So you’d like to print your fan fiction…
With modern technology it can be surprisingly easy and affordable to produce your own professional-quality paperbacks and hardbacks! This page is meant to act as a primer to help you get started, based on lessons learned producing Ponyfeather Publishing prints. This is by no means exhaustive—it’s just a jumping-off point for you to dip your toes into the world of book printing.
We’ll start with terminology, so that if nothing else you know the right terms to plug into a search engine to find more information, then move on to some book design best practices and suggestions, and finally go over some of your options for print services.
Terminology
Some Basics
Book: This one might feel obvious at a glance, but “book” can actually have several different meanings depending on the context. It can be synonymous with “volume”, “title”, and even “section” or “part”—some “books” (i.e. titles) are divided into “books” (i.e. sections) yet still printed in a single “book” (i.e. volume).
Title: The name of your story, yes, but in this context it can also refer to the publication as a whole.
Volume: A “volume” is an individual physical book. Sometimes a work is too long to fit inside a single physical book—in that case, it can be broken up and printed across multiple volumes.
For example, at the time of this writing, Ponyfeather Publishing has released eighteen titles but twenty-two volumes, because Cynewulf’s The Night Is Passing and Monochromatic’s The Enchanted Library each had to be broken out into three volumes.
Page: Another one that seems obvious, but in common use this can refer to, say, an entire sheet of paper (“hand me that page from the printer”)—whereas in the book world, “page” is specifically one side of a piece of paper.
Leaf: Paper is made from trees, yes, but that’s not what we’re going for here—”leaf” refers to the entire sheet of paper, front and back.
In other words, a leaf is two pages, front and back, and a volume is a set of leaves bound together.
Book Organization
At a high level, books are divided into three sections.
Front matter: All the stuff that comes before the main book content. Any combination of half title, frontispiece, title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph, table of contents, foreword, preface, acknowledgements, or introduction—typically in that order and typically at minimum a title page and copyright page. PFP books almost always begin with an “Also By” page, listing the author’s other works, and always include a title page, copyright page, table of contents, then a half title immediately preceding the main content. Other front matter is inserted as appropriate based on the book.
Body matter: The main content of the book. If your book is a novel, this is the narrative; if your book is a short story collection, this is that collection of stories. Prologues and epilogues are included here these days (they used to be considered part of the front and back matter, respectively).
Back matter: You guessed it—this is all the stuff that comes after the main book content. Any combination of afterword, acknowledgements, appendices, glossary, index, bibliography, or colophon. Possibly nothing! Ponyfeather Publishing paperbacks insert the author bio from the hardback dust jacket’s rear flap as the final page in the book, but otherwise back matter is only included in PFP books if the author writes some.
Some of these—especially “introduction,” “foreword,” and “preface”—might seem like synonyms, but they each have a specific meaning and authorial voice. Wikipedia’s article on book design goes into more detail.
Also note that something like “acknowledgements” can go in either the front matter or the back matter.
Page Layout
Recto: The front side of a leaf of paper.
Verso: The back side of a leaf of paper.
In cultures that read left to right, when you’re holding a book open, the “verso” page is on the left and the “recto” is on the right. In right-to-left cultures, it’s reversed.
The first page of a book is always recto, which means every recto page is odd-numbered and every verso page is even-numbered.
Folio: This is another term like “book” that has several different meanings based on context. In the context of page design, it means “page number.” A page number that’s set at the bottom of the page instead of at the top is called a “drop folio.”
Margin: Here’s a term you’ve probably heard before in your everyday life that still means what you think it means in the context of books! This is the blank space between the page’s content and the edge of the page. The top margin is also called the head and the bottom margin is also called the foot, hence “header” and “footer” for content set in those margins. The page’s inner margin, closest to the spine, is also called the gutter.
Margins are important beyond aesthetic reasons—the page’s outer margins give you a place to hold the book so that your fingers don’t cover up the content, and the page’s gutter keeps the content from disappearing illegibly into the spine of the book.
General Printing
Trim: This refers to the size of the final product. For example, PFP books’ trim is 6″x9″, also known as US Trade.
Bleed: A US Trade book is not printed on 6″x9″ paper. The pages are printed on larger leaves, which are then bound together and trimmed to their final size. “Bleed” is that area beyond the final trim size that is cut off.
Full bleed: If you don’t want any margin, you’re doing “full bleed” printing—running your content all the way out to the edge of the page. If you’re printing something at full bleed, you’ll actually need to run your content out past the edge of the page to be sure that no margin is left when the page is trimmed.
