Dr. Harald Osel works in the global oil and gas industry and has written four remarkably detailed volumes on the industry he knows and loves. We designed covers for all four volumes of his magnum opus and typeset the text. Every aspect from exploration to extraction and transport is covered, along with issues of environmental preservation and clean energy. Published by Aurora Publishing. We maintained common design elements for al four covers and used images that reflected the topic covered by the specific volume. Typeface used on the covers: Proxima Nova (various weights and widths).
Why Vary Ebook Pricing?
One of the distinctive aspects of ebook publishing is the willingness of authors and publishers to vary book pricing. Some of this may be an attempt to find the ideal price for a given book, but others are following a more sophisticated playbook, a little like the strategies employed by airlines with ticket sales. Kindle itself has Kindle Countdown Deals, though there are built in limits to the use of this particular tool. PublishDrive makes the following observation:
“Writing an ebook is hard. Pricing it should not be harder. Ebook pricing, however, can often feel like a maze without exits. It is easy to get lost or confused. With the following ebook pricing guide we would like to help beginners and seasoned publishers to find their way out.”
And WriteHacked has a long post on the topic spelling out all of the options and reasoning behind them
Advice for Independent Authors
Independent authors are often preyed upon by publishers. Writing a book is hard but a relatively linear task — write > edit> proofread, but the modern landscape of publishing and promotion is wide open, with a myriad possible strategies and pitfalls. Unsurprisingly, many authors find the prospect of self-managing their book overwhelming and sign up with ‘vanity’ presses. Many of these presses over-promise and under-deliver. With the amount of money they spend on signing up with a publisher, authors could have achieved a great deal pursuing their own promotional plan. There are many resources online to assist with this planning. Jane Friedman is also very helpful.
Here is a good roundup of Australian resources. The Queensland Writers Centre has some useful advice.
Independent publishing is hard, but it can be very rewarding. Many of the possibilities are very low cost, your reach is potentially global, an amazing thing in itself.
WorkingType Design has compiled a useful hints booklet for authors, downloadable here.
Directly Importing Author Comments and Corrections into a Book
Most books are set up in Adobe InDesign. Very few independent authors subscribe to Indesign, and therefore have no capacity to directly edit or correct their own book. Typically they will supply a list of corrections to the designer. However, Adobe have recently added an interesting feature to InDesign that will at give authors the chance to at least annotate the PDF proof, and have the designer import the PDF (and annotations) directly into Indesign (provided the comments are properly made). This should increase the speed and accuracy of book proofing and streamline the workflow. An article on the process from Adobe.
POD Book Sizes from KDP and Ingram Spark
Most independent authors opt to upload their print-on-demand book files to Kindle Direct Publishing (formerly Createspace) or to Ingram Spark/Lightning Source. Hence, designers tend to choose book sizes that conform to the standard sizes supported by these two providers (the sizes are very similar between the two platforms. The pages that detail the standard sizes for KDP are here, and for Ingram Spark here. For a head to head comparison of the two services, check out this article. Others argue for using both services at once.
From Revolution to Reflection — Book Cover
In his youth James O’Brien was a republican firebrand, campaigning against the British presence in Northern Ireland and sympathetic with the aims, if not always the methods, of the IRA. Time and experience mellowed his views and he left Ireland for a prosperous life in Australia. We designed the cover for his memoir some years ago, and recently adjusted the layout for an audio book version he created in conjunction with Findaway Voices.
Smashwords versus Draft 2 Digital
The ebook landscape is dominated by Amazon Kindle, but there is a world of ebook consumption beyond Jeff Bezos’ realm. Smashwords aggregates together a number of ebook selling services as does its newer competitor Draft2Digital. Kindlepreneur has done yeoman’s work in comparing the two services in detail, even going to the trouble of contacting their respective CEOs. Spoiler alert: Draft2Digital wins!
