Originally Posted: 2/26/12

his might sound lazy but… I kinda think next time around I’d rather have someone design the interior of my book for me. The reason is simple… I’ve done it myself before. I know that I can do it and I know how to do it and… quite honestly. I’m exhausted. Knowing that you can do something and wanting to do it again… it’s a tough call.

Of course having said that… I know I’ll end up doing the interior of my book again for the simple fact that I’m an OCD control freak who if I let one more person do something that I can’t have some control over might lose my goddamn mind.

I don’t really control the cover beyond the extent of telling the designer what I want it to look like, and I don’t have control over the book while it’s with my editor so… there isn’t a whole hell of a lot I have control over anymore… which makes me wonder… how much worse would I be had I gone the traditional route?

Let’s face it, I’m a serious SERIOUS control freak. I can freely admit the ONLY reason I even put my book into InDesign to revamp the interior was because I needed something I could control. I needed to feel like there was something I could have some sort of control over so I didn’t go insane.

I’m taking a psychology class, believe me I know how fucking insane I am. I get it. But actually I’m dealing with it. Let’s be honest… had I not decided to throw everything into InDesign there’s a very good chance I would have been driving everyone insane with questions of when is this going to be done or when is that going to be done. Having control over some part of the book keeps me some semblance of sane. And for what it’s worth I think it was worth it to have that control. I love the way the book turned out… and ultimately we made it on time.

Upon my return during that third week of May, I copied all of the photos from the trip into my computer and then on to a CD.

At that point I had most of the parts I needed for this guidebook. They included the route maps, hundreds of photos taken while cycling the routes and rough accounts written while riding the routes. Also on hand were edited research material for 65 communities, Roman structures and geological features significant for a cyclist on one of these routes.

There is no one place to start crafting all this stuff into a coherent whole, nor is there one way to proceed. My plan for this guide was to select a route and make the necessary corrections to the map. Then I selected photos to go with the research for the route, edited those photos, selected photos for that map and edited them.

I shot the photo below of the observatory tower at the summit of Mont Ventoux on 9 May 2011. After renaming it, moving it to the Mont Ventoux photos file and declaring copyright ownership, I resized the image from a resolution of 72 pixels per inch (the resolution recorded by my Fujifilm HS10 camera) to 300 pixels per inch necessary for the printed guidebook. The editing software I use is Adobe^® Photoshop^® Elements 10.

Mont Ventoux Summit Tower with Resizing and a Grid, But No Edits

First, I saw it should be rotated a couple degrees left. Also, it often seems to me, that the perspective needs to be altered. I often tilt a bit, which becomes noticeable after climbing 5,280 feet. The parking lot at the summit of this iconic mountain, known as the Monster of Provence, is small thus making a wide angle shot essential.

Mont Ventoux Summit Tower Straightened

Mont Ventoux Summit Tower Without Key-stoning

Next, I cropped the image for the best photo (my judgment) considering the story being told, along with where I wanted the viewer’s eye to go. Then I enhanced the light and contrast. Lastly, I resized the image to 1,000 pixels wide (to fit in my two column format on 8½” by 11” page size) and added a 4 pixel black border all around the image.

Mont Ventoux Summit Tower Final

In the first two or three paragraphs in a particular route’s section I include basic details such as distance in kilometers, amount of climbing in meters, the route’s Challenge rank and the starting point. I follow that information with a brief summary of the route and data on the notable ascents.

The primary source for the route profile, and thus the climbing in meters, are data I record for the elevation of each 200-meter point along the route, which comes from a mapping source. I also use this data in a route’s Queue Sheets.

To calculate a route’s Challenge rank, I combine distance, estimated riding time and climbing to arrive at calories burned. Then I add a factor for each ascent from 5% to 10% over 200 meters, and for each ascent over 10% for 200 meters. One more normalization results in the rank.

Opening Paragraphs for a Route Section

Then, after going back to the original sources or my notes for possible clarification, I added the edited research material and edited photos. In the case of this example, I added information on the villages of Les Vans and Villefort.

Before traveling to France I prepared Queues for each route. At this point I reformatted the route’s Queue to fit the two-column format.

Queue Sample for a Route Section

I draw the route maps in Photoshop Elements using a 19” by 13” canvas. After necessary corrections I add photos that show a cyclist what may be seen along the route; I am trying to “sell” the route. Then I split the map into equal halves with a ½“ overlap. I save the resulting images (Photoshop’s .psd file format) as .jpg files and resize them to 9½“ high. This drives the width to about 7⅛”.  The image below is just a sample of the east (right) half of the Les Vans and Lac de Villefort route map.

