If you’re planning to self-publish your book, the typesetting process is an important step of book production to understand.
A book that’s not been properly typeset will provide a poor reading experience for the reader, and may even carry an aura of amateurishness about it.
If you’ve spent years honing your writing and storytelling skills, the last thing you want is for your book to be difficult to read on account of its text and formatting.
What is Typesetting?
Typesetting is the arrangement of text within a page layout. It deals with font size, typeface, line space and length, margins, the size of section breaks etc.
Typesetting is an important process in the book production process as it focuses on making the text as readable and reader-friendly as possible. You want the design of your text to encourage the reader’s eye to follow your sentences eagerly.
Bad typesetting can do real damage to your book, as the reader might fail to be immersed in your story and put the book down. Great typesetting won’t make a poorly-written book readable, but bad typesetting can certainly ruin a well-written book, if it prevents people from wanting to read your story.
Prior to the creation of computer software, typesetting was carried out by experienced professionals using printing machines. Now, it’s a skill you can learn to utilise yourself with some effort, though you may choose instead to give your book the best possible chance by hiring an experienced typesetter to do the job for you.
Typesetting Meaning
Typesetting is a process within book production. It’s different from typography, which refers more broadly to font design, font pairing, and font arrangement on the page.
Typography is an area covered within graphic design. You don’t need to be an expert in typography to carry out your own typesetting.
Typesetting Software
If you’re self-publishing and have opted to typeset your book yourself, there’s various software you can choose from.
Be warned that Microsoft Word and Google Docs are not designed for book publishing, and as such it’s not recommended you use these once your manuscript is complete.
Adobe InDesign
A highly professional tool, Adobe InDesign can be used to typeset all kinds of books, including fiction, non-fiction, picture-books, and so on.
The disadvantages are that:
- Because it’s a professional graphic design tool, there’s a huge amount to learn in order to use the software well. This may feel overwhelming if you’re not a professional designer.
- Because of its substantial capabilities, it’s an expensive tool, with one of the highest monthly subscription prices of any of the software programs.
Nevertheless, if you’re keen to invest and learn about book design and typesetting, and you’re fairly computer literate and confident learning new programs, you might choose to use this tool.
Microsoft Publisher
Unlike Microsoft Word, this desktop app actually is designed for book publications, as its name suggests.
If you’re creating fiction without extensive pictures, this may well be your preferred tool. You can choose a book layout type and edit every aspect of your page, allowing you to create readable books.
It’s less expensive than Adobe InDesign, due to being a less comprehensive and less powerful tool.
Reedsy Studio
This free software, created by Reedsy, has been designed specifically for self-publishing authors. You can import your manuscript into the software and justify titles, paragraphs, images and so-on, and then export your files when you’re done.
A great option for writers on a limited budget looking for a simple and straightforward way to typeset their books.
Atticus
Designed by writer Dave Chesson, Atticus is a software for self-publishing authors which assists with writing, typesetting, formatting and so on.
Atticus offers different book themes, each theme taking care of the different typesetting rules. After this, you can make your own amendments to the typesetting should you wish.
Atticus has a reasonable one-off purchase price, allowing for a single investment only.
Typesetting Services
If you’re not particularly computer-literate or interested in becoming so, then you might choose to hire a professional typesetter or typesetting service for your book.
If you don’t wish to invest in and learn to use the various software, then hiring a professional typesetter is a really valuable step in the self-publishing process.
You don’t want to write a wonderful book only to have it stumble on its path to success this late in the process!
As you seek out your ideal typesetting partner, it’s worth considering the following:
- Does a particular typesetter have experience working in your book’s genre?
- Do you find their previous work to be readable and attractive? It’s worth asking to see a sample of their work before hiring them, so you can be relatively sure you’ll be happy with the final result.
- When reading examples of their work, do you find yourself immersed in the story? Or do you find your attention constantly being draw to the text itself? Needless to say, you’re looking for the former – the text should support the story, rather than being a distracting feature in and of itself.
There are various places you can seek out freelance professional typesetters:
Reedsy Marketplace
Reedsy Marketplace is a great place to seek out independent professional typesetters available for hire. You can see their experience and make direct contact with the individual you’ll be working with.
Upwork
Upwork also allows you to make direct contact with a wide range of freelancers in the book publishing industry, including professional typesetters.
Fiverr
This is another platform to find freelancers for various types of projects, including typesetting.
You can also search freelance fiction typesetters for hire online.
Typesetting Tips
Given professionals dedicate their career to typesetting, it’s not possible to provide a comprehensive list of tips in this article.
Here, I’ve covered some of the most common typesetting areas you’ll need to look at if you’re carrying out your own work:
Fonts:
- A font size of 10-12 points is usually ideal.
- Serif fonts generally make the best fonts for the body text of your novel. These are fonts which have small strokes or extensions at the end of longer strokes, such as Times New Roman, Garamond and Courier New.
- Avoid sans-serif or novelty fonts, such as Arial, Helvetica or Calibri, as these do not read as clearly and will tire the eye.
- Most novels only need two fonts: body text and chapter headings. This may vary if you’re including handwritten letters, emails, diary entries etc., separate from your main text within your novel.
Formatting:
- Keep your formatting as consistent as possible. You don’t want your formatting to distract the reader from the story.
- Ensure your paragraphs are justified.
- Don’t add extra space before or after paragraphs.
- You want the space between lines to provide maximum readability. Setting this at 130% is usually safe.
- Set your page margins to the correct page dimensions within your software. You want to ensure the reader’s hand won’t cover the text.
- Between 0.25 and 0.5 inches is usually fine for outside margins.
- You’ve more flexibility about the inside margins; a professional typesetter would take into account how much text is ideal to fit on the page by first taking into account how the number of pages affects the size of the book’s spine.
Extra Tips:
- Try to remove widows (single lines from new paragraphs starting at the end of a page) or orphans (single lines from paragraphs finishing at the top of a new page). These are distracting to the eye.
- Try to avoid word stacks (the same word appearing directly above or below itself). To achieve this, you might need to shift your paragraphs around or change certain words.
- Ensure you don’t have any hyphens at the end of a page.
- Avoid scene breaks occurring as the first or last thing on a page.
- If your book has any subheadings, ensure you have at least two lines of text under the subheading before a page break.
- Look at other books for inspiration as to how to handle scene breaks, chapter headings, and text in any introduction/ foreword/ afterword you include.
Conclusion
For many writers, it’s easy to forget about, or not to realise, the importance of the typesetting process for a book. But if you’ve ever read a book that’s been badly typeset, you may have found yourself curiously unable to immerse yourself in the story, without being able to say why.
Don’t let your own book fall into that category. There’s so many wonderful stories published these days, that readers won’t stick with books that tire or hurt their eyes, no matter how well-written your story may be.
To give your book the best possible chance of success, I’d recommend either studying up on the typesetting process and investing in strong typesetting software, or hiring a professional typesetter.
It will be worth it when you hold those beautiful pages in your hand!