In the publishing world there are three main types of book layouts: square, landscape, and portrait.

Square is pretty straight forward: the width and height of your book are the same. It is when you get into rectangular layouts that things start to get a bit tricky, and you have to pay attention to the way you lay your book out and how you place your images and text in your book. Depending on where your long axis lays determines whether your book is Landscape or Portrait.

Landscape Layouts
A landscape layout has the longest edge ( axis ) of your book along the horizontal, and the shortest edge ( axis ) along the vertical. In the image below I have shown an example of a standard US Letter sized page in Landscape Layout. Any time the width of your book is greater then the height of your book you are working in a Landscape Layout. In all of your layouts for Sharing Books ensure that your binding edge ( the edge where your book is bound ) faces to the left.



Portrait Layouts
A portrait layout has the longest edge ( axis ) of your book along the vertical, and the shortest edge ( axis ) along the horizontal. In the image below I have shown an example of a standard US Letter sized page in Portrait Layout. Any time the height of your book is greater then the width of your book you are working in a Portrait Layout. In all of your layouts for Sharing Books ensure that your binding edge ( the edge where your book is bound ) faces to the left.


Hopefully this helps you out when you are trying to do the layout for your book. In most PDF and image editing software you are able to set your document size to landscape or portrait. If it does not just remember you can just change the width and height to suit what you need for your book.

Labels: advice, help, publishing, support, tips n tricks

Sharing Books is all about being creative, we really do not put any limits on the size, shape, or general nature of your kids book that you wish to publish with us. But there are some general tips that you should know before you go and upload a book to our site. These are industry standard practices that will help you get your book printed, maximize your work efforts, and increase your potential revenue as your work and our site develop.

Book sizing is going to become increasingly important for ebooks and for books published for both print and screen display. There are certain sizes that a print shop is best equipped to deal with, and when you go outside those sizes your books cost a lot more to print. For Sharing Books this is going to become an important issue when we bring on stream print on demand features and book ordering.

The dimensions of your book
You can make your book any size and shape that you wish. But there are some sizes and shapes that are standard in the publishing and printing industry. On Sharing Books, what we consider 'Standard Sizing' is as follows:

1. Standard US Letter - 216mm × 279mm ( 8.5" by 11" ) in landscape ( wide on the horizontal ) or portrait ( wide on the vertical ) layouts.
2. Standard A4 Size - 210mm × 297mm ( 8.3" × 11.7" ) in landscape or portrait layouts.
3. Standard US Half Letter - 140mm × 216mm ( 5.5" × 8.5" ) in landscape or portrait layouts.
4. Square - 203mm x 203mm ( 8" x 8" ) layouts.
5. Small Square - 101mm x 101mm ( 4" x 4" ) layouts.

The resolution of your book
The resolution of your book is the magic number that will determine the quality of your book when it is displayed on a screen and goes to print. Resolution is measured in Dots Per Inch ( DPI ) or Pixels Per Inch ( PPI ), they are effectively the same. In general the 'screen' on your computer has a resolution of 72 DPI. When it comes to print the sky is the limit when it comes to resolution, but 300 DPI is industry standard for high quality printing, anything higher moves into art and specialty printing.

There is one very important thing to keep in mind with resolution: the higher the resolution the larger the file size, and this relation ship is geometric in nature. For example a 4" by 4" image at 100 DPI, uncompressed, has a file size of 156kb, a 4" by 4" image at 200 DPI has a file size of 625kb.

You can set the resolution of your book to any size you wish, for print or screen, but we recommend that you split the difference between the highest quality and small file sizes. The ideal file size for publishing through Sharing Books is 150 DPI. You can go to a higher resolution, but keep in mind that books over 25MB in file size take a long time for many users to download ( 3 to 15 minutes on high speed ).

Why you would want to standardize your file size
There is a good reason to standardize the shape and resolution of your book: it means it is easy to print. As Sharing Books starts bringing on stream print-on-demand services, and as your books spread to teachers and families, printing will become increasingly important. Making sure that your book is an easy to print size, and an easy to download file will help you maximize your downloads and sales.

Labels: advice, tips n tricks

Over the last few months I've had lots of requests for help from authors and illustrators wanting to get their work on Sharing Books. To help everyone out, and to share the love, I'm going to start posting semi-regular tips and tricks for success on Sharing Books.

The natural place to start, getting your work on Sharing Books!

We have taken efforts to make getting your work on our site, and getting your work published, as easy and painless as possible. But what we have found, time and again, is that there are a few things that everyone asks about.

The first thing you need to get your work on Sharing Books is:
1) A PDF version of your book, finished as you wish it shown on the site.
2) A .doc, .docx, or .txt version of the text of your book.
3) A thumbnail image you wish to represent your book on our site, no larger then 600 by 600 pixels in size, at 72 dpi, in .JPG or .GIF format.

Today I'll tackle making the PDF. To get these files you will need to use some sort of software on your computer to put the files together. The most difficult is going to be putting together the PDF.

If you happen to be on a Mac, I recommend using either Microsoft Office ( $199 ), Open Office ( free ), iWork ( $79 ), or Adobe InDesign ( $699 ).

For Windows users I recommend using either Microsoft Office ( $199 ), Open Office ( free ), or Adobe InDesign ( $699 ).

If you are on Linux, I recommend Open Office ( free ) or Adobe InDesign ( $699 )

Any of these programs have page layout components ( or in the case of InDesign, is a page layout program ). You can use this software to combine your images and your text into how your book looks. For books that are text only, you simply need to use your preferred word processor.

For Mac users, you have PDF making built right in to every application on your computer. All you need to do is select 'Print' from the File menu, and there is a 'PDF' option in the dialogue box that lets you 'Print to PDF'. Easy as pie.

For Windows users, you have a lot more trouble. PDFs are a real challenge at times on Windows because their isn't a single way to do it, and it all involves plugins, software, and add ons. I recommend the following tutorials and using these plugins for information on how to do it: Creating PDFs, Cute PDF, Print to PDF in Vista. Those should get you under way, and give you an idea on how to get your PDFs made.

If you are technologically adverse you could always request the help of someone more technically savvy. Kids, friends, grandkids, nephews, nieces... they can probably all help you out. Just about everyone knows someone with enough geek in them to put together a PDF! If you are looking for a place to connect with these people, I recommend checking out the Sharing Books Facebook Group. We are starting to get a number of people there that have the technical chops to get what you need done, at various costs.

Hopefully all this information helps you authors out there get things rolling! Look forward to further information as we go!

Labels: help, support, tips n tricks