Design…

The Book Design Seminar is a Design Seminar…

I was clearly not clear in yesterday’s blog about this possible seminar. So I have gone back and edited in some clarity. And now tonight will add in more.

What this seminar will focus on is how to design your books (electronic, paper, hardback, and pretty books) both covers and interior in ways that readers will not only pick up your book, but be able to read it.

I put the names of the programs Kris and I use, BUT WE ARE NOT TEACHING THOSE PROGRAMS. In fact, there are great YouTube classes on both.  We are teaching what your final product should be and WHY it is important for readers.

Besides, Kris and I would not be qualified to teach how to use Vellum or InDesign. I am good at InDesign only as far as I need to be to do book covers and layout book interiors. On Vellum, I have done 75 books, so clearly not an expert. I rely on experts in both to help me.

But I am an expert (and so is Kris) on book design and what makes readers buy and read books.

Some of my history… In 1982, for fun, I did a few writing articles and opinion articles and I took them to a local stationary store with a copy machine (one of the first in that small town) and I cut and pasted a small pamphlet together and saddle stitched it (stapled it). I did about 20 copies and gave them away for free to the workshop I was in. I did these regularly every few weeks because it was fun and I called it “Somewhere Else.” Used public domain art and had a blast cutting and pasting and copying.

After about thirty issues it evolved into THE REPORT and then when Kris and I started Pulphouse it became a Pulphouse Magazine and Chris and Steve York edited it. It was about issue 60 at that point and was a full writer’s magazine.

In 1987 I designed my first three books using Pagemaker for the interior on a small MacPlus with a 20K external hard drive. (Pagemaker is the granddaddy of InDesign.) I designed and published 237 titles in the next six years in five lines of books. Many were great, a few were really ugly.

When the indie publishing hit almost 20 years ago now, I was in a fantastic hurry to get books into the coming Kindle Christmas so I put up over 200 titles, all with covers done in PowerPoint. Yup, that does work if you know book design and it was cheap.

We have changed all those covers out now over the years, but I have designed a lot of books. (Well over a thousand.) WMG had a period when I took my hands off the wheel and our covers mostly sucked. Kris and I are fixing that now, one book, on series, one story at a time. Follow Kris’s Patreon where she compares old covers and new covers on stories.

So I know book design and what causes a reader to pick up a cover, turn the page, and read the book.

So this seminar will be book design, something so many indie writers just don’t understand or even realize is an art form.  But in this design I don’t care what program you use as long as you get results.

So we have gotten some positive feedback so far, but we are just not sure about doing this one. Six weeks, 5 assignments to send me, 4 webinars, starting in January. It will be great fun and a massive learning experience. So that is a plus.

But we are still thinking about it. So feel free to chime in if interested, even if you end up not taking it. No problem.

Now back to finishing my massive challenge. Almost there.