Getting Your Book Out Loud
Audiobooks are currently the fastest growing segment of the publishing world. Listeners can login to audiobook services such as Audible, Playster of Apple Books on almost any device, and listen at home, the car or while walking. In short, it is a portable and very immediate format. Until recently, the process of recording a professional ebook has largely been restricted to publishers, due to the expenses involved. However, audiobook recording services have been established aimed at independent authors. An author client recently recounted their experience using Findaway Voices, and was vocal in praise of their service. This article posted at the Creative Penn in mid 2018 largely echoes his praise. Amazon’s own audibook recording service to authors is here.
The Big Bucks in Design... Uber's redesign
Uber, everyone’s favourite “move fast and break things” startup/world consuming corporate giant, has just installed a new look. How much of it is effective and how much is marketing doublespeak and gobbledygook, I will leave to you to decide. But rest assured that the designers have been paid handsomely for their work. Uber Move is quite a pretty typeface family, though.
Preview Your Kindle File
If you need to preview a kindle book file and do not have an actual kindle reader, try this free program from Amazon, or the excellent multi file type previewer, Calibre.
Joe Darling Book Review
A book we designed last year has come to the attention of a popular cricket site. In addition to saying many positive things about the content, the writer also touches upon the design:
“Joe Darling, lived a full life, not just in a cricketing sense, and his story is a fascinating one. Thankfully it is told thoroughly and entertainingly by Whimpress and Ryan. Add to this some great production values and this is a great read. It should be in the book collection of all cricket fans. ”
Double Dutch and other Covers
Three recent draft covers: a hard-driving thriller, a detailed family history and a gritty young adult story. Plenty of contrast and big bold typefaces. Typefaces include Korolev, Sentinel, Alternative Gothic.
Ghosts and Antiquarians — Book Cover
Trevor Hay has spent his professional life studying Chinese culture and history, and brings this knowledge and sensitivity to bear in his novels, which very often relate to the Western experience of China. We combined a number of images around a famous artwork — that of the Fragrant Concubine, a semi-mythical eighteenth century figure. We used Kepler for the title typeface.
Automagically Remove Backgrounds
From the Department of AI is Coming for Your Job: an algorithm that does a pretty fair job of separating a human in an image from its background. I uploaded the image of the woman at left, and downloaded the result at right, all in a few seconds. Check it out here. The free version works at limited resolution. There is a paid version (naturally) that works at much higher resolution. The underlying technology is pretty impressive.
Balboa Press — Warning Signs
Another publisher for independent authors to approach very warily, if at all. These links point to a troubling pattern of overcharging and over-promising, followed by poor and incomplete service.
Change and Time — Cover Design
Mala Naidoo depicts complicated human relationships in her novels, her authorial eye remaining consistently wise and warm. We wanted to convey the depth and subtlety of her protagonists, opting for a dramatic sky with layered faces and a large, classical serif typeface (Mort Modern).
Covering Many Things - Recent Book Cover Designs
Some recent cover designs with the usual variety of subject matter. Contemporary fiction, psychology, thrillers and family histories. Never a boring moment…
The Rise of the Independent Author
The book of the future was supposed to be an amazing digital, virtual thing, anticipated eagerly by every second futurist, but it hasn’t quite worked out that way. An interesting article in Wired about how we got to the current ebook landscape (hint: involves an all conquering behemoth named after a big river). And print books are still a thing, thank goodness. And here’s an interesting quote for all the independent authors out there:
“Almost half of author earnings now come from independently published books. Independent books don’t outsell big-five books, but they offer higher royalty rates—roughly 70 percent versus 25 percent.”
When a Box is not a Box
Peter Ralph writes fast-moving financial thrillers. Recently he wanted to bundle together three of his ebooks to sell as one unit. Though the books are packets of digital information, they are promoted online as physical objects, as if they were an actual ‘box’ set. So we created a graphic showing the three cased books in all their virtual/physical glory.
Copies of copies of copies
New Zealand type designer Kris Sowersby (National, Tiempos, Caliber) has some interesting things to say about type design and originality in this talk, given at TypeCon in 2018. He vigorously rejects any suggestion that type design is played out, and that new versions of old standards are a bad thing.
“And it made me realise this is what we are all doing. We’re taking the planks from masters, and building our own ships. We are making ships in our own image, in our own languages, in our own accents.”