LETHAL JOURNEY
Historical Fiction

Noir 1892 Thriller

Article: (Special to Publishing Industry News.) Copyright @ 2011 by John T. Cullen. All Rights Reserved.

1. Recap: Formatting Digital Files.
2. Intro: About POD Files.
3. Tools: DTP vs WP; Word Spoken Here.
4. Two Types of POD Publishing Files.
5. Economics of Print and POD.
6. Publishing vs 'Getting Published'.
7. From SmashWords to POD.
8. Next Week: Nuts and Bolts.

   Recap. Recently, we discussed how to format a SmashWords interior text file (the body of your story). We briefly introduced the concept of graphics, but last week returned for one more pass at the interior text file—your Smashwords live, hyper-linked table of contents (TOC) that actually works in your Kindle, Nook, Sony, or other end document produced through SmashWords. Today, we begin discussing how to turn your SmashWords interior text into a file acceptable to either Ingram's LightningsSource International (LSI) or Amazon's CreateSpace.

In today's article, we'll discuss some preliminaries to creating your POD file. One difference between it and the digital file is that, while you have little control over what the reader sees in the digital output file, you have all the control in the world over your POD product (a printed book). Digital files are entirely dynamic, are published in some form of markup language, and flow as the various reading devices and platforms require them to. On the other hand, your printed page is static. It is permanently fixed in ink upon paper, and will look exactly as you design it to. In these articles, you'll see that the basic design of a printed page is quite simple, follows certain conventions, and yet allows you some creative wiggle room. The key is: less is more. Don't overdo the creative instincts. Use your white space, and limit fonts and font sizes to a bare minimum. We'll begin today by discussing the economics and value of putting energy into print publishing today (hint: it makes us feel good to have a print copy). We'll briefly touch on such key issues as having a clean, logical production path, *saving often* to avoid losing work, and having a baseline of milestones to revert to in case of fatal error (version control, as it's called across the software development industries). In a nutshell, the mechanical process of creating your POD file takes up about half the discussion, while the necessary context just mentioned takes up the other half. In the long term, it's about methodical, proven, cautious work habits. Again, save often, and have a clear trail of save-baselines to revert back to if all else fails.

Most complex processes become relatively simple when broken down into manageable steps. That's what we aim to achieve in this series of articles. Anyone smart enough to write a book is certainly smart enough to master this material. Authors by nature have courage, fortitude, and the unrelenting ambition to make these mechanical processes work for them. This is a way to further master your fate, and to avoid the outrageous money charged by many middlefeeders for things you can do yourself. The basic principle is to move away from 'getting published' and even from 'self-publishing,' to be a true publisher in the tradition of Woolf, Paolini, and other famous authors described in the weekly issues of Publishing Industry News (PIN).

   2. Introduction to POD Files. In all modern forms of publishing (digital or print), you must create what I describe in these articles as an *effective* Package. In a nutshell, that's a finished looking product that appeals to the viewer's eye, and leads to sales. There are two key items you must produce as part of that package. One is a graphic (artwork) digital file, which we will discuss starting next week. The second, which we'll discuss today for POD, is an interior text file. The purpose of a POD file is to provide a 'camera ready' file to be used by the manufacturer to create a printed book.

   3. Tools: DTP vs WP; Word Spoken Here. First, what's the difference between a desktop publisher (DTP), a word processor (WP)—and, for that matter, a text editor?

Let's start with the answer: Don't let fear drive you to invest in high-end, complicated DTP systems. Stick with Word, especially since you presumably already have a Word file of your book, if you already went the Smashwords (digital) route. To create your POD book, you can start with the same Word file that you used to format your Smashwords digital upload. It's not all that complicated, once you get past the learning curve. What makes the learning curve seem steep is not the material itself, but the predictable stumbling blocks that experience tells me you will likely encounter, and I'll help you get past those as easily and quickly as possible. It's a matter of not letting you flounder in the dark, but to show you why certain topics (headers, footers, sections, styles, pagination, etc.) have caused many of us to seek the nearest shrink (and/or) French Foreign Legion recruiter.

(a) The purpose of DTP is to provide *layout* to an existing file, which may contain either (or both) words and pictures. Examples are FrameMaker, Ventura, PageMaker, and QuarkExpress. They are expensive, very complex softwares that we'll never need to use, so let's move away from them. The only point to ponder is that they are primarily designed not to create text, but to format (layout) text that has been created elsewhere—either in a WP application (software) like Word or WordPerfect, or in a simpler text editor (e.g., Norton Text Editor).

(b) The purpose of WP is to create a file with words and, if appropriate, pictures in it. You do not need to import these into a DTP, whose function is to lay out pages (ostensibly for print publication in magazines, newspapers, or book formats). Word is a WP that outputs several types of files, including Rich Text Format (RTF) and a very messy form of HTML (hypertext markup language, appropriate at this time for input to Amazon Kindle, but I recommend using SmashWords as your primary digital publishing distributor).

