From frustration to success, or, How to Create a PDF With Custom Page Sizes and Not Go Crazy

At the very beginning of this week, I made my ISBN decision.

I had to, because I needed to put the ISBN on the copyright page in the interior file before I uploaded it. What I decided to do was get the free CreateSpace-issued ISBN (option 1 from my June 3 post). I'm not a publishing company and I decided I wanted the additional marketing options more than I wanted to create my own imprint.

The trouble began when I tried to turn my interior file from a MS Word document into a PDF. (I needed a PDF to upload to CreateSpace.) Everything I had read made it sound so easy! "Just go to the print command, hit the PDF button, and tell it to save as PDF!" Wow, should take about ten seconds.

Two days and much aggravation later, I succeeded.

The problem? I was using a custom page size in Word (5.25" x 8", my trim size, in other words, the actual size that my book will be). When I did the ten-second procedure, it made a beautiful PDF--with my 5.25" x 8" text centered on the top of an 8.5" x 11" page. And it made my single interior file into multiple PDF's, one (as I finally figured out) for each "section" of the Word document.

This was not okay.

It took me much research, delving through the CreateSpace forums (where I found that many other people were having the same problem but no one seemed to have the answer), Googling like mad, and trying things out, before I figured out that 1) I had to disable my printer before making the PDF, because otherwise the default page size for the printer (8.5" x 11") was overriding my custom page size, and 2) I had to learn how to use Word a little better and set up my custom size page while doing the Print>PDF conversion, plus tell it to print as one document.

If any reader really wants to know exactly what steps I took, I can post it (and I did post it in a CreateSpace discussion thread), but otherwise, I'll just say, "Whew!" When I finally hit the Save to PDF button and the file came out in the right size and in one piece, I cheered.

Then I uploaded it to CreateSpace. CreateSpace has a program called the Interior Reviewer, which looks at your uploaded file and tells you automatically if it sees any formatting problems. It found one problem in mine (but didn't tell me what it was), so I tried to open Interior Reviewer and see what the problem was, but Interior Reviewer needed a more recent version of Adobe Flash Player, which I then tried to download but couldn't because my computer's processor is too old. So I was totally stymied on that one, but thank goodness for the library. The next day after work, I got on an internet computer at the library, which has more recent software than I do, and was able to use Interior Reviewer.

Turns out that the error it found was a margin problem on the title page. No problem, I fixed that easily! (Btw, Interior Reviewer is such fun to use. It takes your file and makes it look like an actual book, with turning pages and all, much like an e-reader does, I suppose. I don't have one so I wouldn't know.)

Then I fixed the file, uploaded it again, and success! No problems. It was supposed to be reviewed by CreateSpace reviewers within 48 hours; I haven't heard anything from them.

Then on to the cover. If you've read previous posts, you might remember that I've been playing around with cover design for the last month or more. I went back to the internet this week and took one last look around for images on iStockphoto.com and hey, there were some images I had missed. These had the same model who was in the photo I previously liked, in the same costume, but in different poses/scenes. Apparently several photographers were at that photo shoot, and I had only seen the photos from one of the photographers before.

So I downloaded some more comps from possible photos, mocked up some covers in PowerPoint (I tried in Pagemaker, but it didn't recognize my fonts. I wasn't sure how to fix that and I wanted something fast, so I used PowerPoint), and sent them to some family members to critique. I'm starting to get feedback already, and it's very helpful.

For this coming week, I'd like to make a final decision on a cover photo, and buy it. (Gulp. That sounds so... final!) I also need to work on the back cover layout and text.

Gee whiz, this book might actually be done someday.

A few more steps...

This week's recap:

1) I searched online for more possible cover photos, free and not free. I didn't find any I liked better than my current favorite.

2) I played with cover layout.

