Train Pictures: February 20, 2023 - Geneva, IL

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I'm Retiring from Print Book Formatting

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  Beginning in 2024 I will no longer format any self-published print books. I have two reasons. First, I find it far more tiring to work on a screen for too long. Even as little as last year I was able to work for three to four hours at a stretch. I can’t do that anymore. My eyesight starts to give me problems and it’s hard to keep going. Second, I am convinced that paper books are worse for the environment primarily due to deforestation and enormous fossil fuel use in the creation and distribution of paper books.  We use a lot of fossil fuels to cut logs down, haul the logs to the paper mill, produce the paper, haul the paper to the printing facility (along with the inks and solvents used in the printing process), move the heavy printed books to distribution facilities, move the heavy printed books to bookstores, and finally to deliver a book to you. Not mentioned in most analyses of this: The millions of road trips individuals take to visit a bookstore to buy paper books...
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Self Publishing: What Really Matters - Part 4

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 Formatting What about what I do—formatting? For most books, you should not spend a lot of time or money on the book’s interior format. As I’ve told my clients: no one ever bought a novel because it had an expensive, fancy font! There are exceptions to this rule, of course. I had an author approach me about a picture book. He was also a photographer, and his vision was a high-end “coffee table” book. I had to tell him I wasn’t the right guy for his project. I use Microsoft Word to format books and that is not the right tool for what he wanted to accomplish. In fact, I also told him I didn’t think KDP was a good choice. He wanted heavy, glossy photo-grade paper and KDP doesn’t offer that option. He needed a book designer that used Adobe InDesign, which has better, more precise positioning capability and access to approximately 30,000 Adobe fonts. It is the right tool for his project.  For a novel or non-fiction book, even with some images, Microsoft Word is a good choice to cre...
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