quality out there. Some editors charge by the page; others charge by the word. The latter is probably better, since pages submitted can vary in the number of words they contain. Make sure you would be getting the services you need, and that you can communicate well with any editor you may be considering.

Then, once you have all the necessary information, you make the decision: will you edit your book yourself, or have it professionally edited? It’s up to you. You are The Author!

Good luck to you in producing your new book, and may it be as perfect as possible in every way!

Betsy Gordon
Site Partner and Senior Editor
http://www.PublishingGurus.com