Posts filed under 'Book Design'
Introducing Wordclay’s New Cover Service: DIY Cover Conversion
Greetings, Earthlings,
Wordbot here, and today Wordclay has authorized this publishing robot to announce our new cover service.
Wordclay and its professional publishing staff have done it again. Since beginning the development and adaptation of our free online publishing software, we have always remembered the author’s desire for control. Now, you can control your cover down to the last detail with Wordclay’s DIY Cover Conversion Service.
But what exactly is the DIY Cover Conversion service?
Good question. Where before your publishing options were limited to the free template cover you could easily design using the publishing wizard, now you can e-mail us the print-ready PDF of your cover, which we’ll promptly submit to our printers. This way, you can control every detail about your new book’s cover. From the back cover text to the images on your front cover to the placement of your author photograph, you choose the best representation for your publication.
What’s the catch?
No catch. Honestly. Would a robot like me lie? If you have the design experience and you can design your own cover using InDesign or another comparable program, simply follow our cover dimension guidelines, leave room for your barcode (should you purchase the Wordclay ISBN and Channel Distribution) and e-mail us your final copy in a PDF form – it’s that easy.
So what does it cost?
Base cost is only $25.00, which guarantees that your personalized cover is linked to your book and title. As you’ll read in the service description, there may be an added fee should your file need tweaking. Say the spine is slightly off because of the page count, or perhaps your trim lines need to be nudged a certain direction – our designers are happy to help. But we have to cover their time, so you may experience an extremely small markup. Or you can always make the adjustments yourself. Contact a costumer representative with your file and the tentative page count of your publication in order to ensure your cover is picture perfect.
What will you need for the Cover Conversion service?
All you need are your images and your design expertise. Of course, your images have to be original, or you have to possess the permission to use them for the cover of your book. Wordclay may ask about these permissions, so we can avoid claims of plagiarism. But if you’re submitting your own artwork, artwork you have express permission to use or artwork that you’ve bought, you’re in the clear. Simply lay out your cover per our guidelines, PDF that sucker and send your finished cover our way.
Are there other options?
Sure. You can always upgrade to a custom cover design and contract one of our illustrators to design a specific cover to your preference. Or you can purchase Stock Cover Art, submit a jpeg or tiff file that contains original artwork (for which you have the permission) and have our experienced designers incorporate the image into your elegant cover design for you. That’s what Wordclay is about: Options!
For more information, feel free to contact a customer service representative via Live Chat or e-mail. Or simply leave a question in the comments box below. After all, as our newest video states, we’re not out to get you. We just want to provide the best online publishing service out there today!
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1 comment July 8, 2008
The Series Publication Sequel: How Print-On-Demand Can Benefit Literary Magazines and Trade Periodicals
For those of you who haven’t yet read the comments on the Periodical and ISSN blogs, Valya is thinking of starting a journal, and she’s wondering if Wordclay, a free print-on-demand publisher, is the right choice.
Who can blame her? The idea of a print-on-demand periodical is a relatively new concept, even though I’m not sure exactly why. To me at least, it just makes sense to order as many copies of a journal as you need, so you aren’t out hundreds of dollars on unused copies that end up collecting dust in your cramped office.
Still, Valya has questions, and I aim to answer them.
Valya: “You say, ‘You can always pay a small price for the Stock Cover Art and submit artwork with directions for our professional designers.’ What if I want to design my own cover with my own photography? Is there an acceptable format that I can send to you to have printed?
Justin: You can design the complete cover if you are capable of doing so. You can also contract your own designer to lay it out for you. The exact specs for each of our formats are in the FAQs toolbox. The best formats to use when sending the cover would be a layered .psd file or .tiff file, and if possible a PDF of the full cover as well.
But unless you’re an experienced designer, I don’t recommend laying the cover out yourself. The whole concept behind Wordclay is DIY publishing through being affordable.
Not only will you devote tons of time to laying out a cover, or perhaps tons of money hiring a designer (and you’ll still have to pay Wordclay a custom quoted fee to use the cover you provide anyway), but often times the smallest formatting error can throw the whole design off for the printers.
For example, you may miss a trim line or you may not leave enough room for the imprint or barcode – what then? Your cover looks only half as good as it could have – that’s what.
That said, the two best options (in my opinion), are either (more…)
9 comments March 26, 2008
The horror of book formatting - House of Leaves
Had I thought about this morning’s blog a bit sooner, I would have brought in my copy of House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, to illustrate the epitome of a book designer’s nightmare (kind of apropos, considering the subject matter of the book).
But I didn’t expect to find all the crazy formatting inside (and trust me, the few pages from the book posted on Amazon don’t even begin to show all the craziness). I mean, you’ve got the basics: quotes on the chapter starts, footnotes, pull quotes within the text.
But there’s actually three styles of footnotes: one from the author of the book within the book, one from the main character researching the book, the house, the film about the house, and one from the publishers—I cannot even begin to describe how convoluted everything is. (more…)
Add comment March 20, 2008
When creativity is too much of a good thing.
I freakin’ love designing title pages and chapter starts. It’s a small thing, but brings me a little bit of joy, everyday.
The best is when an author, who’s purchased Custom Typesetting, has no real preference for the design. They don’t care about the font style, the font size, where I place the text, or my adding a glyph to dress up the page. They tell me that I’m the professional and I know what’ll work best for their book.
So, I watermark an innocuous glyph behind the chapter title, dropping the chapter start about a third of the way down on the page. Or I right-align the chapter title, choose a really big font, and make it 50% black. Or find a really graphic, crazy-looking font, letting the letters in the title dress up the page.
And the book looks good. And, mostly, the author was right to trust in me. I’ve surprised them with what we’re capable of doing… I’ve helped them realize their vision when they didn’t even know they had one… I’ve made real, in black (or gray) characters on a white page, what they saw in their head but didn’t know how to tell me. And I feel great!
But sometimes, not very often, I mess up. I overestimate their flexibility, doing something way too modern for their tastes, and making them think I don’t know what I’m doing. I create a design that’s the exact opposite of their vision, though they didn’t specifically tell me what their vision entails, or I wasn’t hearing right when they tried to communicate it. Or I just go overboard, using an element from an image they’ve supplied as a repeating motif in the book — and choosing their least favorite part of the image. (more…)
Add comment March 6, 2008