The notion of bleed and full bleed won’t matter much when preparing the interior of a text-based book—a comic book or art book might be a different story—but will be very important when you’re laying out your cover design! You don’t want half your title trimmed off or a bunch of white space on your cover because you didn’t account for bleed correctly.
Book Design
With self-publishing, the world is your oyster—you can design your book however you want and there’s no one to stop you! That being said, most readers will have a preconceived notion of what a “book” looks like. (They might not be able to put it into words for you, but they recognize it when they see it, even subconsciously.) If people are spending their hard-earned money on a physical print of something they could be reading for free online, consider putting in a little effort on their behalf so they get their money’s worth.
The goal with Ponyfeather Publishing was not to get creative, but to produce books that wouldn’t feel out of place on a shelf alongside “real” trade books, so the following is a bunch of little design things that will all add up to a more professional-looking book.
Ponyfeather’s interior design was developed via the simple expedient of pulling a bunch of “real” books off the shelf and looking through them to see which design elements worked and which didn’t—don’t be afraid to do the same and copy the layout aspects of books you like!
Body Content
Much of the basics of book design stem from economic pressures that don’t exist in digital formats like fan fiction websites, so what you’re used to looking at on your screen isn’t necessarily what you should replicate in your physical print.
- Paragraphs should be indented with no extra white space between them.
- Indent size should match your text size. For example, 11-point body text should have 11-point-deep indents. (“Points” are a unit of measure, just like inches or millimeters, that are used exclusively in typography. One modern point is 1/72nd of an inch.)
- Omit the indents at the beginning of chapters or sections.
These conventions all have the same thing in common: they allow book printers to cram as much content as possible onto a single page. Every additional page means your book costs more to produce. (Of course, you have to balance the desire for cost savings against an attractive, or at least legible, book.)
Using indents to signal the start of a paragraph rather than an entire line of space is obviously a space-saver; using a square-shaped indent instead of a half-inch rectangle saves space too; and omitting redundant indents at the beginning of chapters or sections—well, you guessed it.
You’ll also want your body text to be justified. This doesn’t save space, it just looks much cleaner than left-justified (also known as “ragged right”) text blocks.
Choosing Fonts
Quickly, a little more terminology: serif fonts have those little decorative tails on the letters, and sans serif fonts don’t.
In print, don’t set body text in sans serif fonts. You can use them in headers, but you can also use serif fonts for headers. (This rule is reversed for screen content: always set body text in sans serif fonts for content that will be read on screens, and save serif fonts for the headers. Serifs improve legibility in print but are easily pixelated on screen.)
Avoid default system fonts—Times New Roman, Georgia, Arial, Calibri, Tahoma, etc. “Real” books don’t look like they were laid out in a default Microsoft Word template!
Caslon Pro, Minion Pro, Garamond Pro, Bembo, Baskerville Pro, Sabon, Jenson Pro, Crimson Pro, and Cardo could all be good choices for body fonts. (PFP books always have their body text set in Minion Pro and usually have their headers set in Garamond Pro.) Your body font should be legible and comfortable; it needs to be easy to read tens of thousands of words set in it.
Nonstandard Page Layouts
“Display pages” are things like a title page, dedication page, or table of contents—omit any running headers or footers on these pages.
For opening pages of chapters or sections, you’ll probably want to do the same, though if you’re setting your folios (a.k.a. your page numbers) in your headers, you could consider dropping it into the footer for the first page of a chapter if you don’t like the idea of omitting it entirely.
It’s also common to give the opening line of a new chapter a little design flourish. One very traditional approach is the “drop cap” (short for “dropped capital”), where the first letter of the chapter is enlarged and dropped below the normal baseline. Another idea is to simply enlarge the initial letter but maintain the baseline, so it rises above the rest of the text. You could also try setting the beginning of the opening line in small caps. (PFP books do a combination of the last two.) Whatever approach you decide on, make sure you have a plan to address opening punctuation, which is common in fiction with dialogue. And regardless of what you choose here, even if you choose not to apply any decorative initial formatting—don’t indent the first line of the chapter!
Punctuation Glyphs
Glyph is the technical typographic term for the shape of a character.
There are two items of punctuation that are routinely overlooked, especially in web fanfic, that can really give your work an amateurish look when printed: quotation marks and dashes.
