Three weeks after the ebook publication of Time Management, I prepared the manuscript for print. The electronic version scales itself automatically depending on whether you’re reading it on a computer, a tablet, or a phone. The print version, on the other hand, is set in stone. The chapter headings begin about a third of the way down the page, which serves a couple of purposes. First, it simply looks less crowded. More importantly, it allows for minor adjustments, so you don’t end up with a chapter ending with just a line or two on the last page.
In addition, the font makes a big difference in the appearance of the text. For instance, the font in this blog is “sans serif” (without serif), which is a little cleaner and simpler to read electronically, but I prefer a serif font in print. What’s the difference?
Unfortunately, this website is preformatted and I can't show you the nuances, but this particular paragraph is presented in a seriffed font (albeit not one that I like).
I played around with a number of different fonts. The classic is Times New Roman. I used a variation on that called Caslon. Another form of spacing is called leading, which is the space between the lines. As you can imagine, the space between the lines has a great effect on the number of pages in the printed book. One version was 327 pages, but I found the type looked a little cramped. In the end I decided to use Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (a highly recommended novel) as a template for both font and leading, making the book 370 pages, which is much more pleasing to my eye, though the 43 extra pages did bump the cost of production up a dollar fifty.
Reviewing the novel for print, I found one more typo, which astounds me, as this book has been read by several editors and a couple dozen people from my Advance Team. I also added one phrase on the last page for clarification, which I subsequently changed in the ebook version as well.
Lastly, for both the ebook and print versions I opted for the Goodfellow font for the title, which was also used for a first edition of Samuel Langhorn Clemens’s The Innocents Abroad, first published in 1867 and playing a minor role in this story.
Recent Comments