Publishing Software for Clients and Yourself

August 30, 2011

Publishing Software for You and Your Clients

    I already wrote an article about another fine-quality self-publishing software called My Publisher on my toy blog (http://oldantiquetoys.blogspot.com/), so I decided to write an article about a second 

self-publishing  software in this blog.  If you don't know by now what a self-publishing software is, it's software and a company that allows you to design and write a book. The software is certainly quite sophisticated if you've already worked with Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. Both companies provide you with 2 choices - a preset simple design  and a custom design. The pre-set is simple, quick and already has the page layouts and text layouts. The custom design let's you create a broader range of permutations and combinations of the pace layout design. It's more work on your part, but the design is more unique and personal.

    I asked Blurb for permission several times, but never heard back from them. However, this blog being in the public domain, and not making any profit, not commenting negatively on their product, would most likely allow me to write, without their permission.

This is their icon on your computer.

Starting Out

   

     When you start out, you're given choices to select. What you see above is the text for the spine of the book, and front page photo and text. By all design, this is a "real book". For an added fee, Booksmart (Blurb) will find you an ISBN number to actually register. As well, you can market your actual book if you feel that other people will be interested.

     The image above is in the construction or building mode. There is also a preview mode that shows you the book without the text or photo boxes.

Page 4

   

     This is my page 4 in the preview mode. It's not the most exciting! You can frame the photo with a colour rectangle, add a background colour to the page, change the font style, and have many other choices.

Page 9

   

     This is my page 9 in the preview mode. I've improved the page by enlarging the photos. I also changed the font and enlarged the font as well.

Page 8

   

     This is my page 9 in the preview mode.  It's not exciting enough for me. So I'm going to return to the construction mode, and try different alternatives to the page to improve the appearance.

Changing grom Preview to Edit Mode

   

     This is my page 9 in the preview mode.  The yellow arrow shows you what to press (edit book) in order to change the page design.

Changing the Page in Edit Mode 

   

     This is my page 8 in the edit mode. Notice how the page appearance has changed. Blurb has spent a lot of time and research in order to make the software as simple and user-friendly as possible. The same holds true for My Publisher .

A Big Change to the Page Layout 

   

    If you don't like what you see,there's always the "old reliable" 

Edit >> Undo 

 Much too Busy!

The background in this case is very distracting from the photo which had been made smaller.

A Warning

In this case, a warning appears to advise you that the text has a problem.

In this case, there is too  much text, and it won't publish properly, and you will lose some!

The solution would be to make the text box larger.

     I've only presented toy with about 10% of the features of what these self-publishing company softwares have to offer, so you can imagine what they have to offer, and what your potential can be. I would suggest that you go to the nearest Barnes & Noble or Borders, to get a sense of what a current publication looks like. Or, simply go to Amazon or another book seller on the Net and look at a few pages of a book that is for sale.


   These books are currently being made and sold by professional photographers for weddings, anniversaries,  special occasions, and trips. Once you start, you'll never look back!