Author
Diana McLain Smith
Publisher
Ballast Books
Cover Designers
Claire Sullivan and Vadym Malyshevskyi
Genre
Political and social essays
Dimensions
5” x 8”, then 6” x 8”
Pages
209
Ink and Paper
Standard color on white paper
Overview
Remaking the Space Between Us: How Citizens Can Work Together to Build a Better Future for All is a collection of essays written by Diana McLain Smith, a motivational speaker and expert on organizational learning and change. She published the book through Ballast Books, who commissioned me for the formatting, typesetting, and ebook conversion work.
Objectives
and Goals
and Goals
The guidelines for this project were pretty straightforward: “It is a 5x8 hardback titled Remaking the Space Between Us and is a collection of essays. There are also some images and graphics in it. We are printing in B&W so they will all need to be in B&W for print. We will also need ebook conversion for it. Lastly, the author is collecting quotes/reviews as well that we want to put in the front for advanced praise.”
Process
• Determined the heading typeface based on the cover
• Typeset the text
• Formatted the page layouts, including tables, figures, and photos
• Adjusted the photos’ colors for consistency
• Implemented the author’s and publisher’s edits and feedback
• Converted the manuscript to PDF files
• Converted the manuscript to EPUB format
• Formatted the EPUB file to prepare it for e-readers
Challenges
and Solutions
and Solutions
The largest challenge in this project was that the author and publisher decided to increase the page dimensions from 5” x 8” to 6” x 9”. This would have been a problem if I didn’t know how to customize the “Adjust layout” form to make sure that everything on the page (except the text size) adjusted to match the new dimensions. So I only had to skim through the book and tweak a few small things to match the new page size.
Another issue that arose was that some of the images were too low in resolution for the size that the author wanted on the page. So I used Photoshop to sharpen the edges of the images at the size the author wanted them, so that they would be easier to read and look better in the book.
Tools
• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Acrobat
• Sigil
• Kindle Previewer
Deliverables
• Guts (interior content) PDF
• Guts PDF in spreads (to portray the layout of the printed book better)
• EPUB
• Packaged and compressed folder with INDD, IDML, link, and font files
Results
and Impact
and Impact
• 100% of the Amazon reviews are 5 stars.
• One reviewer commented, “I found the book extraordinarily moving. Overall, it is a masterpiece of conception and execution.”
• Remaking the Space Between Us is a Nonfiction Book Award Gold Medal Winner.
Reflection
The author was pretty closely involved in the process and had specific preferences, such as the color and width of the call-out quote ornaments. This wasn’t a problem; in fact, it was good to know what the author wanted so that I could make sure she was super satisfied with the final product.