(c) Typically, a text editor is an embedded, low-functionality (just like the term says) editor to type and minimally format text. Let's use this paragraph to learn something important, while we're here. Take, for example, a text box that may open on some website (call it XYZ). Suppose you are asked to type in a 'letters to the editor' reply or comment to a news story. The text you type is created by you, with your keyboard at home, or what's called in the industry 'the front end.' When you are ready, you upload your text to the remote server (back end or server side). The interface that appears in the browser on your computer at home is the front end, or user side. As you type, text appears in the box. Every keystroke from your keyboard sends an ASCII (plain text) code to your computer at home to display the text in your browser, When you upload what you have typed, your computer interacts with the remote server (back end) at XYZ. You have used a text editor embedded in the software at the XYZ website. That's called 'the back end'.

Sator Enigma: Ancient Roman Mystery Solved

The so-called Sator Square (also Sator Rebus, Puzzle) refers to a mysterious ancient text found on walls throughout ruins of the Roman Empire. Archeologists have found exemplars in such diverse ancient Roman locations as a government hall (aula) in Cirencester, Britannia; twice in Pompeii, pre-dating the city's volcanic destruction by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE; and in the distant frontier fortress of Dura Europos on Rome's Mesopotamian border with Parthia. Something about this strange, cryptic writing must have been so important that the Romans would post it in their government halls, public squares, and top military headquarters.

   It is one of the most perfect palindromes ever created. A simple palindrome is a text that reads the same, backwards or forwards; e.g., "Madam I'm Adam" and ".madA m'I madaM". The Sator Square is a perfect four-way palindrome that reads the same left-right, right-left, up-down, and down-up. Nobody had a clue how to translate it, despite thousands of hours of research, hundreds of learned books and articles, and at least one Ph.D. thesis in Classics at Yale University.

   John T. Cullen solved the puzzle in the summer of 2007, almost coincidentally, while continuing eight years of scholarly research for his nonfiction/Ancient History virtual tour guide A Walk in Ancient Rome, Revised 2nd Edition (Clocktower Books, Summer 2011). He had been aware of this baffling cryptogram from long ago, which has since become an object of superstitious reverence in certain Christian and Neo-Pagan settings. Suddenly, while taking a break from his Rome research, he looked at the Sator Square in a new way—and was able, within a few weeks, to both translate it and plausibly explain it.

   Ironically, at the annual convention of International Thriller Writers, of which he is an Active Member, in New York City in July 2009, he was the only author present who had actually deciphered and explained a cryptic, ancient epigram of world importance—and lived to tell about it.

There are other examples of text editors. A classic is vi, a simple text editor embedded in certain UNIX operating systems to allow operators and users to type unformatted text (ASCII text strings) for use by the system. You will often interact with text editors in small ways, without particularly noticing. As you upload files to CreateSpace or LSI, for example, some of the information involves choosing from menus in response to questions (e.g., pricing for your book). Other information (marketing text) may involve typing in unformatted text. You won't use a text editor for anything that appears in print inside your book.

I use Microsoft Word to format books, which will seem odd those who think the process needs to be mystical and complicated. I have worked with desktop publishing systems such as Ventura, PageMaker (known to its power users as RageMaker), and FrameMaker. Many consider QuarkExpress to be top of the line, and it's used by many of the top magazines in the country. From my combined experience in all of these systems, I can assert two things with confidence.

(1) Most desktop publishing systems offer some form of internal text editor but, no matter how robust their text editor may be (on a scale from the simple UNIX-based vi text editor to the Norton text editor), they can never equal the word processing power of a Word or WordPerfect.

(2) Likewise, the best word processing systems (e.g., Word, WordPerfect) have much less power as they try to function as low-end desktop publishers. All of that said, the fact is—as I have proven over years of experience, formatting over 100 titles or editions for digital and POD purposes—Microsoft Word is entirely adequate to format your digital or POD book. I'll show you how in this article.

   4. POD Publishing Files. For LSI or CreateSpace, you need to have two files to upload: an interior file, and a cover image.

In digital publishing, the standard term for a cover image is 'marketing image,' primarily to distinguish the fact that there aren't three files (front, spine, back) as in POD. With a POD service, you do need to provide a front, spine, and back images. We'll talk about cover images and marketing images, as well as interior images, in an article soon. But consider this: since you are doing the uploading, preferably online rather than sending a DVD (lame under most circumstances), and since most of the process is both digital and automated—should we not call POD another form of digital publishing? I think so.

