Producing paperbacks

[Keith Brady]

Hi,
I need help with producing paperbacks. I'm struggling with the process I should use to produce manuscripts for kdp and others. My latest attempt was editing a docx to get frontmatter, backmatter, page numbers, TOC and margins and fonts that used the page effectively.
I have tried LibreOffice, HTML and Latex. Part of the problem is my lack of understanding of how my ywriter work should be structured to achieve the required outcome. For example, I use the default font (Segoe UI, 12) and am concerned it's not helping as I had to change the docx to Times New Roman, 11, to get a decent amount of text on the page.
I have the sense that LaTex is the way to go, as it looks like PDF is the most common upload format. I'm a programmer (olden days), so I am happy with tech. I'm not writing elaborate fantasy (as yet), so I don't need flowery chapters or the like.
Is there a starter tutorial or a simple checklist I can refer to for producing a paperback from ywriter? If not, can someone give me basic pointers?
Thanks

[Quintin Seegers]

Hi Keith,

I use yWriter to write my novels (currently working on my 3rd), which I, too, publish via KDP. There are instructions on the KDP site for formatting your manuscript using MS Word, as well as suggested fonts to use (Times New Roman is a no-go) and font sizes to use. It also has a table to work out the margins you need to set base on the page count for your manuscript.

For my next novel, I'm no longer using MS Word to format my manuscript but Adobe FrameMaker - I write training manuals for a living and is well-familiar with it, so find it far more powerful to use to format my manuscript than what you can easily achieve in MS Word.

My process when I formatted my manuscripts using MS Word looked like this:

1. Write the novel using yWriter (I don't include the front page details, etc. in yWriter - just the chapters.)

2. Export the yWriter Project to RTF.

3. Open the RTF file in MS Word and save it as an MS Word document.

4. I have a VB Macro that I run on the MS Word document, which applies an MS Word Template that contains the required page size, Paragraph Styles for formatting the text. The macro also updates of a couple of things, e.g. Chapter Titles, scene separators,  etc.

5. As my novels are fiction, there's no TOC.

6. Make any manual tweaks to the document as needed.

7. Add the frontmatter and backmatter pages.

8. Save/Print the file to PDF.

I'm happy for you to contact me directly to give you some specific pointers. I'm also happy to share my MS template with you, if it will help.

Regards,

Quintin

[Peter T.]

On Friday, August 9, 2024 at 2:43:05 AM UTC+2 Keith Brady wrote:

I need help with producing paperbacks.

I have produced paperbacks with yWriter in two different ways. Basically, it has to be said in advance that my print service provider requests two separate PDF files for each book: one for the cover (there are ready-made ones from the service provider to fill out, but I prefer to design them myself using the DTP program Scribus), and one for the book block. 

To turn a yWriter project into a PDF file for the book block, I went the route suggested by Simon via LaTeX export on the one hand, but also via HTML and LibreOffice on the other.

For the LaTeX export, there are many options for including format instructions and inline code in the yWriter project. In the end, this is combined with a suitably configured LaTeX package, for which "Memoir" is recommended. Professional-looking book fonts for LaTeX are URW Garamond No8 or EB Garamond.

If you go the LibreOffice route, whose built-in PDF export delivers excellent results, I recommend limiting the yWriter project to the pure novel content and creating frontmatter and backmatter in a LibreOffice document into which the exported novel text is then inserted. 

I made my first attempts with the HTML export of yWriter, which I post-processed with a script I wrote myself in Python. 

But then a separate template-based HTML exporter (also programmed in Python) proved to be advantageous. 

We had an extensive discussion here in the forum a long time ago, whereupon I added a sample template for a 5x8 inch paperback to my open source tool. The fonts used are free and also included in the package as ttf. You can take a look here: 

The template based HTML-exporter: https://peter88213.github.io/yw2html/

My paperback template is in the "add-on" folder of  the downloaded archive. 

Here is the tread mentioned above: https://groups.google.com/g/ywriter/c/-RessS1ILcY

P.S. 

I now have a license for the DTP software QuarkXpress. There is an exchange data format called XTG. I've also written a template-based yWriter exporter for it, but that's just by the way:

https://peter88213.github.io/yw2xtg/

Professional results can be achieved, but the learning curve is steep and the support on the web is close to zero. I dare say that the majority of readers do not recognize the differences in the results compared to the LibreOffice solution. 

 

 

[Simon Haynes]

Just to add to this - yWriter now exports to docx, which is almost certainly a better choice than RTF in most cases.  It's relatively new so there are probably bugs (I think there was one regarding centered paragraphs and italics, although that should be fixed now in the latest beta).

