The joys of in-house publishing

I decided to break the logjam of my work on Lichtenbergianism for Kids by going ahead and starting the book design/layout file, an ABORTIVE ATTEMPT. Hold that thought.

If I were a real author, with a real agent, a real editor, etc., I would be done with the book. I’d send off my Scrivener file (in whatever format my editor preferred) and just settle in to arguing over commas and phrasing.

But I’m not. I’m just this guy, you know, living in a charming small Southern town, aided and abetted by his fellow Lichtenbergians, one of whom decided to start his own publishing imprint. It’s all print-on-demand [POD], but the products are quality.

For Boll Weevil Press, I have designed more than a couple of our books, including mine. For years I used InDesign — ever since PageMaker 1.0! — but their subscription pricing plus my only needing it once every two years has left me looking for alternatives. (My outdated version broke a couple of MacOS upgrades ago.)

pro tip: Most self-published/POD books look crappy because no one designed them. The hapless author sends their Word document off to the “publisher,” where a lackey dumps it into a template and hits print. If you’re not a book designer, try to find a company that will at least give you some input on what your book is going to look like.

When I was asked to design The Unfortunate Archie Marble, by Elizabeth C. Waight, last fall, the best-reviewed InDesign alternative was Affinity Publisher. It’s solid, a bit opaque, and perfectly adequate for most basic layout needs.

Which leads us to this morning. Since I am in no way adept at Publisher’s controls, I thought it would be very beneficial to go ahead, open up a file, and get started on the layout of Kids. It would help me visualize the illustrations/style, plus I would become more proficient at the software.

Well. Those of you who have read the grown-up version of the book know that footnotes are part of my shtick, so you can imagine my raised eyebrows and pursed lips when it became apparent — and then confirmed via the Google — that Publisher doesn’t import footnotes automatically (like InDesign does).

Oy.

So my plan to get moving on Kids has already come a cropper. Now I’m looking wistfully at that InDesign subscription…