Format YOUR Print Book with Createspace — second edition is coming

My short guide to laying out books for Createspace was the first book I wrote that sold over a thousand copies (though not the first book I published to reach that mark). I’ve written an awful lot of technical guides over the past twenty years, so it’s gratifying to put it mildly that my little book has proved so popular (unlike most of those guides I used to write about how to wire Excel up to SSAS data cubes, and how to track agile software projects… can’t think why they weren’t as popular ) One reviewer even called my book their bible!

So I’ve been beavering away in the background for a good few months to put together a second edition. Most of the first edition screenshots were from Word 2007, which looks a little dated now, even though as a user of Word 2010 & 2011, there’s really only one of those screens that changed with Word 2013 (the style sheets have moved to their own part of the Ribbon). So I’ve kept the core of the book largely the same, though updated to refer to Word 2013 (and to some degree Word 2008 & 11). I’ve added new sections for all the questions I’m often asked but didn’t address in the first book: how to set up projects with Createspace, should you buy your own ISBN, and the correct way to type in paragraphs and add page breaks, and many more.

I’ve also completely rewritten the section on images, explaining more about how and where to use images, including a dip into the mysteries of Unicode… a storehouse of images.

There’s a lot more details and — separated out for those who want it — a section on advanced topics such as advanced Opentype features, Wordart, typography primers, dot gain and color spaces, and why Mac users sometimes think their fonts have disappeared when they transfer their Word files to a Windows computer.

The second edition is actually more than twice a big as the first edition, counting words. So I guess it’s not a little book any longer.

We’re a good few weeks away from publication, but I wanted to announce this now because if you were thinking of buying my book, you might want to hold off for a while.

Tim

Proofing in Createspace