So, page by page all year long, I’ve been dissecting your book from the front matter, table of contents, dedications, prologues, first chapter pages, headers, footers, and more. We’ve finally reached the end of your book, and the end of this year long feature which I call Book Synthesis.
Last month, we discussed page numbers (or footers). This month we’re moving to the top of the page and talking about page headers.
We spent our summer with guest authors talking about the first page of your chapters and whether or not your book should have a prologue. We also talked about vacation spots to draw inspiration from and text justification. We’re going to spend October and November talking about those dreaded headers and footers. This month we’ll discuss page numbers in the footer, and in November we’ll talk about the title of your book and your name in the header.
July’s Book Synthesis is brought to you by The Paper Rats. Authors Kristen Tsetsi (author of Homefront and Carol’s Aquarium) and R.J. Keller (author of Waiting For Spring) like to make videos when they should be writing. Their show is called “Inside The Writers’ Studio.” They are Paper Rats. This month they discuss why all books should begin with a prologue.
Tammy Wynette and KLF were right when they sang about “Justified and Ancient.” The justification of text dates back to the process of typesetting when movable type was composed by hand by arranging metal sorts into lines of text and words.
And by halfway mark, I really mean for the year, not for your book. In last month’s post, friend and fellow reviewer Cheryl Anne Gardner wrote about the first page of your book. Prior to that, I’ve dissected each page of the front matter of your book. We’ll push forward in June with other topics like page numbers, justification, headers, and all that fun stuff. But for now, as we approach Memorial Day, let’s rest a moment.
For April, our Book Synthesis feature is written by fellow author and book reviewer Cheryl Anne Gardner from POD People.
For March, we are going to dissect the next few pages that fall after the Copyright page (see our February post) but come before the actual first page of the story, so basically these are the last few pages of your front matter.
Last month, in our first edition of Book Synthesis, we discussed the first few pages of the front matter of your book: the first blank page, the title page, and how to format both the front and back of these pages. This month we’re moving forward just a few pages and discussing the copyright page and the table of contents. Obviously, the copyright page is a must for your book, and a table of contents if completely optional.
In November 2008, we posted a list of “book boo boos” that we commonly see in self-published books. To this day, we still see a number of mistakes and formatting problems in previews of books and proofs we are considering for review. Authors who are new to this are still not seeking out assistance or doing research when it comes to putting their best book forward. That’s why I decided to start a monthly post which I’m calling “Book Synthesis.” Synthesis is defined as “the combining of the constituent elements of separate material or abstract entities into a single or unified entity.” In book terms, those elements are your title page, copyright page, table of contents, dedication page, body of text, etc. which all together make up your single book.