3) I printed out my front material and back material, along with the first few pages of the first chapter and the last pages of the final chapter. (It printed out on regular 8.5"x11" paper and I trimmed it to my trim size of 5.25"x8".) Interesting to see it in print form. I find it easier to see certain layout discrepancies such as the type on my "Dedication" page starts much lower than the type on my "Contents" page which directly follows it. Gotta fix that, because it looks odd on paper although it didn't on the screen. I also found myself editing in the chapter pages I had printed--not grammar/punctuation stuff, but actual rewriting--which tells me that I might find a lot to revise in my first proof copy. I hope I'm wrong, and the problems I found are just remnants of my old problems with the beginning of chapter one... sigh.

Regarding my ISBN question from a few weeks ago: I'm 90% sure I'm going with "option 1" for my ISBN (free, but I don't get to use my own imprint).

This week, I have a new program to use for cover layout (thanks, friend!). We shall see how PageMaker 7.0 and I get along. I would also absolutely love to be able to say in my next post that  my interior file is uploaded. Stay tuned!

MS Word styles and typography

Two versions of page 1. Margins not accurate

First thing--yes, I did finish the editing. All the chapters are done, and I added a few items I realized might need for the sequel. So the interior body of the book is pretty much done.

I also worked on the front matter, specifically the copyright page. I looked at many fiction books and studied their disclaimers, then created my own. I also worked on the dedication page. There is still work to do on the back material (author info and acknowledgments).

But the big issues this week were "styles" and typography.

Have you ever used "styles" in MS Word? I never had. I did know that over the years Word had sometimes driven me absolutely crazy because I would try to change some formatting (say line spacing from single- to double-spaced) and IT WOULDN'T LET ME. Or it added extra space after paragraphs that I DIDN'T WANT AND IT WOULDN'T GO AWAY! Aarghhh!

But now I know why.

Think of using a typewriter. When you type with a typewriter, certain formatting decisions have been made for you. You have a certain font of a certain size. This is just the way it is.

Well, when you open a new document in Word, certain formatting decisions have also been made for you, because whoever created Word wanted you to be able to start typing without picking a font or the font size. They also picked the line spacing and paragraph formatting. Then they put all these formatting decisions together and called it a STYLE.

You may not know it's there. I sure didn't. (I never learned Word formally.) But if you try to change it by using the obviously visible formatting controls, you will have problems. You will get frustrated and want to send scathing letters to Microsoft. But all you really need to do is learn about STYLES.

I won't go into all the details, but other people have. I found this page and this page instructive.

So what's the point of all this style business? I see two main ones. The first is understanding how to manipulate MS Word so you don't get frustrated with it. The second is that it saves time! Using styles, I can change the font for the body of all my chapters with a single formatting change and not have to change each chapter separately (which I would have to do otherwise since I'm using a different chapter title font.)

So. Styles, my "eureka" moment of the week. I might be the last person to come to this party, but I'm glad I got here.

So what else did I do this week? I changed the font, the font size, and the line spacing.

What?!? Why? Well, I actually printed out some sample pages, cut them down to size, and saw how they looked. Frankly, the font looked too big and also too light.

If you look at the image above, this original version is on the left: Garamond 14/16, i.e. 14 pt with 16 pt leading. Too big. Too light.

When I realized that Garamond looked too light, I tried out several other fonts that were installed on my computer. Fonts like Palatino (nice, but bad quotation marks), Bookman Old Style (okay...), Baskerville Old Face and Big Caslon (didn't like their spacing), Goudy Old Style (nice, but also light)--well, it went on and on. I really wanted Garamond, truth to tell, if only it were darker.

So I did some research and found that there are various versions of Garamond. Then I did some poking around on my computer and discovered a folder on my hard drive with a bunch of fonts that had never been installed. One of them was Adobe Garamond. Yippee!

I managed to download it and (after an anxious time when it wasn't showing up in Word until I restarted the computer) tried it out. It looked good, it printed out darker, and it also had not only the regular font but Adobe Garamond Italics, Adobe Garamond Bold, Adobe Garamond SemiboldItalic, Adobe Garamond SaucyBold (not really), in other words, the whole package. This is important, because when using italics it is much preferable to use an actual designed italic font, rather than just pressing the "italics" button on the computer.

