This week we’ve got an inspiring story of self-publishing, talk about the gamut of publishing endeavors, another scam to watch out for, a really good roundup of the recent O’Reilly conference, some guidelines about decisions regarding publishing iBooks or iPhone apps, and some really interesting advice from a bunch of writers you’ve heard of on [...]
From the monthly archives:
February 2010
There’s been an ongoing discussion in the comments to the post on Fair Use and Copyright, and it seemed like a good time to explore some of the resources readily available that can supply images for use in blog posts or books without fear of infringing someone else’s copyright.
The most common explanation I hear from [...]
I’ve been having a regular correspondence with my friend and writing instructor Suzanne Murray about the relationship of writers to publishing, and how to best understand the situation they face today. Recently, Suzanne sent me another question:
Why would a writer want to self publish? And what kind of work is especially suited to self publishing?
Here’s [...]
One of the great pleasures of being a book designer is getting to work on books by my friends. There’s a unique form of collaboration that happens when I work with someone I know well, and the book usually shows the result of this process.
In 1999 I had the pleasure of helping my friend Gary [...]
Several years ago I returned to writing after an absence of many years. Hard to believe now, but I had found other channels for creativity over the years—as a designer, a teacher and a cook—but the central importance writing had never diminished. There was only one problem: I didn’t enjoy writing.
Oh, I had written plenty, [...]
Off-Topic is my chance on Saturdays to stray away from the world of books and publishing for a few minutes to look in a different direction.
I was listening to Michael Dunlop interview internet marketer Yanik Silver on his Income Diary Blog. At one point Silver said
…everyone has heard this saying: “you hand a man a [...]
The typefaces we use for books are a real contradiction. They can be so quiet you just don’t notice them. But if you enlarge the letters, you can see right away that they are full of idiosyncrasies and flourishes.
Display typefaces, on the other hand, announce themselves to the reader in no uncertain terms.
In most nonfiction [...]


