One of the things that I like to do as an independent publisher is to follow my interests, and recently I have been reading a lot of books and articles about typography and book design. This note is to announce to authors and designers that I would welcome submissions of proposals for 60-120 page color interior “Nimble” books about typography. Please review “Publish With Us” for information about how Nimble Books does business.
I always like to have an idea of where I would like to take the field when I start publishing on a particular topic, and I do have some clear ideas about book design. In a nutshell, I believe that the economics of modern book publishing have inexorably compromised what we all should know and remember about readability. If you compare a modern book with a book printed a hundred or two hundred years ago, generally speaking, the older books are more readable. Today’s margins, columns, and fonts are too small. Fonts are intended to convey sophistication rather than clarity. Endnotes that require enormous page jumps have replaced footnotes that provide immediate access to the reference information. Covers focus on achieving visual impact for sales rather than on capturing and conveying the meaning of the book.
The book as an artifact needs to be redeemed. At the same time, we are finally reaching the inflection point for ebooks. Most ebook standards amount to dumbed-down HTML with text reflow, which, on the one hand, throws out 500 years of knowledge about book design, but, at the same time, returns to the fundamentals of readability. The Apple Tablet appears likely to present a golden opportunity for book designers to combine the best of classic print with modern electronic style.
I am looking for authors who have something to say along these lines–or who can powerfully refute my argument! I’m agnostic, I like to publish on both sides of an issue, and I never require that authors agree with me.
There are two issues peculiar to books about design that I will address here.
1. People who know enough to write on this topic can usually do a better job of layout than I can, so I will expect that final manuscripts be delivered in PDF, subject to some dialog with me to ensure consistency with the rest of the Nimble Books line.
2. Book designers also usually know enough to self-publish, so why bring your manuscript to me? Well, I have a batch of a thousand ISBNs and pay no setup fees, so it costs me a couple of hundred dollars less to get in print than it would cost you. And then you have the benefit of being part of a list, and working with kindred spirits. I can’t, in all honesty, claim that I will make you more money than you could yourself by being energetically entrepreneurial, but if your objectives are more about saying something substantively in a credible forum, this might be a good fit.
If this strikes a chord, use the Contact form above.
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