Customer Reviews

Book Design and Production

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been doing graphic design for over 15 years, and have previously layed out 2 books (photo/illustration intensive ones) and had 2 of my own book designed by traditional publishers. I was never perfectly happy with either result. When it came time to design my latest novel, I was determined to do it myself and also do it well. Pete Masterson's book provided a road-map towards that goal.

I hadn't done book design in almost 5 years and the software had changed considerably, but Masterson's step-by-step InDesign tutorial let me hit the ground sprinting. He showed what to do, and more importantly, what absolutely must be avoided, in order to achieve a professional level layout.

Very much recommended to anyone even considering doing their own layout (doing your own design, IMHO, requires some additional skills, which Masterson also points out during several stages of the process).

This book focuses on how to actually create a book. How to prepare the manuscript, layout the interior of the book and create the cover. This book does a very good job of walking the user through the book creation process. Unlike many books on book design, this one gives real examples, with screen shots, of how to do everything. It does not speak at a purely abstract level, like many other design books do.

The book includes two excellent chapters on type. These two chapters alone, are worth the price of the book. They explain the font families with many clear illustrations. These two chapters also explain which fonts should be used, and at what times.

The book includes an excellent tutorial on Adobe InDesign. At the time the book was written, InDesign CS was the current version. The examples work well enough with Adobe InDesign CS2, which is the current version(as of the writing of this review).

The author also includes a chapter that shows how to layout a book with Microsoft Word. The author begins with a warning NOT to use Microsoft word, or any word processor, to layout a professional book. But if you really WANT to use Microsoft Word, the author shows you the best possible way to use it.

If you are considering laying out a book, this is a must read. Even if you are considering outsourcing book layout, this book will help you to understand what you are buying, and what the options are.

Topics covered, from the table of contents:

1. Some History
2. The Process
3. Decisions, Decisions
4. Parts of a Book
5. Let's Talk About Type
6. Design With Type
7. Professional Tools
8. Using Word for Layout
9. Page Layout with InDesign
10. Selecting a Printer
11. Book Covers
12. Children's Books
13. Color Printing
14. Scanning
15. Hiring a Designer

If you are thinking about self-publishing or starting a small press--even if you intend to hire professionals to do all designing tasks--you must read this book! Very few books out there cover everything from the basics (ie: why 2 spaces after a sentence was fine for your high school typing class but not for a professional-looking book interior) to the more esoteric (ie: what the fine print on the back of a printing contract says). You'll learn why things are done the way they are and how that is accomplished. For those who never intend to DIY, you should read this anyway just so you know how to communicate with your designers (and what the heck they mean when they talk back).

Specific instructions are given for typesetting in InDesign, as well as succeeding at typesetting in Microsoft Word (which is sort of like telling people how to make snowshoes from tennis racquets, but that is only my opinion). Accompanying screen shots help make the process accessible to anyone.

Designing a book cover is covered thoroughly, as is how to choose a printer and designer (cover and interior), the different rules for Children's books, proper use of a scanner, and the whole history of print. Over 100 pages of glossary explanations cover terms from typography to computers and more--worth the price of admission in and of itself!

Frequently amusing, fabulously informative-you must have this on your bookshelf if you are a new (or even a slightly used) publisher!

I am designing my very first large nonfiction book and using the latest version of InDesign as the software. This book was very helpful to me, and from what I have learned reading the book, I feel much more capable of doing a great job. His comparison of the different page layout software programs was helpful. I used PageMaker before on several smaller publications and loved the program, but now I realize how much more professional my book is going to look using InDesign, and of course, using the proper fonts which I purchased from Adobe, not true type fonts. His comparison of fonts, software packages, and all of the information he teaches regarding margins, white space, etc. is going to be very valuable to me. I searched high and low for a good book on book design and found none at my library or at the local bookstore. Thank heavens for Adobe.com. Not only do they have the books on so many subjects, reading the book reviews is immensely helpful so that I buy the exact book that covers the subject I need. In this case, I almost bought a book on book design which was written several years ago, before InDesign was available. What I really needed, and found by reading the book reviews on several books, is a book that was more current so that InDesign is listed as the software of choice, and then instructions to make InDesign do what I want it to do to make the book look professional. I surely got my money's worth.