   5. Economics of Print and POD Publishing. At some point, you finished and edited your book, and it's ready to publish. We assume at this point it's perfect—although reality tells us to plan for yet that one more blooper or typo that must be fixed. If you have a clear, logical, clean production path, it should be as easy a fix as possible. More on that at end. By production path, I mean you know at each step which is your latest iteration that you can back up to, without wondering if it has the latest changes. Okay, once you have the final file, you're ready to publish.

In two previous articles, we discussed how to format a Smashwords interior text, and how to create a live, working TOC. Notice that the required upload format for SmashWords is Microsoft Word. SmashWords is important to discuss, because it's a one-stop solution for all or most digital publishing needs.

I have not chosen to use services like iUniverse, Lulu, and the like, for reasons I have explained elsewhere. You can be a publisher (not 'get published') and do it yourself. What you can't do yourself (until you gain the self-confidence to realize that yes you can) you can farm out to cover artists or editors (recommended, since nobody should be their own editor). However, rather than pay for expensive 'packages' of services whose effectiveness is unclear, you pay them and negotiate with them on what you want for your money.

   Publishing versus 'Getting Published'. You will soon be ready to upload your interior text file to CreateSpace or LSI for the print publication process. This is the Do It Yourself (DIY) approach, wherein you are neither self-publishing nor vanity publishing, but you are a publisher in the true sense (see Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, and other famous self-published authors cited over the past few weeks in this magazine). I make a fine distinction, using the term 'self-published' for convenience, because it's an easy way to say 'publish your own book.' I don't mean it in the sense of 'self-published' meaning a new form of vanity publishing. There is a new form of vanity publishing (under various new names, but it's same old, cheap, stinkin' rotgut wine in new glitzy bottles). In the new vanity, the author pays tons of money to middlefeeders promising some grand, vague wonderful result, while doing what the author can do for herself or himself, and producing absolutely nothing. By nothing, I mean it is highly unlikely they will provide you with an *effective* Package that sells books (the only goal). Nobody loves your book like you do. Take on as much of the technical work as you feel comfortable, tackle the learning curves (none of them are out of reach, especially when simplified like this), and know when to call in expert help. When you do farm out some work (usually for the cover art, but read my upcoming articles first), the artist or editor is your employee or associate, not your shining knight or golden-tongued savior. This is a business, and there is no hocus-pocus in it—it is nuts and bolts like any other business. I've covered this pep talk in previous articles, so I'll stop there for today and get on with the technical stuff for now. Remember, too, that anything I write in these articles, while based on years of technical, hands-on experience and a mountain of mistakes before getting it right, is my own personal, subjective opinion. By all means, if you find a better solution, best of luck doing things a better way. Back to publishing vs 'getting published'. That very often translates into 'control versus victimhood.'

LSI, at this writing, is the only company that treats authors as publishers, in the sense that they do not pretend to be 'publishers,' and do not pretend to pay you 'royalties.' LSI treats every publisher as just that—a publisher. Not a self-publisher, not a vanity publisher. My experience with their customer service, over a decade, has suggested that some aspects of their company still treat self-publishers in a derogatory and (by neglect, at least) in an abusive manner.

But you are, on their business and technical side, a publisher in every sense—an entrepreneur, seeking to wholesale into the trade an *effective* Package that will sell books at retail sites. LSI is a good company to place yourself with, in the sense that they are wholly owned by Ingram, the largest distributor (wholesaler). You tend to be automatically regarded as in the mainstream of publishing when it comes to many bookstores and other retailers because of this Ingram connection.

I cannot stress this enough, not to praise LSI so much, but to draw an important distinction. LSI does not pay royalties, because they are not your publisher. You are the publisher. LSI is merely your manufacturer. Long ago, printers and publishers were the same thing. By the turn of the 20th Century, they diverged. Publishers were one business, and printers an entirely other business. Publishers from the 20th Century forward, especially the big ones in New York City, usually hire independent, third-party printing companies to actually manufacture the books.

Printing 50,000 books in one offset press run makes the unit cost of the individual title significantly lower than printing small numbers ('short runs' like 300 or 500 or 1,000 or even 3,000 copies). Think about it. The printer bids the job, and if they are awarded the job, the printer can plan for just the right amount of ink, paper, union labor, and so forth. All of us can become full-fledged publishers (not self-publishers, not vanity) but most of us do not have the funds to invest in a 50,000 or 100,000 book offset press run.

Most of us will do extremely well to start out, to test our book, in Print on Demand (POD). POD implies one-off, one-on, meaning your inventory of one copy is replenished by printing a new copy once the first copy sells. In real life, if a POD book starts selling, you the publisher or they the manufacturer (LSI, CreateSpace) will usually start planning for little short runs of 200 or 500 or more copies—if the book starts selling and developing velocity through the process. Of late, LSI increasingly recognizes this and offers discounts on runs of incrementally many hundreds or thousands of books. One presumes that LSI would find it easy to purchase offset presses, and crank out larger press runs if needed. For short runs, they use newly developed Xerox and similar technology. Formore info, see their website.

