Adobe Photoshop Digital Photo-Painting Book Production Part 2
An interesting item was brought up for discussion from an artist friend who is also a beta reader. Her first comment was about the title of my new book, “Digital Painting with Adobe Photoshop.” She suggested I change the word “with” in the title to “using,” making the title of the book “Digital Photo-Painting using Adobe Photoshop.”
It made me stop and think – Hmm, not a bad idea.
So I’m asking family, friends, fellow writers, artists, beta readers, and anyone else who has an opinion about what you think which title would be better for my book.
KDP as my Publisher
While I’m waiting on my beta readers to provide feedback, I’ve been researching Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) website for formatting instructions.
Based on everything I’ve read (so far) it sounds like KDP is the best all-around publishers in terms of providing digital and print on demand formats. It also appears KDP has the inside edge in getting your book displayed (and in stock) so people can buy my book. I’ve read more than one account where someone went with another POD publisher an when they submitted their book listed on Amazon. They had problems. One person said after submitting their book to Amazon it took weeks for Amazon to show the book was in stock and available for purchase. Of course, if someone has other ideas, please leave a message in the comments section. I’m still flexible at this point as I do my research.
Formatting the Book
Meanwhile, I’ve been reading about formatting my book for publication. Months ago, I created a cover for the book, as shown below.
The cover shows a before and after images of a digital photo-painting image. It’s the image I use when creating a digital photo-painting in the book. It’s simple, direct and I think it looks pretty good! What do you think?
Now I’m starting to research how to format the inside text for publication. Wow, I never knew there were so many things to think about when you’re formatting a manuscript for publication. Here is my beginning list of publication decisions I need to make:
- Single or multiple columns
- What font to use,
- Should I justify or not
- Do I center the illustrations – print screens or left justify.
Keep in mind there are a hundred or so illustrations within this book
I’m sure there are more decisions I need to make about the formatting of my book for publication. As I do more research, I’ll add those options to the list.
According to the first bullet on the KRP instructions is to upload the book in final form. As I learn about KDP standards, some of these items will not be allowed. For example, from early research, it looks like the preferred KDP formatting requirements is a single column of text on the page.
Once the manuscript is in its final form, I need to format to the KDP standards. That is why I’m researching this process now. So I’ll be ready to convert the manuscript into the proper format when I’m ready to upload the book to KDP.