Moving along

The proofs for HealthWorks are ready to be reviewed at the press, and I need to round up some quotes for the next BeWell from doctors. So it looks like a jaunt to Boise today.

One of my authors had several questions about his book, and since they could apply to other self-publishing authors as well, I'll repeat them here.

My printer says the book needs to be in Quark or something other than Word.

Your printer is right. We can't submit the book in Word. I use FrameMaker and provide PDF files. Quark, InDesign, and Illustrator are other programs that have the required postscript language so that the digital presses can read them accurately.

Are you sure about not capitalizing REALTOR, I was told that REALTOR is a trademarked or "registered" word that is owned by the National Realtors Assoc and that it should be capitalized to acknowledge their "ownership." Do you have other information?

It's true that the National Realtors Association does have a registered trademark for the word REALTOR in caps. I think you'd be most likely to use the REALTOR "mark" on a business card or when you're referring to your business in a formal way. If you're writing about realtors in a generic way as in, "Talk to your realtor about this," the trademark isn't needed, and, in fact, would be inappropriate use. However, the protected logo is more than capital letters. We would have to use the same font and spacing etc. etc. to conform.

Also, I measured the text width of a number of different books that have 6" by 9" covers and the text width seems to be about 3/8" or 1/2" narrower then what you sent me. Can we narrow the text to create more "white area" on the pages and to generate more pages, after all the book is a little skinny.

At this point we can easily change the format. Wider margins are the easiest way to give the book a little more bulk. Another thought is to bulk up the paper when it's time to print. Doesn't cost much if any more for a higher-bulk paper. Will think about that when it's time to print. We can also add a bit to the spacing, print with a larger font size, and add more space between paragraphs. Just a few possibilities. However, the book is so small to start with that it will be hard for any of the above changes to make much difference.