Book Design

A thriving community arts initiative, What I Did Last Week, started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. 

The City of Greater Bendigo’s unique arts program was developed to create an online exhibition to share work and encourage artmaking for professional and amateur artists. What I Did Last Week began on March 23, 2020, when artists were invited to submit one image representing what they had been doing in lockdown the previous week. Contributing artists covered a range of media, including traditional visual art forms: drawing, painting, and photography, as well as sculpture, craftwork, poetry, and music.

As the program developed, it became a visual record of the times, reflecting the experiences of the artists and their communities. For this reason, and as an acknowledgement of the artists’ works, it was decided to produce two hard copy volumes for the work submitted.

I was invited to design the first two volumes showcasing the artwork submitted in 2020. The process began with a thorough understanding of the content and purpose of the book. This included identifying the target audience and evaluating the best design approach to achieve the desired outcome.

As the book designer for this beautiful project, I created a full-colour cover design, including front, back and spine. I produced a print-ready file that met the printing requirements, ensuring that the file was formatted correctly, all images were high-resolution, and the colours were accurate. This process included choosing the best paper stocks and binding methods. McPhersons, Victoria printed Volume One and Two.

Design and layout full-colour internal pages. Organised CiP data, ISBN and Barcode. Prepress production. Volume One: 234x168mm. 84 pages. Volume Two: 234x168mm. 80 pages.

You can view all the submitted artwork at bendigoregion.com.au/arts-culture-theatres/what-i-did-last-week-archive

Yeah, it’s The Vox Bendigo Book 2019 Young Writers Anthology time of the year again!

I am currently designing the cover and the internal pages for The Vox Bendigo Book 2019, Young Writers Anthology. This is an initiative of the Bendigo Writer’s Festival in association with the Rotary Club Bendigo and is currently in its 4th year of publication.

The Vox Bendigo Book is a writing competition aimed at showcasing the original and talented work of young aspiring authors within the Bendigo region. It provides an opportunity for young authors to have their work published and also for their work to reach a greater audience.

The inspiring young writers are local and regional, primary and secondary school students. The anthologies feature diverse poetry and prose writing based upon a single theme. Previous year’s themes have been My Place, The Tree and Curious. This year’s theme is Gold.

I am looking forward to seeing this years ‘golden’ entries!

As the book designer for this great project, my role is to design a full–colour cover design including front, back and spine. Design ideas are a result of the chosen theme and the inspiration coming from the chosen stories and poetry.

Design and layout black & white internal pages including a table of contents. Organise CiP data, ISBN and Barcode. Prepress production. 111x181mm. 80 pages.

I Love My Body book by Kerry Spina

Kerry Spina delivers a powerful, accessible message alongside the compelling illustrations of Tory and Norman Taber. A dream project for all of us. Not that all of it was plain sailing. Firstly, this project required us to find the perfect printer that could deliver a top-quality, high-end board book. Our search was over when we found 1010 Printing International. They delivered on time, on budget and most importantly, the quality is superb. As a result, we have a truly remarkable book that does justice to the message it contains.

It was a joy and privilege to work with Kerry Spina on her new book, I Love My Body. It was an awesome opportunity to combine Kerry’s poignant words with the stunning illustrations of Tory and Norman Taber.

You can find out more here
https://kidsinharmony.selz.com/item/love-my-body-picture-book

The pros and cons of self-publishing are TIME, MONEY AND CONTROL

TIME:
Self-publishing gives you the benefit of writing to your own schedule. But this also means you are writing on your own time. In contrast, publishers will pay you an advance. This can also mean your manuscript’s deadline will need to fit the publisher’s schedule. It can be a long time between edits.

With self-publishing, you set the time frames.

MONEY:
Self-publishing means that you pick up the bill for design, printing and marketing. The flip side of this means that you receive 100% of the profits.

There are a lot of factors to take into account. Here are some insightful articles that you may find useful:

• https://www.scribendi.com/advice/traditional_versus_self_publishing.en.html
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2014/05/13/five-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-publishing-a-book/#6bb390fc4e38

We recommend you look at all your options so you can make an informed decision based on what’s best for your project.

CONTROL:
The major benefit when you self-publish is that you have control over all the key elements. You control cover design, layout, editing, and proofreading. You have complete editorial control and time frames are set to your schedule.

Finished manuscript? What next?

You’ve done all the hard work and you have your finished manuscript. What’s the next step?

Here is a brief outline of the process of going from finished manuscript to the final outcome; a stunning, high quality printed book.