Les Vans and Lac de Villefort East Route

Now I am able to assemble a route section. First the opening paragraphs as above followed by the first edited research notes that the route passes. Using Microsoft Word^® I paste the research note into the two column page and insert the appropriate edited photos where I want them in the text. The two-page map needs to start on an even numbered page, in this example the west is on the even page and the east is on the odd page. Depending on the length of the notes, that is either the second or fourth page of the section.

You understand that a 7⅛” wide map doesn’t fit into one column of a two column page. So, I insert (don’t paste) the left half at the top of the selected even page (left column). Word automatically reduces the image, in this case to 47%, to fit the column.  I then format the image size from 47% to 100%, spreading it across the two columns. At the same time I set the layout to “square” and, using the advanced button, I set the position to 0” to the right of the column and 0” below the margin.

At this point of the section layout there are an odd number of pages. Any remaining research note content and the Queues follow the second map half. If there are a few column inches remaining, I find another photo from the route and edit it to fit.

In the next segment of this commentary I will discuss front matter, back matter, cover design and final editing.

The six guidebooks are in print, Kindle and iPad formats. Check for all my stuff at http://www.amazon.com/Walter-Judson-Moore/e/B003XWAFBG

Enjoy the images and ride safe.

As many of you may or may not know… probably not because I didn’t really discuss it, I had a lot of trouble with the formatting of Bridge of Memories. I had never really used InDesign on any major scale prior to the first book and I have to say I think I pulled it together in the end quite nicely… (with one slightly major mishap in between). That said… while I may have been able to pull it together I wasn’t exactly working smart. Because I didn’t know the program to the best of my ability.

Having now finished my InDesign course I can proudly say… I’ve figured out a way to make the second book go about a thousand times smoother.

Just to give you an idea, it took me about two weeks to prep the first book for publication. Two… weeks. Full time.

I’ve created the skeleton of what the second book is going to look like (and I’m exceptionally confident I won’t have too many issues), and I did that, in less than two hours. The only reason it even took that long was because I was working on writing a new dedication and a new acknowledgements page.

Now some might suggest that because I already have the first book as a template that that would be enough, but because a majority of the book has to change, actually the first book isn’t a proper template. It was a jumping off point true, especially where the title page and all of that was concerned, but everything else had to go or had to be changed entirely.

So what changed? What’s the big miracle that’s made my life easier?

Nested styles and master pages.

I actually first learned about master pages within the first week of my InDesign class, (maybe a week or so after I’d already started the book). However what I didn’t realize was that with a little work, you could create multiple master pages (one for each chapter). That way rather than having to go in and individually change the chapter headers on the very top of each page, I simply made a master page instead.

Now nested styles, was completely foreign to me. Actually the greater concept of styles was completely foreign to me. It wasn’t until the book was already finished and I’d already done all the hard work that I even learned Paragraph styles could only do one thing at a time. I had wondered why it wasn’t working and the explanation came much too late. Then I learned that character styles would more than likely suite my needs but that I would probably need a couple to actually do the job. It wasn’t until almost the last few weeks of the quarter that we learned about Nested styles within Paragraphs (basically nesting several character styles within a paragraph style) and by then the book was already out. Needless to say I was thrilled to know there was an easier way (particularly where book two was concerned) but kinda pissed that I hadn’t taken the class sooner. It was information that definitely would have been useful to me prior to launching my first book but I was grateful for the knowledge all the same.

InDesign is a sort of odd science. Unlike photoshop which is exceptionally intuitive (especially when compared to some other Adobe products) InDesign requires you to do a little extra work, but there are shortcuts that if you’re lucky enough to find them (or take a class like I did) you might just be able to save yourself more work. Don’t get me wrong spending time on your work to make sure it’s right is always important, but that time could have been spent working on the sequel or even if I was so lucky, relaxing. I was very stressed by the time I launched book one and if I can avoid that in the sequel I’m going too.

I find it to be a science more along the lines of physics.

Even though I am not a novice, using Adobe Indesign to construct the interior of my novel was not as easy as I imagined.

After laying out the margins correctly:

.25 inch margins (that is what Createspace recommends) I find .50 inch margins to be cleaner.

.75 inches for the gutter

There were other points I had to consider such as:

How many blank pages would I have in the beginning of the novel?

There has to be a copyright, acknowledgements, and so on.

Not only that, but there also has to be enough  blank pages so that my first chapter would end up on an odd page.

If one is also looking at novels, they might have noticed that blank pages are starting to be styled as well.

How much space would I leave for my page numbers and where would I place them?

Out of a slight desire to be lazy, I modeled my interior design off of Stephanie Meyer’s New Moon. If she can do without a title and author in the header, so can I.  

