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Getting Ready to Print

Most people think of writing a book as sitting down and pounding out a manuscript, using the word processing program on their computer. Maybe they have in mind including a few photographs or other kinds of graphics (clip art, charts, tables, screen shots).

Getting that far is a lot of work, of course, but it still leaves the author a long way from a professionally printed book. Just how much important work remains became clear to me recently. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Douglas Holleley at the Rochester Institute of Technology's "Getting Into Print" self-publishing fair.

Dr. Holleley's presentation on using your desktop computer, scanner, and printer to produce a book led me to his book, Digital Book Design and Publishing. In the Introduction, he reminds us of many of the tasks that go into making a book:

To make a book one adopts a series of roles that, in the not too distant past, were whole fields of specialized study. Consider for a moment the steps involved and the level of skill required at each stage.

When one makes images for the book, one is a photographer. When one writes the words that accompany the images, one is an author. When one places these words into an appropriate format, making decisions about type styles and typefaces, one is a typographer. When one commences to assemble all this material into a coherent package, one is both editor and graphic designer. One then proceeds to turn to the equivalent of a reprograhic camera operator, a platemaker, a printer ...

You get the point. Finishing the manuscript certainly is a major step. But several equally vital steps remain before you can hand over a disk, or upload the files, to a printer and expect a quality book to come back.

Fortunately, there is help. Holleley's book provides an enjoyable trip through the history and important concepts behind the typographic, page layout, and graphic design tasks that can now be performed with the help of powerful software, such as QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign (for typography and page layout) and Photoshop (for image preparation). He then shows how anyone willing to learn these programs, who has access to a computer, a digital camera and/or scanner, and a printer can turn out a professional quality book.

I've read and used Holleley's book and found it extremely useful, despite the fact that he focuses on QuarkXPress loaded on a Mac and I use InDesign on a PC. It's a tribute to how well he explains the fundamentals that his tips and techniques translate easily to newer versions of the software on a different platform.

For those who want to write a book, but don't have the time or inclination to learn all the skills, or adopt all the roles, required to get the manuscript ready for printing, we suggest treating it in a business-like fashion: Staff your weaknesses. Hire a professional editor (this one is probably essential, regardless of your skills), a graphic designer, and a skilled page layout professional.

Or, connect with an author services company (like WME Books) who can create a customized package of services to handle only those tasks you don't want to do for yourself.

You don't have to do it all alone - a probably shouldn't.