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You are here: Home / Archives for Fiona Raven

A style sheet template for your book

November 11, 2023 By Fiona Raven Leave a Comment

Style sheet word templateHaving a style sheet for your book helps to keep spelling and punctuation consistent throughout. It usually includes a section for each letter of the alphabet, and a space for notes at the bottom. It’s easy to create one while you’re writing your book, and you’ll be able to use it for your book’s website, marketing materials, and everything else you’ll be producing as an author. Below is a template to get you started.

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Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: editing

Writing your back cover copy

September 11, 2023 By Fiona Raven Leave a Comment

Photo of a back cover showing all the back cover copy.Back cover copy is the text that goes on your book’s back cover. Everyone judges a book by its cover (you know that!), and your front cover only gets a few seconds to grab a reader’s interest. However, once a reader picks up your book and flips to the back cover, this is your big chance to sell that book. You need to convince that reader to buy using compelling back cover copy.
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Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: book marketing

Our 10-year adventure in self publishing

July 10, 2023 By Fiona Raven 3 Comments

Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett at Book Expo America in Chicago.Self publishing is an adventure, especially when sharing the ride with a coauthor! Having a coauthor means having someone to depend on, someone to finish what you cannot, someone to push you along, and someone to come up with fresh ideas. And we think our collaboration has truly been ideal. We recently realized that it’s been ten years for us, so we decided to commemorate the anniversary with an online conversation.

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Filed Under: Publishing

Advanced live index features in InDesign

November 7, 2022 By Fiona Raven 2 Comments

Live index showing advanced features.InDesign’s live index includes some great advanced features: you can add italics to the index, add bold page numbers for illustrations, and even create a live index across several documents using InDesign’s Book feature.

Be sure to first read our earlier blog post, Create a live index in InDesign, to learn the basics of creating a live index. [Read more…]

Filed Under: InDesign Tagged With: Book feature, index, paragraph styles, typesetting

Create a live index in InDesign

September 12, 2022 By Fiona Raven 11 Comments

Start a live index in InDesignIt’s easy to create a live index for your book in InDesign, and there’s a major benefit to doing so: If you move any of your text, the index markers stay with the text and the index automatically updates!

In Book Design Made Simple, we explain how to create paragraph styles for indexes, how to import an index from Word, and how to typeset an index. Here, we’ll explain the simplest way to create a live index in InDesign.
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Filed Under: InDesign Tagged With: index, typesetting

Amazon updates for book authors

November 8, 2021 By Fiona Raven 2 Comments

Amazon update showing detail of A+Content.Trying to keep up with Amazon updates? So are we! There’ve been a few changes lately, so we’re discussing them here to keep you up to date. The main Amazon updates for book authors are: 1) EPUBs are replacing MOBIs for reflowable Kindle ebooks, 2) hardcover binding is now an option, and 3) A+ Content is available for your book’s product page on Amazon. Let’s break it down for you.

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Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: Amazon, book binding, book marketing, ebooks, ISBN

ISBNs for self publishers: how to get and assign them

May 10, 2021 By Fiona Raven 5 Comments

Labelling the parts of an ISBN.International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) are important for self publishers. Some printers, print-on-demand publishers, and ebook vendors will offer to provide you with an ISBN, but it’s usually better to get your own. Part of the ISBN includes a “publisher number,” which is assigned to a specific publisher. Therefore, if you allow another company to provide the ISBN, then that company will be listed as the publisher of your book.

We’ll explain everything you need to know: how, where, and why to get your own block of ISBNs, and how to assign them to your print and digital books.

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Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: Amazon, book marketing, copyright, ebooks, ISBN

How to fix book typesetting and layout issues in InDesign

January 11, 2021 By Fiona Raven 10 Comments

Book typesetting sample photo.Book typesetting and layout tips are usually about the small stuff—fixing awkward hyphenation, using special characters for symbols, and so on—but most of the questions we get are about the BIG issues. How can I balance the number of text lines on facing pages? What if the last page of my chapter only has two lines? If my chapter has to end on a right-hand page, can I leave it blank? These issues arise all the time during book typesetting. We’ll explain the best ways to resolve them. [Read more…]

Filed Under: InDesign Tagged With: text frames, typesetting

Combining serif and sans serif fonts

July 12, 2020 By Fiona Raven 5 Comments

Combining serif and sans serif fontsCombining serif and sans serif fonts successfully can be a challenge, but it’s much easier once you know a few simple rules. It’s worth learning, as combining two fonts can really make your book design look professional. So don’t be daunted by the thousands of fonts available! The font-combining basics explained here will help to get you going quickly and easily. [Read more…]

Filed Under: InDesign Tagged With: typesetting

Design a children’s picture book

March 9, 2020 By Fiona Raven 81 Comments

Group of children's picture books.Children’s picture books are fun to design! They’re colorful, full of images, and everything is packed into a small number of words and pages.

To design a children’s picture book, you’ll need to consider lots of factors: book size, page count, quality of images, flow of text, color, and more. Let’s take a look at those factors. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Design Tagged With: Amazon, children's books, color, images, typesetting

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Recent Posts

  • A style sheet template for your book November 11, 2023
  • Writing your back cover copy September 11, 2023
  • Our 10-year adventure in self publishing July 10, 2023
  • InDesign book template by Book Design Made Simple April 19, 2023
  • Self-publishing and book marketing: A success story March 12, 2023
  • Crop marks and other printer’s marks January 8, 2023
  • Advanced live index features in InDesign November 7, 2022

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