How Books Are Made

Considering self-publishing, or a publishing career? Here are five important things to remember.In this special episode, Arthur speaks to a class of students who’ve been learning about publishing. He explains the five most important things for a young person considering publishing to remember: keeping making books, do hard things, publish in print, think beyond ‘books’, and don’t let others waste your time.Links from the show:‘Everything I Know about Self-Publishing’ by Kevin KellyBook DashHow Books Are Made is supported by Electric Book Works, where we design and produce books for organisations around the world.

If you’re writing and self-publishing a book, where should you start? And who do you need on your team?This episode, we’re changing up our usual format with a short, practical answer to a common publishing question. In a whirlwind tour through writing, design, publication and promotion, Arthur explains how a writing coach, editor, proofreader, designer, and distributor can help your book do its job – and what it means to be the centre of your fan community.Links from the show:Arthur’s list of writing coaches recommended by trusted sourcesElectric Book Works

The allure of crowdfunding is that you can sell your book before it costs you any money. But that’s harder than it looks!To find out what it takes to run a crowdfunding campaign properly, Arthur speaks to Aaron A. Reed, who has successfully crowdfunded several books, including one of the most well-funded non-fiction books on Kickstarter. Aaron is a writer and a game developer, and the author of 50 Years of Text Games. Right now, he’s in the middle of another crowdfunding campaign, for his role-playing-game kit Downcrawl 2e.Links from the show:50 Years of Text Games50 Years of Text Games Kickstarter campaignDowncrawl 2E on BackerkitSubcutaneanAaron A. Reed’s websiteElectric Book Works

Children's publisher Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day, then gives them away. And their method is catching on around the world.Book Dash believes every child should own a hundred books by the age of five. They gather creative professionals who volunteer to create new storybooks that anyone can freely translate, print and distribute. Then they work with partners to get those books to preschool children and their families to own.In this episode, Arthur wears his Book Dash co-founder hat, and speaks to its outgoing Executive Director Julia Norrish about how and why their ambitious approach to book-making actually works.Links from the show:Book DashResearch on the difference that books make in children’s homesBook Dash’s latest event in JohannesburgBook Dash’s event in BolognaElectric Book Works

At the heart of everything book-like is a printer, standing at a hand-powered press, turning paper into pages.When you hold a book that’s been typeset in metal, printed by hand on fine paper, bound and sewn with board and cloth, you realise with a visceral whoosh just how much a book can be a work of art.In this episode, Arthur speaks with Graham Moss, the founder of Incline Press in Oldham, near Manchester in England. Incline Press works with poets and artists to make limited-edition books with hand-set, metal type on vintage machines. This year, Graham was awarded the prestigious Cobden Sanderson Award from the Society of Bookbinders for his work in hand printing and publishing.Graham’s deep knowledge and rich story-telling is a joy to learn from, and reminds us that, no matter the technology we use, book-making has always been about people, love, and dedication.Links from the show:Incline PressIncline Press on InstagramVideo: Graham Moss on the Arab PressNew Borders: the working life of Elizabeth Friedländer in the University of Victoria vault libraryElizabeth Friedländer’s ‘Elisabeth’ typeface on Bauer TypesVideo: Graham Moss on Memento Mori : Memento VivereVideo: Page-by-page review of Memento Mori : Memento Vivere by Ubiquitous BooksThe launch of Punch & JudyLiverpool Book Art exhibition, October 2024Electric Book Works

Everything we read is coloured by its typeface. And humans read a lot, so font choices probably affect more people than any other field of design.In our daily lives, we rarely appreciate how much work goes into good type decisions, and how much energy we spend accommodating bad ones.Every day, by choice or otherwise, we read messages, posters, menus, documents, web pages, and, of course, books. Not only did someone design their layout, but someone designed the fonts in that layout. Every single letter was painstakingly designed. And every letterform has a personality: it’s trying to make you feel something, just like Comic Sans feels like silliness, and Times New Roman feels like school.In this episode, Arthur talks to type designer Thomas Jockin. Thomas is the founder of TypeThursday, a worldwide community of type designers, and a lecturer in design and philosophy. They discuss how type decisions are made, how type designers work on new and existing typefaces, how fonts can make it easier for people to understand what they read, and what technological advances mean for type design, for reading, and for society.Links from the show:The End of Print: the Graphic Design of David Carson by Lewis BlackwellLexendReadex Pro on Google FontsQuicksand on Google FontsTypeThursdayExploring Hangul with Aaron BellDigital Transformation in Design: Processes and Practices, edited by Laura S. ScherlingElectric Book Works

