ASSIGNMENT #2: Can it be done?
ASSIGNMENT #2: Can it be done?
WHAT IT WILL (hopefully) LOOK LIKE: Nice. What it looks like is very very important to me, from the cover design to the font to the illustrations. Tomorrow I will ask one of my very talented adult students if she's willing to design a cover and do some simple illustrations to accompany the text; if she's too busy, I have two other friends in mind. It will be a small, rather than large, book, divided into short sections rather than long chapters. It will be short rather than long--maybe 20 pages at most? It will not be in Times New Roman, but it won't be something odd like Comic Sans, either.
HOW MUCH HAVE I WRITTEN? Nothing yet, haha. But the sections are there in my head like sock drawer dividers, and the organization shouldn't be hard. I will probably agonise over what words to use. So I have a mental framework and plenty of content, but no words or illustrations yet.
WHEN DO I PLAN TO WRITE: Mmmmmm......it's probably good that this assignment forces me to think of the time issue right off the bat. I do not have a free day or even a good block of time on the horizon this month; that means I will be writing in the late evenings, when I'm not too tired. Hopefully I can get to sleep afterwards.
WHAT AM I WORRIED ABOUT: The technical stuff. I'm thinking that I do not need to have Microsoft Word to make nice PDF pages---right? I really don't have a clue about how to combine the illustrations I will hopefully have with the text. Layout is no problem, it's putting them together on a PDF that I don't know how to do. But that's what I'm taking this course for, so I look forward to figuring out how to do things I haven't yet tried.
WHAT IT WILL (hopefully) LOOK LIKE: Nice. What it looks like is very very important to me, from the cover design to the font to the illustrations. Tomorrow I will ask one of my very talented adult students if she's willing to design a cover and do some simple illustrations to accompany the text; if she's too busy, I have two other friends in mind. It will be a small, rather than large, book, divided into short sections rather than long chapters. It will be short rather than long--maybe 20 pages at most? It will not be in Times New Roman, but it won't be something odd like Comic Sans, either.
HOW MUCH HAVE I WRITTEN? Nothing yet, haha. But the sections are there in my head like sock drawer dividers, and the organization shouldn't be hard. I will probably agonise over what words to use. So I have a mental framework and plenty of content, but no words or illustrations yet.
WHEN DO I PLAN TO WRITE: Mmmmmm......it's probably good that this assignment forces me to think of the time issue right off the bat. I do not have a free day or even a good block of time on the horizon this month; that means I will be writing in the late evenings, when I'm not too tired. Hopefully I can get to sleep afterwards.
WHAT AM I WORRIED ABOUT: The technical stuff. I'm thinking that I do not need to have Microsoft Word to make nice PDF pages---right? I really don't have a clue about how to combine the illustrations I will hopefully have with the text. Layout is no problem, it's putting them together on a PDF that I don't know how to do. But that's what I'm taking this course for, so I look forward to figuring out how to do things I haven't yet tried.
There's lots to figure out, but we're in the right place to do it!
ReplyDeleteHa.... I don't think "What I am worried about" was part of the assignment! But. Word doesn't always make the best .pdfs (which is why I pay someone who uses InDesign, which I don't have), but it's usually adequate. What are you wanting to use? You should be able to put the images in as jpegs or pngs. We can probably use my designer to answer questions for you if you're using software she's familiar with.
ReplyDeleteTimes New Roman is a newspaper font, so not good for books. For ebooks you have no choice (which is why it's easiest to put everything in TNR for conversion), but for paperback. Here are some good font choices (I think these are all free to use--remember that like images, fonts can be copyrighted):
creativindie.com - The 8 brilliant fonts you NEED to use in your book layout (with type combinations and samples)
https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/06/picking-fonts-for-your-self-published-book/
Oooooh, thank you for the font advice, @ Dorothy! I'm currently working in Google Docs, and I also have Pages and Libre Office installed in my laptop. I was required to use Word (and Times New Roman only) during graduate school, but my free subscription expired when I graduated. My student immediately agreed to do the illustrations for me, so I'm set to go.
ReplyDeleteGood to go--I like the sound of that!
ReplyDelete