The RTF format seems to be a technological dead-end. Both rtf and docx are Microsoft, and they've been pushing the latter over the former for years now. 

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[Keith Brady]

Thanks to all.
I'll start by reading that thread, Peter. I'd actually penned a different reply where I was going to stick with LaTeX but will review the HTML exporter route first. Quintin, I appreciate your help and will get back to you if I fall in a heap!

[Peter T.]

On Saturday, August 10, 2024 at 12:45:41 AM UTC+2 Keith Brady wrote:

Thanks to all.

You're welcome, Keith. A number of things have changed in the meantime, most notably the docx export, which uses heading formats as an essential prerequisite for further processing. This was previously a unique feature of the LibreOffice "yw-cnv" extension. HTML export offers the most variability because HTML is very easy to learn. In combination with css and postprocessors or template-based export, the most sophisticated wishes can be realized, even more so than with LaTeX, I would say.  

But if that's not important to you, the simplest solution could be to export a .docx or .odt document, set the quotation marks and other typographical elements correctly, and then paste the whole thing into a prepared book document with frontmatter and backmatter via the clipboard, which is also what Quintin suggests. 

If you have time, you can also compare the results with the native .docx export and MS Word with those of the LibreOffice plugin. The prerequisite in both cases is that you familiarize yourself with the system of style sheets and document templates of the respective word processing program. I'm sure your experiences would be received with great interest here.

Cheers, Peter

 

[Keith Brady]

🤣🤣🤣  I'm not sure if I have the lifespan left! And what's with the quotation marks? I've seen references to them in a couple of chats now, and there's a quote option in the yw latex export options. Is there something I have already missed?

I am working my way through yw2html to see how it works and what it can do. I needed to start/stop to get my environment correct and had my first success with scene_list - I got an empty file, but at least something happened. I'll probably need to have something specific in my scenes or I've simply got something not right in the environment.

I think I have the LaTeX export sorted out insofar as how it comes together - I haven't done any of the tuning as yet, but it seems reasonably straightforward.

I understand the attraction of cut/paste into Word or LibreOffice and I may end up with that. The thing is, I prefer a solution that I can get familiar with so I can handle variations that come up. I'm new to writing and enjoy the challenge immensely. What else can a 72yo retired person get into - lawn bowls? I kicked off with a science fiction trilogy - book 1 done (and on kdp eBook after publisher disinterest), book 2 with friends and family for feedback and book 3 underway. I plan a litRPG serial to see how that will work. I reckon it'll need a bit of glamour in its presentation. I also have a fantasy on the go, which will incur elaborate chapter entries, etc. There's a novel about... enough! 

I will definitely post my experiences and a (hopefully) simple pathway to understand +/- and how to implement for writers with limited IT knowhow.

Thanks again and Enjoy Writing!

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[Peter T.]

On Saturday, August 10, 2024 at 9:54:33 AM UTC+2 Keith Brady wrote:

I am working my way through yw2html to see how it works and what it can do. I needed to start/stop to get my environment correct and had my first success with scene_list - I got an empty file, but at least something happened. I'll probably need to have something specific in my scenes or I've simply got something not right in the environment.

Well, I understand. yw2html may not be the right thing for your purpose, but I'll give you a hint so that you at least have a small sense of achievement with it. 

I assume you have unpacked the downloaded zip archive? Then simply open the Windows Explorer, go to the "examples" subdirectory, and create a shortcut to "paperback.bat" on the Windows desktop (e.g. by holding down the "Alt" key and dragging the "paperback.bat" icon).  

Then drag your yw7 project file onto this shortcut. If everything works, an HTML file will appear in your yWriter project directory. You can open it with your word processing program or view it with your browser. All you need to create a paperback PDF with this HTML file and LibreOffice is the document template and the fonts in the examples/add-on directory. 

But as I said, all this could be too much for your purposes. I don't think you need to take the detour via HTML as long as you can get by with the default chapter headings and scene delimiters.
If you have MS Word, try yWriter's native docx export and use one of the document templates offered by print service providers like KDP. 

As far as quotation marks are concerned, when writing with yWriter you get the "straight" quotes as with a typewriter. Strictly speaking, however, these are not quotation marks, but the characters for "inches", which should not be used in book printing.
When exporting to LaTeX, yWriter can turn them into real "curly" quotation marks.
When exporting to other formats, you usually have to do this yourself. MS Word and LibreOffice have such converter functions that work more or less well. I have programmed suitable macros with regular expressions for LibreOffice and published them as  "curly" extensions for several languages. 

However, it can't hurt to find out about the basics of book typography. Because self-publishing is so popular at the moment, there is plenty of material and help available on the web. The best place to start is probably with the guidance of the print service provider.

Good luck, 

Peter