Book Design And Production: A Guide For Authors And Publishers will enable even the most novice aspirants to publishing an ideal instructional guide to every aspect of book publishing. A pioneer in the use of on-demand printing technology back in 1982-83 when he was in charge of publishing all price lists for a large railroad, and having operated several book design, printing and typesetting businesses for clients which included HarperCollins and McGraw-Hill, Pete Masterson takes the reader through every step of the book creation process. A master at the craft of book creation, Masterson clearly explains why 90% of all designers will prove wrong for a particular title -- and the ten crucial questions to ask when interviewing book designers; why Microsoft Word is a poor layout choice -- but what to do if you end up having to use it anyway; why the wrong fonts can ruin a book -- and how to pick the right ones. Covering both the outside (cover) of a book, as well as its interior design, and thoroughly "user friendly" throughout, Pete Masterson's Book Design And Production is one of those indispensable instructional references that should be on the shelf of anyone seeking to produce their own books so as to be as marketable (and profitable) as possible.

Pete's knowledge interspersed with story telling is a joy! Who would think a book on design could be so enjoyable to read?
As a publisher I see the importance for a comprehensive book on cover and interior design. I hire designers to do that job for me but with the knowledge this book provides I am better equipped to tell my designers what I want in a specific books design. After reading for just a few minutes I realized that an actual hour had gone by and I was engrossed in the book! He keeps it simple enough for a computer illiterate like me to understand it all! Although small or self Publishers need this book I have to say that people like me who hire out the design work need it so that we can make sure our designers are creating books the way we want them. Now I can communicate that to my designers because of the wealth of information Mastersons book is teaching me.

This book was disappointing on many levels. First, the title: It's not about book production (primarily) and production (secondarily), as the cover suggests. It's about book publishing generally, especially for small and self-publishers, with a heavy emphasis on the computer aspects of publishing. On the critical subject of cover design, for example, Masterson offers a meager two illustrations of actual book covers; mostly he suggests how much you should pay someone else to design your cover.

The author offers a good tip: Every writer needs an outside editor. But he doesn't seem to have followed his own advice. The book rambles through whatever subject strikes his fancy: Six pages about the history of books; thirteen dreary pages about typefaces, which would be fascinating in the right hands.

A book about design should be full of illustrations. Masterson tries to do it all with words, usually far too many of them: He requires nine long lines to say essentially, "the title on the spine should run from top to bottom."

A glossary fills a third of the book, stuffed with such words as "applet" (a small computer application) and "boolean algebra" (the use of... oh, never mind). It seems like merely an easy way to add enough pages to justify the book's price.

If you are about to self-publish a book and have no experience, you'll find some helpful information buried in the verbiage. You'll also find pure blather: "Don't request a quotation for a book with a 10x14 trim size to printers who specify nothing over 9x12." Whatever your interest, other books are vastly better: Dan Poynter's "Self-Publishing Manual," Uri Shulevitz's superb "Writing with Pictures," Adobe's "Classroom in a Book" for InDesign, "The Non-Designer's Design Book" for typography. There really no reason to buy "Book Design and Production."

The problem with a book like this is that the subject it treats is too big for a book like this. Or any book, in fact (think OED). The most you can really hope for is that the author will get you thinking about the right set of questions so that when you try to figure out the next step, you will at least have a firm starting place. This book really does that admirably and while I still had to do a lot more study afterwards, at least I had an idea of what to study.

If you are planning to self publish, and if you intend to do the book design yourself, then you really DO need this book. Another book that I highly recommend is Book Design (abrams studio), which talks in much more detail about the aestheics of book design. I also recommend that you purchase Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Design Standard without which you will struggle greatly. Then you will need some books on the individual packages (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign), because this book will not help you at all in that regard. I say that even though the author provides a chapter on how to use InDesign, but if you think you know how after reading his brief treatment, you will quickly learn otherwise.

Book design is a BIG subject, and production is also quite involved. As is marketing, sales, etc. As someone who is in the middle of such a project right now, I will point out that this book is a basic survival manual, but it is near the root of the tree. If you plan to design and produce your own book, and this is your starting point (as it was for me) prepare for a slog.

If you haven't already red Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual, 16th Edition: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book (Self Publishing Manual) then by all means start there and come to this book second (if you still think you can hack it.) As Dan Hicks once said "It ain't easy."

This book has a lot to recommend it, up to a point. It has solid, detailed information on fonts, working with publishers, etc. I was surprised and disappointed, however, that he didn't go into interior design in terms of layout, etc. The last chapter, which was about choosing a designer, made the book seem that his goal was to attract clients. After all he has mentioned in previous chapters, which would be useful for people wanting to learn how to design a book themselves, he recommends hiring a designer and giving them an unformatted manuscript to work with! Huh? What he did include was well-written and informative, but he left out so much. It's a useful book, but, as some other reviewers mentioned, a surprisingly unattractive one.

For a book on book design, it seems like the book itself would be more visually appealing. With that being said, the book has a lot of useful information and is superior to others in it's class. It covers several areas that I haven't seen in other books like Word vs Adobe Indesign, scanning pages, etc.