BitBoR: Publishing Process Update 3

Let’s talk about Adobe InDesign…

Formatting a novel for both e-book and print is tedious. There! I said it! You authors out there know what I’m talking about. There are so many facets that affect how you get it done, and how successful you’ll be at it. Where are you publishing? How long is your novel? How many chapters did you break it into? Do you use Mac or Windows? Can you afford a software license for the fancy stuff? Can you get by with free formatting processes? Does your book include graphics, or little poems/parables at the start of each chapter (like Bathed in the Blood of Ravens)? Is it Tuesday?

No matter what system you choose—and you’ll likely try several before you settle on one—there is a learning curve. A learning curve that you must fit into your schedule between any day job you might have, your family time, attempting to continue writing, whatever time you’re spending on marketing yourself and your novel… the list goes on and on.

Through experimentation, scouring of blogs, and several “Author Tube” creators I finally discovered, tried and settled on Adobe InDesign. The clencher for this decision was something that struck me as ironic, or sad… you be the judge. I found a “traditional publisher”, or at least a company that claimed to be one, that boldly states on their website that they format your novel in InDesign as one of their ‘benefits’. Really? It’s $21/mo licensed software. It’s far from expensive.

So, I snagged a copy. It’s a little clunky to use at first, but Becca C. Smith has a great video showing you step by step how to accomplish the task. Huge thanks to her, because her video was precisely what I needed. It’s not that I couldn’t have figured out what she shows on my own. I am a software developer and architect by day; software is kinda what I do. But, the menus inside InDesign aren’t very intuitive in my opinion. At least, they aren’t how I’d make them if I was writing the software, and don’t really agree with how things are navigated in most word processing software. So, her video was a godsend and I highly recommend you give it a watch… if you ever plan on formatting your own novel.

The purpose of this entire conversation is to say that I’m now using:
  • Scrivener for writing
  • Word for quick spell checks & conversion to Google Docs
  • Google Docs for editors and proofreaders and beta readers
  • ProWritingAid desktop for spelling, grammar, edits & reports
  • Photoshop to adjust, merge, blend commissioned art to make covers, logos, etc
  • InDesign to format for E-Book & Print
  • Sigil to fix any issues with the E-Book files
  • Calibre to test E-Pub files locally
  • Kindle Previewer to convert E-Pub to MOBI
  • Notepad++ for quick notes

That’s 10 pieces of software to write, format and publish one novel.

Call me exhausted… because that’s what I am.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dungeons & Dragons - A Writer's Perspective

ROLEPLAYING VS DICE ROLLING, THE VALUE OF STORYTELLING AS A DUNGEON MASTER, AND WHAT IT MEANS AS A WRITER. This topic has come up a lot on social media recently. As a former hardcore pen & paper roleplayer, and current author, I figured I might have a unique perspective that will at least be an entertaining read, if not help some of you with your games, or your approach to novels. Now, I’ve covered some of my thoughts in previous blog entries. You can go hunt them down and read those first if you’d prefer, but it totally isn’t necessary. Without further ado, let’s get into it… after all, this is going to be fairly long. Why now? With the popularity of Stranger Things, many people around the world are being exposed to Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. They get to watch kids on screen have a blast playing a game they have no understanding of, and for some that piques their interest. So they jump online, or talk to friends, and try to gain an understanding of this strange gam...
Read more

Status Update, Where I've Been

I haven’t posted a blog in some time, so I figured I’d catch everyone up on what’s been happening, what I’m doing, and what’s up next from me, R.L. Parker, and the world of Ayrelon in general. As some of you might know, a few things happened quite rapidly at the end of 2022. First, I published Dusk, my third novel, on November 15th. It’s launch was decent from a pre-order perspective, and I was excited to continue promoting it. To do so, I joined TikTok and that ended up taking over my life for the next few months. I’ve grown my TikTok account a great deal, made a lot of new writer / reader friends in the process, and helped many authors along their publishing journey. All of that has been amazing, but to say it took a lot of my time would still be an understatement. Even with a new social media platform as a distraction, I managed to write the first draft of Enveloped by Dark’s Embrace in November, December, and February (I took most of January off). It currently clocks in at 195k w...
Read more

Character Profile: Drakahl

Drakahl is a member of a species known as the Toor. Created by Titans many eons ago, Toor appear as nearly human-sized Titans, usually standing between 7 and 9 1/2 feet tall (213.3cm to 289.6cm). He appears quite young, even though he is centuries old and often passes as a human barbarian; hiding the fact that he is Toor. At the start of Bathed in the Blood of Ravens he can be seen wearing armor forged from draconic flesh, empowered by demonic souls, which grants him otherworldly strength and power. He wields a sentient blade named Strambáneur that drinks souls and feeds their power to both itself and its wielder. Read more about Drakahl ! Another in a series of profiles for several key characters in Bathed in the Blood of Ravens. These articles are not meant to be in story format, but closer to a wiki in format. Hopefully they shed additional light on the many characters you’ll grow to love, or detest.
Read more