Formatting tips in MS Publisher 2010

Here is a link to a proposal I have written as an independent book formatting contractor. This document contains useful formatting tips. If you already have MS Publisher, or if you are willing to purchase it, I can set up your document for you for a fee, and send you the file. Set up is the most important part of formatting your book. If you are interested in a set-up plan, please e-mail dbdkho@aol.com.

Illuminated Manuscripts

Illuminated Manuscripts: "K is for King Lir" (not Shakespeare's King Lear), taken from Fairy Tale ABC's by the McLoughlin Brothers in the 1870's. This graphic is in the public domain because the copyright has expired. It is an 18th century variation of an "illumnated manuscript". Illuminated manuscripts were handwritten manuscripts with hand-painted or drawn illustrations. They were expensive to produce and prior to the development of the printing press, only the wealthy and the priests could afford these books. This graphic is an example of how the illiterate, adults and children alike, were taught to read. With the development of the internet, the publishing industry no longer has a monopoly on books and everyone with a story to tell can produce it on their own. Here is a link to one artist that creates illuminated letters. There are many other sites where they are in the public domain.

The infamous Art of War by Niccollo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, written for the ruling banking family, The Medici's in Florence, Italy. If anyone believed in the logic that the pen is mightier than the sword, Machiavelli did. His belief that deception is a legitimate war tactic has earned him a bad reputation amongst modern day readers. However, his books were never intended for publication amongst the masses but for the Medici's. Insofar as war strategy is concerned, he must be viewed as a realist, rather than an idealist. He was a political scientist of his day, and also a historian. On that note, an interesting bit of trivia is that his historical books do not contain footnotes as modern scholarly works require. His works were part of the Medici library, which later became the first Public Library in Italy. I'm sure researching the internet would yeild pleny of information on the topic of illuminated manuscripts, but one good site I found on the topic is here: http://freechristimages.org/illuminated_manuscripts.htm And on a lighter note for authors who know the history of the class wars and religious conflicts of the time period:

Self-publishing with Blurb.

First Edition at Blurb.com: The first version of my book was created at Blurb.com. You can download software from the site to create your book called Book Smart. When I downloaded the software a few years ago, it was free. I believe the price may now be $3.95, but it may still be free. Blurb provides TEMPLATES to create your book. There are some tutorials on the site that provide instructions for working with the templates. Since I last worked in Blurb, they have incorporated a Microsoft Word add-in feature. I am no longer selling my book at Blurb. I have added a lot of information to my book and the second version at Lulu.com is a much better version. Although Blurb does provide a verly lovely finished product, I would reccommend it for photography or picture books with small blocks of text rather than large segments of text combined with graphics. It's been a long time since I have used them and the program may be more user friendly than it was when I used them. I have included a video for them and a screen shot of the software as it was when I used it.

Here is a screen capture of the layout in Blurb. Use the zoom feature to enlarge your view.

Formatting books, video.

Video, Deborah Khora: These two videos are the first videos I ever created. Some of the information in them overlaps, but combined they provide some foresight to help get you started on creating your own children's book.