Charlotte Mozley
A new venture
In 2017, a friend and client, Martin Shallcross, wanted to publish a collection of his popular farming articles. As well as editing and proofreading the text, we worked with him to design the book. Our service included:
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Advising on and determining the size of the book - in this case the author, guided by us, opted for a non-standard paper size but this did not appear to increase the unit price by much. Looking at the dimensions of similar publications was helpful.
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selecting a font and font size for chapter headings and text
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creating the prelims - this included the acquisition of an ISBN (not essential for a privately financed publication but useful if the book may be reprinted in years to come.)
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making proposals for the use of running heads - also page numbering, chapter breaks and margin widths
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incorporating photographs and illustrations into the text so that they are well dispersed as well as relevant; also ensuring attractive and consistent captions
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encouraging the author to write an introduction …and indeed a postscript and, finally, designing the book’s cover
We found a very helpful printer, Biddles in Kings Lynn, and provided them with PDF files. From this point the final decisions for our author concerned the type of paper to be used for the book’s pages and cover and the style of binding required. (A good printer will advise on all the options.)
Within two weeks Martin had 400 nicely bound copies. With the help of the Tisbury Post office he sold 330 in the first six weeks.
We learned a lot during the editing, design and printing and look forward to helping another client in the same way!