Nevertheless, I have shifted most of my POD business to CreateSpace, for two reasons. Although CreateSpace still pretends to pay 'royalties,' I don't see them making much about being a publisher for you. Arguably, from my subjective viewpoint, and you may feel differently, companies like Lulu and the like still pretend to be your publisher. And they offer all sorts of 'services,' which may or may not help you create your necessary pot of gold at the end of your rainbow: an *effective* Package that actually sells copies. When you pay such middlemen to 'get published,' remember that their model is an imperfect mirror of the past giants of Manhattan, the Big Six; in reality, they cleave much closer to the old, despised vanity mode. The one and only question you need ask about whatever you're doing is this: Does it or does it not leave me in the end with an *effective* Package that sells books, and sells them well? Your Package should not include a 'nice' cover; it has to include an *effective* cover, meaning just one thing: it sells books. More on covers in a later article.

Don't pay any one to make you 'get published.' Instead, read Publishing Industry News, and become a full-fledged publisher. Be a publisher, and publish your own work. The technology, the credibility, and the distribution channels all exist today, whereas authors publishing their own work were still victims of New York hype as recently as two or three years ago. The overwhelming success of early publishers like Amanda Hocking, John Locke, and others proves the point. And the many famous self-pubs of years gone by—an updated list published every week on this website—prove that same point over and over again.

   Main Body of Text is 99%. Here's the incredibly good news. Almost your entire task is consumed in formatting the main body of your text. Let's say you have written a 60,000 word novel titled My Fair Novel, told in 25 chapters. That actually describes yet again 99% of all novels. There will be a few pages of front matter (title page, copyright page, dedication, acknowledgements, and the like). There will be, let's say in the case of this hypothetical novel, 200 pages of interior text. At the end, you may want to take advantage of your reader's attention to promote other works or novels or at least being the reader to your website. So let's say there turn out to be six pages of front matter, 200 pp of body, and two pages of end matter. That describes the average novel, to which we dedicate the rest of this article.

Let's assume that you have a Word file, either because you wrote the book in Word, or you formatted it for SmashWords (whose required format is Word), or you wrote it in some other WP and imported the file in to Word. By file, I mean your entire document, from the title page to the final page of end matter. It's all in one file, and that's how we are going to work with it. I'm going to use the model I have successfully used for years, which by now is cut and dried to me, so I always know it will work.

Begin with the main body for now, all in that one file.

Your book's trim size. Whether you are using LSI, CreateSpace, Lulu, or any POD service, you will find a variety of trim sizes offered. For my standard novels, I have found the best compromise between economy and aesthetics to be the very standard 6"x9" trim size. So far, I have not seen a typical (ball park) 4"x7" racksize (traditional 'pocket book' or 'paperback', also 'mass market') trim size offered in POD.

The word 'trim size' comes from the old-fashioned method of printing a book in large sheets of paper with pages printed on both sides. These are then folded as many times and in both directions, until the sequential pages appear, back to back, in proper sequence. We don't need to delve too deeply into what would require a book in itself (outside my scope of knowledge).

The edges are than cut ('trimmed') to separate every leaf. The individual sheets of paper are called leaves, and each leaf has two pages after trimming is done. Each resulting stack, usually of at least four or as many as 64 pages, is called a signature. The number of pages in a signature is always a multiple of two. The reason you need to know this is that in some POD manufacturing processes you must upload (or send on CD or DVD) a manuscript file whose total page count is either a multiple of 2 or of 4. It's a simple thing to remember. If you forget, the manufacturer (LSI or CreateSpace) will add enough blank pages at the end to create another full signature in your book. That's probably all the mechanical background you need for now. Last I heard, LSI's machines were able to handle signatures of two, so all you need to do is make sure the complete interior of your POD book, including front and end matter, and including both numbered and non-numbered pages, must be an even number.

   Next Week: Actual Process. As you can see, we've run out of runway for today. Next week, we'll segue into the actual nuts and bolts of creating your POD interior file. You'll get a dynamite, logically segmented presentation that breaks the process down as it has never been done in a short article. It is a learning curve, to be sure. But if you persevere and master it, it's not that hard, and it will provide you with a lifetime of valuable skills so that you can be not only a fine author, but a competent, self-reliant, and realistic publisher. This is a business, a tough one, but one in which anyone smart enough to write a book is smart enough to compete. You'll say "Enough to 'getting published' and being a victim." You'll want to launch your book yourself, and promote it your way, because remember: nobody loves your book like you do. Not even those silver-tongued sales persons who promise you pie in the sky, take your money, and deliver a pie in the face.