Make sure you’re using “curly” or “smart” quotes, not “straight” quotes—and be careful that your apostrophes don’t become opening single quotes.
Also, make sure you’re using hyphens and dashes correctly. Hyphens(-), en dashes (–), and em dashes (—) are not interchangeable; they have different uses and indicate different things. A doubled hyphen does not an em dash make — don’t print them!
Interior Software
Your interior will be laid out independently of your exterior. More than likely your print service will expect two PDFs—one of the inside of your book and one for your cover—and each PDF will be laid out in different software, because they’re different design challenges.
Microsoft Word/LibreOffice Writer/similar: These are often the first choice for someone setting out to print a book, but they are far from the best choice. These are word processing programs, not desktop publishing programs—you can absolutely make a decent-looking book interior in MS Word, but it’s going to take you a lot of extra work and fiddling to produce a subpar result.
Adobe InDesign: This is professional desktop publishing software. Many of the books you’ve read were probably laid out in it. If you’re familiar with the Adobe suite, and especially if you can get a discounted or free copy through your school or work, this is a strong contender.
Affinity Publisher: This is a much cheaper competitor to Adobe InDesign. If you prefer commercial software but don’t want to support or can’t afford Adobe, take a look at Affinity.
Scribus: This is a completely free and open-source community-developed desktop publishing program. If you’re a FOSS fan but prefer a GUI, this should be your first stop.
LaTeX: Another free and open-source option, LaTeX is more often used for writing academic and scientific papers and has a ton of support for things like math formulae—but it handles plain text just fine. If you’re comfortable with markup languages, seriously consider LaTeX. PFP book interiors are laid out using LaTeX’s novel class; there’s also a memoir class available that people have used to lay out fiction books.
All of these will have a learning curve if you don’t have any publishing experience—yes, even if you’re familiar with Word in its day-to-day usage, wrestling it into attempting to function as a desktop publishing app will take time and effort. If you have any thoughts of laying out more than a single book, strongly consider taking the time to learn how to use one of the actual desktop publishing options. Once you have your templates configured, dropping your text in and generating your output should be nearly nearly effortless.
Exterior Software
Cover design is something of a different animal, but another area where using “real” book covers you like as inspiration will be very helpful. You’ll almost certainly need some type of graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator, Affinity Photo/Designer, or GIMP to handle this—or consider hiring an artist to help.
Print Services
There are two major categories of print services.
The older, more traditional method is a small press. You have to commit to a minimum quantity for your print run and you have to handle inventory, sales, and distribution, but in return you’ll often have a lot more flexibility in design and materials. Ministry of Image is a small-press publisher: they work with a printer to order a run of books which they must then store, sell, and ship out themselves, but their books are typically made from higher-quality materials and include things like full-color illustrations inserted throughout the book.
The newer, more modern method is a print-on-demand (POD) service. There are no minimum quantities and the service handles inventory, sales, and distribution for you, but they have limited design and materials options for your books. Ponyfeather Publishing is a print-on-demand publisher: Lulu receives interior and exterior PDFs of each title, which they keep on file—the book isn’t printed until someone orders a copy, at which time Lulu prints it, packages it, and ships it directly to the customer with no cost to PFP.
Any hobbyist should strongly consider using a POD service.
Small Presses
Here are a few small presses you might consider if you don’t want to use print-on-demand.
BookBaby: 25 book minimum order or $149 for POD service; no special options. (To be honest, this looks suspiciously like a print-on-demand provider masquerading as a small press.)
48hrbooks: 10 book minimum order; upgrades like foil stamping, embossing, texturing, and linen/leather casewrapping are available.
PrintNinja: 250 book minimum order; can print many different types of books; upgrades like foil stamping, embossing, and textureing are available.
Print-on-Demand Services
Here are a few different print-on-demand services.
Blurb: Limited trim sizes and cover options.
The Book Patch: Only offers paperbacks.
Kindle Direct Publishing: This is Amazon’s POD service; it only offers paperbacks but does offer custom trim sizes.
IngramSpark: This is the POD division of Ingram Book Group, offering many trim and distribution options. Take a very close look at this option if you’re looking at self-publishing original work—they can feed into Ingram Book Group’s distribution network that practically every bookstore, chain, and library orders from.
Lulu: Good balance of price, options, and quality; offers paperbacks, hardbacks, and other options like photo books and comic books. This is the service Ponyfeather Publishing (and many other ponyfic prints) uses.