We do offer bulk price discounts for all of our books.
You can purchase 3 books for $25 Click here
You can purchase 10 books for $70 Click here
You can purchase 50 books for $400 Click here
For a custom quote on a different quantity e-mail us at info@rochestermedia.com with your request.
What Font Should I use for my book?
One of the most common questions asked by would-be self-publishers who are intent on designing and typesetting their book themselves is, “What font should I use?”
When people are asking this question it shows us that they are at least thinking about their selections.
However, the answer is not cut and dry. You’ll get a different answer from almost everyone you ask. And they might all be correct.
We are told one thing by multiple sources though: don’t use Times New Roman or Times Roman. It will make your product look very unprofessional. And there are other, very practical, reasons for not using it. Times Roman and Times New Roman were designed for the narrow columns of newspapers, originally for the London Times back in the 1930s. Today, almost no newspapers still use it. How, or why, it became a word processing standard, I have no idea. The font tends to set very tight, making the text block on the page dense and dark.
Here are two caveats before proceeding to few recommendations:
The typeface you choose may depend on how your book will be printed. If you look closely at most serif fonts (like Times), you will notice that there are thick and thin portions of each letter. If your book will be printed digitally, you should steer away from fonts with segments that are very thin. They tend to become too faint and affect readability.
Don’t get carried away with the thousands of font choices available. Most are specialty fonts suitable for titles, headlines, advertising, emotional impact, etc. And never use more than a very few fonts in a single book — we usually choose one serif font for the main text body, a sans serif for chapter titles and headings within the chapters. Depending on the book, we may select a third font for captions on photos, graphics, tables, etc. (or maybe just a different size, weight, or style of one of the other two). We may select a specialty font for use on the front cover for the title and subtitle.
For 90% of books, any of the following fonts are excellent choices:
Palatino Linotype
Book Antiqua (tends to set tight, so you may have to loosen it up a bit)
Georgia
Goudy Old Style
Adobe Garamond Pro (tends to have a short x-height, so it might seem too small in typical sizes)
Bookman (the name sort of gives it away, doesn’t it?)
Century Schoolbook (tends to be a bit wide, creating extra pages)
You need to look at several paragraphs of each font to see what, if any, adjustments you may find necessary in things like character spacing and kerning. You want to avoid little confusions, like:
“vv” (double v) that looks like the letter “w”
“cl” (c l) that looks like the letter “d”
Such things can make the reading experience annoying.
If you ask other designers, you will likely get other suggestions, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least some of the above included in their recommendations.
You may run across some books with more unusual font choices, but there are often good reasons for it. Maybe the book is a humor book for which the designer chose a lighthearted font, for example. Such decisions should be made with care and thoughtful consideration for the effects on readability.
Never decide on your font or font size by looking at your monitor. Most trade paperback books are printed in 10 or 11 point size, but some fonts require larger – or even smaller – sizes. If 12 points looks too big and 11 too small, you can try 11.5 – no need to stick with integer sizes. You might be surprised how much difference a half-point (or even a quarter-point) can make on the overall “feel” of the page.
You also have to decide on appropriate leading (pronounced like the metal), which is the distance from the baseline of one line of text to the baseline for the next line, measured in points. The result is usually expressed as a ratio of the font size in points to the selected leading in points. So, you might say you have set the body text in Georgia 11/14 or Bookman 10/12.5 (11-point size with 14 points leading and 10-point size with 12.5 points leading, respectively).
Word processing programs tend to work in decimal inches, forcing you to convert leading from points into inches. A standard point is equal to 0.0138 inches. Professional typesetting/layout programs (like Adobe InDesign) allow you to use points and picas to define all type measurements and settings. although you can also specify those settings in various other units (including inches).
Typically, book designers will develop more than one design for each book’s interior, using different fonts, sizes, and leadings. They should typeset a few pages of the actual manuscript and print them out with the same page settings they plan to use in the final book (e.g., 6″ x 9″ pages). This allows the client to compare them side-by-side and evaluate them for readability and overall look.
And don’t forget your target audience. Very young readers and very old readers do better with larger type. Books that are very textually dense with long paragraphs frequently need more leading and a wider font.
Ultimately, you have to choose based on what your gut reaction is to the typeset samples. It never hurts to ask other people to read it and tell you if one option is easier to read than another. (sources for this information are unknown, click here)
Contact us for more info. 248-429-READ info@rochestermedia.com www.rochestermedia.comAfter you have spent hours, days, weeks, months, or even years–the last thing you want to happen is for someone to come along and steal your work and redistribute it or copy it.
Copyright infringement is a big deal all over the world. Some companies, writers, and artists lose millions by having their work stolen or redistributed illegally.
Thankfully, there are national and international laws that are in place to help protect your work. So while you may run into a situation where someone infringes your copyright, you do have direct protection and legal options to ensure your work & rights are preserved.
