Subscribe to RSS 2.0Some answers and suggestions.
I am in a perceptive mood today, and have some answers to some burning questions - and a couple of suggestions.
First question: why do imprints exist?
Possible Answer: so that companies can sell them off when times get tough. If your business is divided into imprints, you can flog 'em as a discrete entity. If all the titles were lumped in together, it's harder to siphon them off. Am I right?
Second question: why do publishers have to employ so many people, and how does Snowbooks get away with employing so few?
Answer: because many publishing employees are undertrained.
Explanation: I generate a fair percentage of Snowbooks' current revenue from publishing services - doing cover design, typesetting and so forth for other publishers - so I get to see how these other companies operate. Now, dear clients, don't take this the wrong way but you could easily dispense with the great expense that is me by just buying a couple of thick books for £30, or even paying to go on a £300 course, and then practising a bit, to learn how to use InDesign and Photoshop.
Example: Today I've been finishing off some typesetting for a client. It's the sixth iteration that we've been through:
1) was the initial design - a sample chapter or two for them to review and sign off the font, layout etc
2) was the editor's remarks
3) was the author amendments
4) was a further set of editor remarks (possibly after an internal meeting)
5) was the first set of proofreader's remarks
6) was a further set of proofreader's remarks
Now, there are a couple of dispensable people and processes here. Me, for one - I've been receiving hard copy marked up proofs through the post (it's a few hundred pages long book) and just implementing the markup in InDesign. The editor or proofreader could easily have made those changes as they identified them. In the last iteration, the editor marked up a hard copy *and* sent the proofreader's marked up PDF via email - the marked up PDF would have been fine. Even better, the proofreader could have made the changes direct to InDesign - cutting out the editor, the postman and me.
My cover design clients also rely on me for things that take me about 30 seconds, but if I'm out of the office when they need it, they have to wait half a day - things like turning a photoshop document into a jpeg and resizing it. I know I would find that very frustrating, and would want to learn how to do it myself to wrestle back some control. Because as we all know, if you're in control of something it's a lot less stressful than relying on someone else. Or is it just ol' control-freak me who thinks that?
So, because I'm weird, I'm going to really try hard in 2008 to make myself for the most part redundant, by sending through detailed instructions to my clients of how to do the easy bits each time they ask. In fact, I've done this often in the past, but I can't have explained it very well because I still get the questions, and then feel rotten if they're waiting for me to get it done, and for charging money for something that is so simple.
Here are some notes I've made in the past:
To cut out images in Photoshop
Any more you'd like to see?
Comments: 9
Can you know tell me how to download a pic of Daniel Craig in Casino Royale,wearing a T shirt and/or underpants? I need it to illustrate today's blog post.
Posted by: Sally Howe on February 3, 2008 09:50 AM
Er, your wish is my command: http://www.clan-macrae.org.uk/scotland/clientimages/mailspeedo.jpg
Posted by: Em on February 3, 2008 10:02 AM
Corrr, thanks Em!
Posted by: Sally Howe on February 3, 2008 12:48 PM
Well, aside from how to get an evening - alone! - with Johnny Depp, you might tell me which book you recommend for learning to typeset. I'm thinking of PODing my next novel, in addition to online serialisation. Also, is there an easy way in MS Word to reformat the size of the text font without mucking up all the chapter titles as well?
Posted by: Lee on February 3, 2008 03:35 PM
In my view the Real Word Adobe books by Peachpit press are unsurpassed. They teach you the basics, but are also a bible for anything you could hope to learn about - and presented beautifully with clear language. I love 'em - and there's a new one out for Indesign CS3.
And I don't quite understand your Word problem: would it help if you define a chapter title style as always starting on a fresh page? You can do that in the Styles and Formatting pane.
And finally, I think it's great that you're considering POD. With the tools available today, everyone can be a professional publisher. Let me know how it goes.
Posted by: Em on February 3, 2008 09:24 PM
Thanks for the advice about the Real Word Adobe books. Clarity is precisely what I need.
The Word problem: perhaps your suggestion about defining a chapter title style is what I need to try. Until now I've just changed the size and font of each chapter title manually as I type, so that after I come to reformat the entire document via 'select all' - making the text font smaller, say - then of course all the chapter titles, and any other odd font sizes I may have used, change as well. Obviously I need to rethink how I define my formatting from the outset. This was never a problem when I was writing, but now that I'm thinking about POD, I'm having to learn!
POD - it's still a big maybe, only because I've been asked so often if I can't provide a reader who doesn't like to read at length from a screen with a print copy. I'm totally uninterested in becoming a publisher, even a small indie publisher. The work involved - and especially the marketing - would take far too much time from my writing. I admire the way you run Snowbooks, as far as I can tell, but it's just not what I care to do. To learn to write well takes years and years and years of fulltime work - and I'm not that young!
So at most POD would be some sort of reader service, at cost or possibly with a small surcharge to donate to a project or two in Africa. I spent eighteen years in Zimbabwe, you see.
Posted by: Lee on February 4, 2008 07:02 AM
"Until now I've just changed the size and font of each chapter title manually as I type, so that after I come to reformat the entire document via 'select all' - making the text font smaller, say - then of course all the chapter titles, and any other odd font sizes I may have used, change as well."
Lee - learning abut styles will really help you and any other novelist. what you do is define a style for each paragraph type - including your chapter headings. Then you don't reformat a pargraph (or whole document) you just change the style definition and hey presto (as emma might say!)
Look for 'format - style' - on menu or AA icon depending which version of Word that you use. When you've implemented style, try selecting View- document map and you'll see another big advantage. (Sorry about my missionary zeal!)
Alison
Posted by: Alison Bacon on February 4, 2008 02:49 PM
Couldn't have said it better myself, Alison!
Posted by: Em on February 4, 2008 05:53 PM
Em, in my job, no matter how often I try to teach my superiors how to do the easy bits, they still make me do them. One of my bosses still dictates letters into a recorder for them to be typed. I mean, how much longer would it really take him to type them himself? I think it's just an ingrained thing that if you're "important", you leave the details to somebody else, no matter how easy they may end up being. But maybe I'm not diagnosing correctly the people that you do work for.
Posted by: KatharineC on February 7, 2008 01:42 PM