PEAPOD Mix

Print - Electronic - Audio Publishing On Demand -- Using a full spectrum of widely available technologies to publish, create buzz, catch people's attention, and build up an audience for your work, whether it's written, spoken, or performed.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Ready-Made Templates Make Publishing A Professionally Formatted Book Easy for Independent Writers

Veteran published author makes her Lulu publishing templates available for other independent artists who are looking for a quick, simple, yet professional solution for their book formatting needs.

When independent authors publish their own work, they often find that one of the biggest hurdles to getting into print is creating a book with a professional look. Formatting a manuscript for print can be a challenge for writers who are not graphic design experts. But if a book is not up to professional standards, reviewers may not consider reading it. Plus, buyers may judge the quality more harshly because the book does not look like others on the market. Even the best work can suffer in the public eye, if it looks like an amateur put it together.

Now, author, technologist and independent publisher Kay Stoner, has made her book publishing templates available to the public for $29.95 each - a fraction of the price that self-publishing services charge, so that other authors can put their best foot forward and have their words taken seriously. “Writing a book is hard work,” says Kay Stoner. “But the proper tools make publishing it a lot less difficult.”

These Open Office templates are 9x6” trade paperback book interior layouts for publishing on Lulu.com. They have been designed specifically for fiction or non-fiction prose, formatted for readability and economy of page count, with a look that conforms to publishing industry standards, so that independent publishers can look their best and be taken seriously by their peers, reviewers, and the reading public.

Templates are available in both Georgia and Palatino typefaces, which are both very readable and attractive. Each template comes with a “how to” sheet, which details the elements of the template and how to get started using it. The word processing program necessary to use them is Open Office, a powerful, full-featured alternative to Microsoft Office, which can be downloaded and installed free of charge at openofffice.org. Links to order the templates can be found at http://peapodmix.blogspot.com/.

Book Interior Template for 9x6 Trade Paperback for OpenOffice 2.0 (Georgia) <<Buy It Here>>

Book Interior Template for 9x6 Trade Paperback for OpenOffice 2.0 (Palatino) <<Buy It Here>>

About the Creator: Kay Stoner is an author, technologist and independent publisher, and has published eight books of her own. The second, freshly updated edition of her book “Bring Me the Head of Opal Mehta”. a book-length essay on art and outsourcing, will be available in September, 2006.

Keywords: publishing, self-publishing, independent publishing, templates, Open Office, book formatting, manuscript, publication, Lulu.com