There is no place more universally loved than a good bookstore. For its owner, achieving that is not as simple as it seems.The best book shops are much more than books on shelves and a coffee bar. Behind the tranquillity, its tiny team is buzzing for twelve hours a day, liaising with publishers, distributors, authors, literacy projects, landlords, even local government, trying to build a community of people who’ll buy books and help others to buy books.No one exemplifies this energy and broad-mindedness better than Griffin Shea, our guest in this episode. Born in Louisiana, USA, and once a journalist with AFP, Griffin now runs Bridge Books in Johannesburg, and the incredible African Book Trust, a non-profit that gives African books to libraries and schools across South Africa. He and Arthur talk about sourcing and pricing books, working across languages, connecting booksellers, the highs and lows of running a business in the inner city, and judging South Africa’s most prestigious non-fiction award.Links from the show:Bridge BooksThe Golden Rhino by Griffin SheaBridge Books Underground Booksellers Walking TourThe African Book Trust on forgoodGriffin Shea and Ekow Duker in the Sunday Times, on chairing the judging panels at the 2022 Sunday Times Literary Award‘“Star Wars” locations that actually exist’ by Griffin Shea for CNN, annotated by Mark HamillElectric Book Works

Behind every great author is a host of unsung editors. By convention, they don’t get their names on books. What are they doing behind the scenes?A good book needs hundreds of decisions made and pieces organised. For this there are commissioning editors, development editors, production editors, copy editors, permissions editors, assistant editors, and proofreaders. Many books have ghostwriters, too. They’re all focused on making books better.Arthur speaks to editor and writer Tim Phillips about what editors do, and how they work with authors and publishers. We also get an insider’s view on the world of ghostwriting, and Tim’s advice for making your own writing clear and effective.Links from the show:Tim Phillips’ websiteCORE EconThe EconomyEconomics for the Common GoodTalk NormalElectric Book Works

Creative communities can be a powerful force for good. Online, they grow around tools that let people be creative together. What comes first, the tools or the community?Two acclaimed book-making platforms with vibrant communities are LibriVox and Pressbooks, both created by Hugh McGuire. On LibriVox, thousands of people have helped to create audiobooks that anyone can download. On Pressbooks, teachers around the world are producing open textbooks for colleges and universities. In this episode, Arthur finds out how they came to be, and what we can learn from Hugh’s experience. What does it take to build tools that creative people will gather around?Links from the show:PressbooksLibriVoxRebus FoundationRebus CommunityElectric Book Works

We take for granted that books contain no mistakes, but the absence of mistakes is no small achievement. It takes care, commitment, and very, very good processes.In publishing, even a small mistake can spell disaster. Luckily, there are people who spend careers helping us avoid those disasters, by giving us the words and the tools to care about the details. Their work is not glamorous, but it is fascinating. Much of that work is about metadata: the information about books that makes up the circulatory system of the book industry.In this episode, Arthur talks to one of the smartest people in the field: Emma Barnes, the founder of the publishing-management system Consonance, and the managing director of indie publisher Snowbooks. She’s also a university lecturer, and the creator of the online platform Make Our Book, which schools use for their kids to make beautiful books from their own stories.Links from the show:ConsonanceSnowbooksMake Our BookA video of Emma Barnes speaking about publishing a thousand children’s stories on Make Our Book, innovation in the publishing industry, and the future of publishing.Book Machine’s interview with Emma Barnes, where she speaks about ‘not working for the man’.Article on Publishing Perspectives about Emma’s journey in coding and publishing.Electric Book Works