Then I played around with font sizes. Twelve was so small, it really shrank my book. I'm aiming at about 200 pages, and 12 pt took it way down to 170 or so. Not good. So I tried 13 pt, along with increasing the leading and expanding the margins slightly, and what I ended up with was smaller, darker, nicer looking, and about the same total number of pages as when it was 14 pt. Success!  You can see what it looks like in comparison on the right above: Adobe Garamond 13/17. (Also, I changed the chapter titles to Casablanca Antiqua, my probable title font, instead of Garamond.)

I could go on and on about how I then changed all my italics from faux italics to the italics font and moved the chapter title up on the page a bit and REDID ALL THE WIDOWS AND ORPHANS (yes) and changed the size of the decorative elements around the chapter numbers... but I'm sure I've put most of you to sleep by now.

For this week: I feel that I am getting dangerously near to being ready to upload my interior files to CreateSpace, which means that I'll have to make the ISBN decision soon and finalize the front and back material. I may also play around with different cover images. Stay tuned...

Cover, editing... and the ISBN question

Current version of title page.

This week, I worked on three areas of publishing:

1) More editing. I did two more chapters. Three to go. (Yes, I counted wrong last week.) I also went through and corrected the widows and orphans. The only ones I think are problems are the very short lines ending a paragraph at the top of a page, so those are what I fixed. In most cases I was able to tighten some phrasing on the previous page to save a line, which took the orphan back down to the bottom of the previous page. Occasionally I added stuff to create an extra line on the previous page, so the orphan was no longer an orphan. If the orphan line was long enough, say half the line, I let it stand. And of course, all this will last only until I do any more editing or change the font size or something, which would totally mess it all up again. Really, I should have left this until after the editing and formatting were totally done. Oh well, next time...

2) More preliminary work on the cover. I am using Microsoft PowerPoint to do some front cover and whole cover layouts, using the watermarked free comp of the photo I'm considering buying (blown up way too much), just to get a feel for it. (Since I haven't bought the cover photo yet, I don't want to upload the layout here, but the fonts you see in the title page above are the ones I'm currently using.) Naturally, playing with the cover is a lot more fun than editing, which is why I still have three chapters left to edit.

3) To buy my own ISBN, or not to buy my own ISBN? That is the question... My book will have to have an International Standard Book Number, that's not the question. How to get it is.

Ideally, an ISBN would be free, portable (allow me to publish the book with another printer without having to get a different number), personal (allow me to be my own publishing company for the book), and widespread (allow for the widest possible distribution, including being listed in the Baker & Taylor catalog, which libraries and institutions use. Ask me--in my job I've helped place Baker & Taylor orders. On the other hand, libraries also order through other sources, too.)
    
Well, ha ha. None of CreateSpace's options fulfill all four requirements. Here's how it breaks down:

• Option 1: Free and widespread, but not portable or personal. These books have CreateSpace listed as the publisher on their Amazon pages.
• Option 2: Almost free and personal, but not portable or widespread. In other words, you can create your own publishing company name and they're very inexpensive, but they aren't listed in the Baker and Taylor catalog (why? why?) and you can't take them with you.
• Option 3: Portable and personal, but spendy and not widespread. 
• Option 4: Portable, personal, and widespread, but even spendier. 

Option 5, which is a possibility not listed by CreateSpace, is to buy a block of ten ISBNs from the American supplier (Bowker), which puts the cost per ISBN down to a reasonable rate, and would allow one to use Option 4 without being so spendy. But we are talking $250 upfront now, and that's real money.

What to do? What are my own priorities: cost, personalization, portability, or widespread distribution? Portability comes last. Cost is near the top. But which is more important, personalization or distribution? I go back and forth on that one. To be "Green Gnome Books" (or whatever), or to be in the Baker and Taylor catalog? If I were wealthy, I'd go for Option 5. Or I could move to Canada or South Africa, where ISBNs are free. Decisions, decisions.

Coming up this week: finish editing. Really. Work on front and back material (title page, copyright page, author bio, dedication, and acknowledgments). Stay tuned...