In this article, I will explain how to copyright you work and other basics about copyrighting. This will mostly deal with the Unites States copyright laws, although many things will apply to international copyrights as well.
Surprisingly, you do not have to even register your work with the US copyright office to have copyright protection. The law clearly indicates that as soon as the work is finished, you own the copyright, and therefore, have copyright protection. So as soon as you are done with your self published book or eBook, you automatically have copyright protection.
Not registering a copyright officially may be the best thing for certain publishing mediums where it would be impractical to attempt to copyright something (such as a website, eBook you will distribute for free, etc.). Instead, you can simply publish and distribute your work at your will, and you still have protection.
While the law clearly provides protection for your copyrighted work even if you don’t register it with the copyright office, it may be a very good idea in many cases. For example, if you really spend a lot of time on your work, and want to ensure you get full protection (and suspect you may get infringed and have to later bring a lawsuit), I would highly recommend registering you work.Copyright info
Registering your work can provide substantial benefit, and I would recommend anyone seeking to sell or distribute their work on a large scale to do so. Some of the benefits of taking the time and money to register your copyright include:
So while you may not have to register your copyright protection in all cases, it may definitely be beneficial to do so in some instances. Again, if you plan to publish an eBook or real book, I would highly recommend you take the time to register it.
If you live in the United States, you can register for copyright protection via the internet or mail. The copyright office has a great website, and you can find loads more information about what copyright protection includes, how long copyrights last, registration requirements, and much more.
The general fee ranges from about $35-200, depending on whether or not you take advantage of any copyright searches or other services.
Another thing you want to beware of is that while you may totally come up with the writing yourself, you must ensure that someone else hasn’t written a similar work that is still under copyright protection first.
It may surprise you that someone out in the world may very well have written a book very similar to yours. You may share similar ideas, phrasing, and so forth. This can happen even if you have never even read their work (or vise versa).
So it may be beneficial to do a quick search in the library of congress to ensure you aren’t using a copyrighted title, phrase, etc. It would also be a good idea to ensure that your work isn’t too similar to someone else’s. Again, it may seem unrealistic to you, but I can assure you it happens. There are billions of people in this world, and more than one may have used the title, “How to make money online,” or “How to cook.”
I think the most important issues to consider are what your ultimate goals are, and whether or not you feel your copyright may be infringed (and if it would bother you or financially harm you if it was).
If you are creating a simple eBook to distribute for free, you may want to pass on the copyright registration process. In this case, it may be an unnecessary expense and waste of time.
If, however, you plan on selling your eBook or self published book, I would highly recommend you take the time to actually register it. This way, you will feel more professional, have a strong legal record of your copyright, and be able to defend your work in a court of law.
HOW TO GET AN ISBN
Once you have decided on whether or not to register a copyright for your eBook or self published book, you can then decide if it is necessary to obtain an ISBN.
An ISBN number is a number (typically 10 digits long) that helps to recognize your book, eBook, or work. It works similarly like a bar-code works in a retail store. It helps to identify your work. By the way, ISBN stands for: International Standard Book Number.
If you take a common book and look at the back, it should have a clearly printed ISBN number. In many cases, they will also have a bar-code that is used for retail stores, wholesalers, and distributors.
This is a tricky question because just like with registering copyrights, it really depends on what you plan to do.
For example: If you are just going to distribute your own eBook on your own website (as an instant download), clickbank.net, or eBay.com–then you don’t really need an ISBN at all.
If, however, you have plans to distribute your book on sites such as Lulu.com, Workuluv.com, Amazon.com, or try to get your book in retail stores, then it is a good idea to get an ISBN number.
So try to determine your plans on selling and/or distributing your work, and then you will be able to easily decide whether or not you need or want an ISBN number.
If you decide you would like to obtain an ISBN for your eBook, self published book, or other work, you can easily do so. There are approximately 160 ISBN agencies worldwide that can help you register your work and obtain an ISBN number.
If you are going to get published through a book publishing deal, they will most likely get the ISBN for you.
If you plan to market and sell your book through a self publishing agency (such as www.rochestermedia.com ), then you can actually get an ISBN as a part of their package. If you decide to go this route, Rochester Media would charge 10% of the gross sales of the book after it is published. If you choose to independently get an ISBN, then you may do that as well. Go to ISBN.org or bowker.com to find out how to do this. They have application forms you can fill out online or download. The cost can range from about $80-200 depending on how many ISBN’s you get, and other factors. It generally takes about 2-3 weeks to obtain your ISBN from this site.
Once again, whether or not you actually want to spend the time and money acquiring an ISBN number really depends on your goals. If you are writing an eBook to sell on your own site, I would suggest you skip the hassle and expense. If, however, you have big plans and want to distribute this on sites, in stores, and more, then an ISBN would be a great idea.
Just take the time to set a goal of what you want to do, and then you can decide whether or not an ISBN number is necessary for you situation.
Tom Gendich Rochester Media www.rochestermedia.com info@rochestermedia.com 248-429-READ
