Thinking about book typesetting services? Writing your book and sending it off to the printer may sound like the two most important steps in becoming a self-published author, but many steps take place between developing a story and hitting send on your final manuscript, delivering the book to your printer, ready to be turned into a book ready for your readers.
One of the critical steps in the book-writing process involves refining the format and style of your work so that it resembles other books in the genre, provides the reader with a great reading experience, and feels professionally produced. This stage is called book typesetting services, and to ensure your book looks amazing and readers enjoy picking up and reading it, you will need to understand and apply the basic principles of book typesetting services to your manuscript.
What Are Book Typesetting Services?
Simply put, book typesetting services is the term that encompasses all of the detail work that goes into making a book look clean and easy to read. Book typesetting services includes everything from the way the words look on the page to how each page is set up and how things like subtitles, page numbers, and headers are formatted within a book.
Areas of Book Typesetting Services
The practice of book typesetting services includes two areas: the words themselves and the formatting and style of how each page looks. These two areas go hand in hand, however, and are not completed independently of each other because the font type and style impact the page typesetting choices so that each page will flow seamlessly for the reader.
Typography
The first and most well-known type of book typesetting services is collectively called typography, which describes how each word looks on the page.
Font Selection: Choosing the right font for your book’s genre will not only help readers feel instantly comfortable while turning the page, but it can also increase a book’s readability. Print books often use serif, simple fonts like Baskerville, Garamond, and Times New Roman because they help to guide the eye along the page. But digital publications often utilize sans-serif fonts like Arial or Helvetica because of their clean, minimalistic lines.
Font Style: Special areas of a book, like chapter title pages, may swap out a traditional font for a stylized one. Using these sparingly can give them impact while not affecting the overall readability of the body of a book.
The Way Each Page Looks
The more in-depth book typesetting services rules revolve around how each page looks and how pages look in relation to each other.
Line Spacing: A typesetting program or professional typesetter will pay attention to how close together or far apart the lines on the page are to create books that are visually easy to consume. When choosing the right line spacing, you must consider the font selection and size as well as other book details like the overall dimensions of the book and the whitespace on each page.
Margins: How far each line stretches out on the page and where the top and bottom of the writing on each page is describes the margin or whitespace of a book. Book typesetting services considers the genre of a book, tailoring margins to fit the reader’s expectations, abilities and the book’s purpose.
Inside margins that sink toward the binding of a page, called gutters, are critically important in book typesetting services because too-small gutters can create disappearing text that is hard to read, while overly generous gutters can make side-by-side pages feel disconnected. Smaller margins are typical of fiction, while workbooks and other write-in books often utilize generous margins to allow for notetaking.
Page Numbering: Professionally designed books keep consistent page numbers throughout the book, and numbering only begins with the book’s first content page and excludes the front matter pages (title page, copyright page, dedication page and table of contents.)
Running Headers: Many books include a reference to the book title, author name and chapter title (or some combination of these three) on each page. Book typesetting services selects the best format for this and ensures consistency throughout the book.
Text Alignment: Most print novels are formatted in a fully justified style where the text appears as a block on the page with straight line alignment on both sides of the page. Digital formats often utilize left-justified alignment to avoid extra spacing that occurs with fully justified pages which could be difficult to read on an e-reader format.
Widow and Orphans: Creating a page with complete sentences to start or end a page makes it easier for the reader. A typesetter can help writers avoid widows (single words that start a page) and orphans (short phrases or single words that end a page) by adjusting the length of a text block. Widows and orphans can slow reading, chopping up the flow of the words and creating a stop-and-start feel for the reader.
Getting Ready for Book Typesetting Services
Whether you use a professional typesetter, use a typesetting program, or take care of the typesetting process on your own, following these steps will ensure that your book has the best opportunity to look its best before you send it off to the printer.
1 Finalize your transcript with editing and revision work. While it may be tempting to work on some details of book typesetting services before your book is complete, just focus on writing, editing and revising your manuscript so the contents are perfect first. Making the style decisions later allows you to create the best possible book by focusing on one thing at a time.
2 Make decisions about your book’s design. With a finalized manuscript, you can think about how you want it to look.
Trim and Size: Choosing the size of your finished book impacts the way it is typeset, so make this decision now. The trim, or amount of outside margins that may be cut to align the printed pages before they are bound into a book form, is also part of this decision process.
Layout Style: Will your book have a table of contents, book sections, chapter pages or other specialized elements? Deciding on how you want your book to appear will guide the typesetter in making the right choices.
3 Import the manuscript into a typesetting program so the typesetter can make adjustments. Using a program is common with both professional typesetters as well as self-publishing authors who are taking on this task themselves. Importing your book into the program after setting up the parameters of your choices, like font, margin, trim and layout style, will create a working document. Once uploaded, manually check each aspect to ensure it transferred to the manuscript the way you intended.
4 Add visual appeal. If your book includes visual elements like graphics or pictures, insert them now, applying the same metrics of margins and style that the rest of the book utilizes.
5 Proof your manuscript and review for changes. If you are using a professional book typesetting service, this is the stage where you would work directly with the expert on making changes and giving approvals for the final format of your book. Once the book looks the way you want it to, you can send it off to the printer.
Should You Use Professional Book Typesetting Services?
While you may be an experienced writer, formatting and typesetting a book might be something you want to try, or you may want to leave it to the experts. Every writer is different, but every author wants to create a great-looking book that readers enjoy diving into, so deciding on how to get your book looking good might hinge on one of these popular reasons for using a pro typesetter.
- Experts can save you time learning the nuances of typesetting.
- A professional typesetter will be familiar with industry standards, ensuring your book looks the way readers expect it to.
- Relying on a professional’s graphic design expertise to format your book will make sure that it is visually appealing and all visual elements work together in a cohesive way that supports your book’s contents.
- A book that has been professionally typeset will be free from errors in style and format that would not be present in traditionally published books, keeping your book from appearing homemade or unprofessional.
- Self-published books that are professionally typeset are easier to market because their appearance will be right in line with traditionally published books.
Making the Right Choice for Your Book
Of course, many self-publishing authors choose to complete all aspects of their book themselves, including typesetting. Hiring a professional does impact your budgeting for book production costs. However, many authors think the small investment needed to work with an expert in book typesetting is worth the cost because getting any of the critical typesetting details wrong can negatively impact how potential readers feel about your book, and by extension, you as a writer.
After your book has been designed and proofed, partner with a trusted printer, like Dazzle Printing, to finish the process of making your book publishing dreams a reality.
