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You are here: Home / Events / Book Design for Reading & Comprehension
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Book Design for Reading & Comprehension

April 5, 2021 by Ruth Schwartz 2 Comments

BAIPA monthly meetings are now exclusively on Zoom, at least until we get through this COVID-19 crisis. The Zoom links will be provided to you via email on the Friday evening before, around 9 PM.
Therefore, all non-members MUST register in advance in order to participate. However, all current BAIPA members will get the Zoom info for the morning session automatically.

Please scroll down to the bottom of this page for the list of available tickets. Members, please log in first.

The general meeting begins at 9 am, the speaker presentation is at 11 am, after Q&A, networking time, introductions & announcements.
(Click here for the schedule for the day)

MORNING PRESENTATION:

Book Design for Reading & Comprehension

Bill will discuss how to design a book for reading ease and comprehension, and how to set type to direct the reader’s eye.

– Bill Amatneek –

We all want to make our books look attractive to the eye, and certainly the cover should be attractive. But the book’s interior, the text, should invite us to read and reward our reading.

Designing a book to be easily read and understood is the subject of this program. We’re going to examine how the eye reads and how the brain processes our reading. This will show us how to set type to speed the reader along, and how to stop the reader in his or her tracks when we wish, and make them reread, if we wish.

We’ll talk about line length, typeface selection, serif and sans-serifs fonts, magazine vs. book design, matching of title and text fonts, type and leading size, the book you must own if you are designing your own book, and the one piece of software you must use. (We’ll look at other books and other software as well). We’ll discuss the hyphen, en dash and em dash, “white space,” the two uses of an ellipsis and how this special character affects reading, the one-sentence paragraph, expressing thoughts with text, using lower-case caps, a.k.a. small caps, abbreviations and acronyms, tracking and kerning, the ampersand, using type to suggest objects, having fun with the epigraph and colophon, using or not using quotations marks, using isolated quotations throughout your book, and using consistency to suggest usage.

We’ll examine the three parts of a book: front matter, body, and back matter, what elements should or can go in each, and their order. In the front matter, we’ll look at page numbering, a “Kind Words” page, bastard title page, the advertising card, the full title page and its content, the copyright page and its extensions, the dedication, preface, epigraph, table of contents, introduction, foreword, and acknowledgments. In the book’s body, we’ll talk about creating “pools” of text to guide the eye, typesetting section and chapter title text, widows and orphans, beginning a chapter on the verso vs. recto page, and running headers & footers. Finally, we’ll discuss why back matter is sometimes set differently than body and front matter.

Takaways:
1. How we read and how we comprehend what we read.
2. Book design, layout and typesetting for reading and comprehension.
3. Typesetting techniques to direct the reader’s eye and mind.




About Our Speaker: Bill Amatneek

Bill Amatneek has designed, typeset and published three books to date, two editions of his memoir-ish Acoustic Stories, about playing string bass in the acoustic music movement, and more recently his anthology, Heart of a Man: Men’s Stories for Women.

Bill has a bachelor’s in the psychology of visual perception, and has studied how the eye reads and the mind comprehends reading. He sat at the feet of book design masters including BAIPA’s own Peter Masterson, the late Steve Rennick (who headed UC Press,), and Dave Bullen, who designed books for Houghton-Mifflin for 40 years. He’ll talk today about how to design, layout, and typeset a book to make reading and comprehension easier.

Connect with Bill:
Email: [email protected]

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  • May 1, 2021
    9:00 am - 12:15 pm
We're sorry, but all tickets sales have ended because the event is expired.

Venue:   Zoom Event

Address:
online event, Pacific time zone, California, United States

Description:

This is exclusively an online event via Zoom.
Zoom links will be provided in an email sent out the Friday evening before the event day, between 8:45 and 9 PM. If you have pre-registered and do not receive that email, please reach out to [email protected]

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About Ruth Schwartz

Ruth helps authors get clear about the steps needed to turn out a professional book that looks as good as anything coming from a traditional publisher. She helps you get past the stuck places, getting through the decision-making process quickly, birthing your book with ease.

Comments

  1. Bobbie Kinkead says

    April 27, 2021 at 10:42 am

    Can we watch the meeting Book Design on May 1, later is paying for session?

    Reply
    • Ruth Schwartz says

      April 27, 2021 at 12:40 pm

      Bobbie, you are a member of BAIPA and your membership will automatically renew on May 1. and therefore there is no fee. Also, the speaker’s presentation will be recorded, and as a member, you can view it later by logging in to the website using the big red Member Login button in the upper right corner of the website, and then clicking on Member-only Resources.

      Reply

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Becky Parker Geist of Pro Audio Voices

Welcome to BAIPA

UPDATE: BAIPA will continue to meet via ZOOM ONLY until it is safe to resume in-person meetings, which we are planning to try on May 6th, 2023 (see below for some initial info). Even when we decide to resume in-person events, we will continue the Zoom option. We are implementing all the recommended precautionary measures to keep our meetings private and safe for all participants. All members and visitors who register in advance will receive a link to attend via Zoom video conferencing. On the Friday evening before the meeting, we will send the link and … More

Current BAIPA members do not need to register for our monthly meetings. The night before the meetings, they will receive the Zoom info. However, members must log in to get a discounted ticket for workshops. 

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BAIPA Monthly Meetings

IMPORTANT
BAIPA is now meeting on the first Saturday of every month via Zoom only for now. In general, if the first Saturday falls on a holiday or holiday weekend, we will meet on the second Saturday.

We are also having workshops on the third Saturday of every month (also via Zoom only for now. In general, if the regular monthly meeting moves to the second Saturday, then the workshop will be two weeks later.

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  • February 18th: WORKSHOP—Chris Morris on crafting systems for success as a writer
  • March 4th: Shelly Adina on how to sell more books using metadata
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  • April 15th: WORKSHOP—Dave Farrow on helping authors position themselves for success after releasing their story
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