Typesetting as it should be done

For the Publishing Industry as well as Indie Authors

Typesetting! A Generic Term?

In this article: Typesetter being a word that is used for both the equipment creating the finished product and its keyboard operator. In this context when I speak of typesetter I am referring to the keyboard operator.

The generic term for typesetting has widely gone off the mark from what it was. And contrary to popular opinion there are few actual typesetters that specialise in the craft today. The reasons are not hard to fathom. Most all writers today write their books using MS Word or similar, avoiding the cost of typesetting from what used to be: the process of typewriting or writing with pen and paper. And in that regard typesetting as such is dead! But not for all writers. Political or prisoners of conscience, forced to write undercover with no access to a personal computer, to record their experiences with no more than a stub of a pencil and scraps of paper secreting them as they go for others to publish should a future freedom come their way would need the services of a Typesetter.

Being incarcerated aside, there are still those writers with a preference for using a typewriter, if not pencil and paper to produce their stories in a more traditional and homely way. Community magazines. People with something to say without a personal computer, or if they have, are unsure of themselves when it comes to using computers and Microsoft Word docx. Not many, I know; but in that regard there are even fewer natural born typesetters that can turn typewritten and hand-written manuscripts into a book. Guess what? I happen to be such a person. As I wrote on my Home page, I am a Qualified and Trained Typesetter of long-standing with the ability to turn any of your projects into good, clean, typographically correct MS Word docx ready for EBook or Paperback Book Publication.

Typesetting! From Text to Print.

Print-on-demand is the watchword today and as such I will turn your manuscirpt whether Typewritten Manuscript or Pen-to-paper into a book that will print to the standards required by Platforms the like of IngramSpark or Amazon to look good off their presses both Print-on-Demand and Lithographic. My knowledge and experiences of Letterpress and Lithographic processes are from alien to me.

For all of the above to make a book beautiful to the buyer and inevitably the reader thought must be given to layout of pages. Word spacing, font and font size with the appropriate leading (12pt/15pt, 10pt/12pt as examples of font to body size. Its interior, all parts of the book I describe under the heading Paperbacks the cross-over from Typesetting to Paperback Formatting or Make-up.

You can submit your manuscript using the form below with details of your requirements, then simply upload it on the same form.

Projects submitted are treated in strict confidence. For any reason you cannot go ahead with your project then I shall delete all files or submission images you have uploaded.

Style of House

Most all Publishing Houses have a Style of House. Most Newspapers and Magazines also have one. An author is no different. A consistency of use of language, as opposed to grammar, makes for the visual language of one word, commonly mispelt words, a punctuation identity, to look the same in one book, newspaper, magazine, as the previous copy. Any Typesetter worth his or her salt needs to be mindful of Style of House.

I mention Publishing Houses as one example of an organisation using Style of House but there are others. Typesetting companies with no guidance from their client need to adopt such consistency where no other exists. The consequneces for not having this consistency can be as bad as proofreading errors, though not wrong, will be different throughout the finished manuscript copy making the finished product look amateurish. Suggesting work done by somebody that doesn't know what they're doing.

Organisations I mention aside, there are others that should not be regarded as exempt when it comes to Style of House. Local councils, minor government departments producing small leaflets or brochures producing their own work in-house by people never having been trained in Typesetting; company officials assuming anyone that can type is capable of turning a hand to produce documents for departments is in dangerous territory without Style of House guidance.

Authors, Publishers, Typesetters, Organisations would do well to check out their own consistency of visual language of words, commonly mispelt words, and punctuation identity to keep down the costs of Typesetting, Proofreading, and Time, the result of having to keep asking questions of the client, Do they prefer organisation or organization; is it spelt threshold? or threshhold? A standard novel would have common Styles you use automatically; while a new set would need to be produced for a manuscript of unfamiliar content. It's important, particularly with names of people, that you double check them. It's also important, and where there is a Style of House, that the Typesetter as well as the Proofreader has a copy.

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A bridge from traditional craft to its modern technology . . .
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