How am I going to design the opening of each new chapter?

It is industry standard never to indent the first paragraph of each chapter.

It can, however, be stylized with the first few words in all caps or through the use of drop caps.

How am I going to show breaks in the chapter?

Page breaks are also never indented. Many do take liberty with the style of the page breaks.

I have seen them styled with four asterisks or a simple space of .25 in leading.

I had to ask myself what fonts do I desire to use for my chapter headings, page numbers, footers, and so on.

This was the hardest decision to make, forcing me to find a font that would speak to the mood of my novel.

Always erring on the side of simplicity, I just chose one of the fonts I used for the cover of my novel.

Finally, how am I to organize this information, so that I have one coherent style across my manuscript?

Organize everything in paragraph and character styles once you have got the look of the first chapter.

My biggest mistake was going through a discovery process as I went through each chapter.

I found out how I wanted to break my chapters in chapter one, but did not figure out the font for my chapter headings till chapter twelve.

This forced me to have to go back to the beginning and update my character and paragraph styles over and over again.

Such a process added hours onto my work. Mind you, I had chosen to use the Adobe book feature, thinking it would be easier to organize and manage the chapters.

Once everything is organized into character and paragraph styles, it is just click and point from there.

Curious about Adobe Indesign?

Adobe Indesign is used primarily for layouts and can be a great tool for interior design.

I sharpened my skills with the program utilizing Lynda.com.

To sum up the entire article, here are some tips to constructing a clean manuscript:

1.       .25 in outside margins at least (I like .50)
2.       .75 in gutter (inside margins)
3.       Size 12 pt or 14 pt for body copy
4.       1.5 * (font size of body to determine the leading)
5.       Test and plan all in chapter one: chapter fonts, page number fonts, header information, chapter openings, and page breaks
6.       Master paragraph and character styles
7.       Do not indent the first paragraph in a chapter
8.       Do not indent chapter breaks
9.       Use .25 in for paragraph indents
10.       REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW for orphans and widows, awkward spacing, and mistakes

Intimidated by design?

Do not be. Anyone who is on a budget can construct the interior of their novel.

My suggestion is, never feel one has to be extravagant. Readers are reading for the story, not for the interior design.

I do have to admit, interesting and unique interior design can sometimes be the icing on the cake.

Check out one of my favorites, The Forever Girl by Rebecca Hamilton, an author who will soon be featured on my blog.

Her interior and exterior design is awesome.

Having now finished my InDesign course I can proudly say… I’ve figured out a way to make the second book go about a thousand times smoother.

Just to give you an idea, it took me about two weeks to prep the first book for publication. Two… weeks. Full time.

I’ve created the skeleton of what the second book is going to look like (and I’m exceptionally confident I won’t have too many issues), and I did that, in less than two hours. The only reason it even took that long was because I was working on writing a new dedication and a new acknowledgements page.

Now some might suggest that because I already have the first book as a template that that would be enough, but because a majority of the book has to change, actually the first book isn’t a proper template. It was a jumping off point true, especially where the title page and all of that was concerned, but everything else had to go or had to be changed entirely.

So what changed? What’s the big miracle that’s made my life easier?

Nested styles and master pages.

I actually first learned about master pages within the first week of my InDesign class, (maybe a week or so after I’d already started the book). However what I didn’t realize was that with a little work, you could create multiple master pages (one for each chapter). That way rather than having to go in and individually change the chapter headers on the very top of each page, I simply made a master page instead.

Now nested styles, was completely foreign to me. Actually the greater concept of styles was completely foreign to me. It wasn’t until the book was already finished and I’d already done all the hard work that I even learned Paragraph styles could only do one thing at a time. I had wondered why it wasn’t working and the explanation came much too late. Then I learned that character styles would more than likely suite my needs but that I would probably need a couple to actually do the job. It wasn’t until almost the last few weeks of the quarter that we learned about Nested styles within Paragraphs (basically nesting several character styles within a paragraph style) and by then the book was already out. Needless to say I was thrilled to know there was an easier way (particularly where book two was concerned) but kinda pissed that I hadn’t taken the class sooner. It was information that definitely would have been useful to me prior to launching my first book but I was grateful for the knowledge all the same.

InDesign is a sort of odd science. Unlike photoshop which is exceptionally intuitive (especially when compared to some other Adobe products) InDesign requires you to do a little extra work, but there are shortcuts that if you’re lucky enough to find them (or take a class like I did) you might just be able to save yourself more work. Don’t get me wrong spending time on your work to make sure it’s right is always important, but that time could have been spent working on the sequel or even if I was so lucky, relaxing. I was very stressed by the time I launched book one and if I can avoid that in the sequel I’m going too.