1. Contact us and receive a complimentary 30 minutes consultation. This allows us to ask you a bunch of questions and enables us to put a quote together for you.
2. If you accept our quote, we will then set up a timeline for your project. Working back from your launch date, we factor in design, revisions and printing. The timeline will be altered depending on if your book is printed in Australia or overseas. Please note: 30% deposit is due upon acceptance of our quote.
3. You then send your finished manuscript file electronically to us. From here, we will set up the document.
4. We will provide 2 different internal page designs for your consideration. This usually includes variations in fonts and spacing. After a bit of to and fro, we get to what will be the final design.
5. Once we have bedded down the design, we set to and put the book together. We create the 1st draft. This will include all front matter, body and end matter. We send the 1st draft to you and this is often where you, as the author, see the manuscript very differently than when you were working on it. It can be like seeing it through different eyes and presents the perfect opportunity to pick up on any anomalies. We like to leave the 1st draft with you for as long as you need for a thorough read-through, proofread, edit, etc.
6. During the time that you have the 1st draft, we can be organising some of the nuts and bolts like ISBN, CiP data, sourcing quotes from printers, etc.
7. 1st draft returned to us. We then proceed to make all your requested changes. Your book will be taking its final shape and this is when the page count is usually locked in and the Imprint data and any other details are complete.
8. The 2nd draft is sent to you for final checking through, ticking off all your requested changes and noting any other changes that may need to be made. When you are ready, you send this back to us and we set about making your changes or additions.
9. Now we are up to the 3rd and usually final draft. We make any last-minute changes and prepare the press-ready files for the chosen printer.

Cataloguing-in-Publication (CiP data)

The National Library of Australia offers this service to publishers. It is to provide a catalogue record for publications. National, State and Regional libraries use the CiP data to create a catalogue entry for your book.

The best part is that allows the general public to easily find your book.

This is important for all books. Especially for Family Histories as it allows future generations to locate your family history.

This data states the name of the author/s and or contributors, such as editors, designers, etc. It also provides the genre and target audience. The Imprint Page displays this information.

To be eligible for this data, you must have an ISBN.

The only thing you need to do is to provide a copy of your finished printed book to your State and the National Library.

We can organise the CiP data for you.

What is an ISBN?

International Standard Book Number
An ISBN is a unique product identifier used by booksellers, libraries and internet retailers for ordering, listing, sales and stock control purposes. This unique number identifies the publisher, title, author, edition and format.

We can provide you with an ISBN or you can purchase this yourself. The purpose of the ISBN is to identify one specific version of a book. We register the ISBN with Thorpe-Bowker™ Identifier Services, the only official ISBN Agency in Australia.

Do you need an ISBN?

• If you intend to sell your book, yes, you will need an ISBN. Most retailers also use ISBNs to track their book inventories.
• Having an ISBN also allows you to obtain a CiP entry from the Australian National Library.
• ISBNs are the global standard for identifying titles. Their purpose is to identify one specific version on a book. Your unique ISBN identifies your book correctly.
• Once you have an ISBN we can then generate a barcode for the back cover of your book. If you intend to sell your book through retail outlets, you will also need a barcode. The barcode is generated from the ISBN number. We can produce barcodes too.

Different Formats

Thinking of making an eBook? You will need a different ISBN for each format of your book. If you wish to have a hardbound copy, a softbound copy, an ePUB, a PDF, a MOBI, or even register a new version, you will need a unique number for each version.

How much does an ISBN cost?

• Single: $50 +GST
• Package of 5: $180 +GST

We offer special deals if you bundle your ISBN with a barcode.

• Single ISBN and barcode: $80 +GST
• Package of 5 ISBN and barcode: $320 +GST

Imprint Page

The Imprint Page is on the back (verso) of the title page and is the perfect place to put all the relevant details about the publication, the who what when and how stuff.

Captures all the technical details about the book such as date of publication, publisher’s name, logo and contact details, name of the author, ISBN, copyright, list of contributors, CiP data, printer’s details.

The Imprint Page may contain the following material:

• Publishers logo, name. address and also the web address
• Date of publication
• Name of Author
• The name of other contributors, such as editors, illustrators, etc
• Also contains the name of the designer and details of the cover design, ie. credit to the photography
• Printer’s details
• Copyright information
• ISBN
• CiP data

Book structure will influence how your content is read.

Book structure guides the reader through the book in a coherent manner that showcases the content.

The three main parts of a book are:

• Front Matter
• Body Matter
• End Matter

Front Matter

This is the first section of the book. These pages can provide an opportunity to include some of the following pages:

• Half title: Contains the title of the book in the same font as the cover with approx 50-70% reduction in size.
• Title page: Reflects a simplified version of the cover design and includes the title, author and any other main contributors such as illustrators, photographers and designers.
• Imprint page:  Captures all the technical details about the book such as, date of publication, publisher’s name, logo and contact details, name of the author, ISBN, copyright, list of contributors, CiP data, printer’s details.
• Dedication: The author names the person or people to whom he/she has dedicated the book to.
• Table of Contents: Chapter headings and subchapter headings. This will also include any other front matter that follows the Table of Contents.
• Foreword: Written by someone other than the author. This is often telling of an interaction between the author and the writer of the foreword that has bearing on the content of the book.
• Acknowledgement: Acknowledges those that have contributed or supported the creation of the book.

Body Matter

This is the core of the book usually comprising of either chapters or chapters and sections. Sections are elements that are contained within chapters often used in family histories and technical manuals.

End Matter

This is where you are likely to find some of the following pages:

• Index
• Glossary
• Promotional material for other books or resources