Today I’ll be doing layout for books, yesterday was layout for books, tomorrow… ok, tomorrow is a scheduled rest day. We’ll see how well that goes.

I’m using Vellum for layout, which it does a fantastic job at. There are drawbacks, unfortunately, in that it is a Mac-only program, and it’s not cheap. Still, I bought a Mac laptop and the program and consider it money well-spent, but I’m not just laying out my own books, I’m doing about half the Raconteur Press books (having trained backup, thank goodness. There are huge advantages to working with a competent team) as well as random other projects that come up like a charity anthology I volunteered to help out with.

I’ve been toying with creating custom scene dividers which is a fun little project. Having an on-theme graphic for the anthologies, for instance, is a tiny thing most readers won’t even notice, but it’s just another detail I can add to elevate the book beyond simply being a conveyance for the stories. Which, don’t get me wrong, is the point of a book. I just don’t see why the books can’t also be beautiful. I’m not just a writer, I’m an artist. In my life, I want practical and pretty. Most of the time? This is possible without inordinate expense or effort.

If you want to make the effort to do this, you’ll want a relatively simple image, black and white, that is at least 80 pixels high. Width is up to you. I’ve been playing with a aspect ratio of 1:10, making the image about 80×800 pixels. I create a transparent image by selecting and deleting the white pixels in the image, leaving only the black, and saving as a png file with transparency. This is important, so it won’t look off when viewed on an e-reader like a Kindle Paperwhite, where the background isn’t white or backlit.

In Vellum, click on the swash in the far left column of the program’s work space, select the style you are using for this book, then click on the little settings icon in the upper right corner of the style. Select ‘Ornamental Break’ and then ‘custom’ and upload your png file. On the far right column, navigate to a page with a scene break, and you’ll be able to see what it looks like. Check it by choosing the preview to be of something like a Kindle Paperwhite or Nook Simple Touch, and you’ll be able to see if there’s a white box (the image doesn’t have transparency) before you carry on with the book formatting.

I don’t do transparent backgrounds for the full-page images which go into the Raconteur Press anthologies and novels, for the very good reason that png files are large. A jpg saved with the correct pixel ratio (at least 1566×2541 pixels for full page, 1838×2775 pixels for full bleed and both of those are for 6×9″ print dimension) at a medium quality will give you a file that is much smaller. This is important as the file size of the ebook will affect how much the delivery charge is from your retailer, or if you are supplying ebooks directly, how much server space you need to store them. Keeping the ebook file smaller is to your advantage!

Of course, none of this is necessary, or perhaps even desirable if you don’t have the ability to do it yourself. Don’t spend a bunch of money on something that won’t give you return on investment (ROI) and definitely don’t spend time on it if you would be better off writing. However, if you can, this is just one small fun thing you can do to make the book beautiful. I’m a fan of beautiful books, I have thousands of books in my home, and some of them really stand out, generally because of the art on the cover, inside, or the special binding (and that’s something becoming more accessible to an Indie Author, but more on that later when I’ve had time to play with the concepts). Why not make it pretty and practical?