Is landscape format possible for an illustrated print-on-demand book or ebook?
March 29, 2012 8:33 AM Subscribe
Can any print-on-demand book companies offer a non-standard, horizontal/landscape orientation for a full-color book with artwork on every page? Is there an ebook option for a book in this format?
Posting for a friend:
In 2003 I wrote, illustrated in watercolor pencil, and designed, a book at the request of a publishing company that, at the very last moment before it went to press, decided not to publish it. I have the original art and layout in perfect condition, and I own the rights to it. In 2005 I offered the project to an American book agent who loved the book, sent it to a number of houses, and was astonished that none of the publishers to whom she offered it picked it up. Since then, I successfully sold one of the illustrations as the design for a jacquard souvenir towel for a music festival in Japan, but otherwise turned my focus to other projects.
Today I posted some of the illustrations on Facebook, my FB friends loved them, and one suggested I try again to publish the book myself.
Here's the deal about this book: The pages are oriented landscape rather than portrait, each set of facing pages is a two page spread, and every page is in full color.
All of the print-on-demand publishers I've consulted have templates that are oriented portrait rather than landscape. Color on every page IS now available (usually for children's books), but the dimensions of the pages have to conform to the company's template.
I consulted an ebook publisher, who said that, with ebooks, the pages have to be portrait rather than landscape, and they don't do two page spreads, but that possibly in a future iPad, a landscape-oriented book layout might come to be.
Offset printing for an all-color, custom designed book is, of course, very pricey.
One possibility that occurred to me is to present the work as a digital video, with the text as a voiceover, along with an appropriate music track.
I'd love to hear other suggestions. Thank you in advance.
Posting for a friend:
In 2003 I wrote, illustrated in watercolor pencil, and designed, a book at the request of a publishing company that, at the very last moment before it went to press, decided not to publish it. I have the original art and layout in perfect condition, and I own the rights to it. In 2005 I offered the project to an American book agent who loved the book, sent it to a number of houses, and was astonished that none of the publishers to whom she offered it picked it up. Since then, I successfully sold one of the illustrations as the design for a jacquard souvenir towel for a music festival in Japan, but otherwise turned my focus to other projects.
Today I posted some of the illustrations on Facebook, my FB friends loved them, and one suggested I try again to publish the book myself.
Here's the deal about this book: The pages are oriented landscape rather than portrait, each set of facing pages is a two page spread, and every page is in full color.
All of the print-on-demand publishers I've consulted have templates that are oriented portrait rather than landscape. Color on every page IS now available (usually for children's books), but the dimensions of the pages have to conform to the company's template.
I consulted an ebook publisher, who said that, with ebooks, the pages have to be portrait rather than landscape, and they don't do two page spreads, but that possibly in a future iPad, a landscape-oriented book layout might come to be.
Offset printing for an all-color, custom designed book is, of course, very pricey.
One possibility that occurred to me is to present the work as a digital video, with the text as a voiceover, along with an appropriate music track.
I'd love to hear other suggestions. Thank you in advance.
Best answer: I'm surprised that with the new features added to epub files in the latest version of iBooks and KF8 on the Kindle that you can't get a decent full-color landscape layout. If you have a mac, iBooks Author is free from the Mac App store and relatively easy to use. The Kindle tools are a little more arcane, so that's probably your best bet.
posted by Oktober at 8:46 AM on March 29, 2012
posted by Oktober at 8:46 AM on March 29, 2012
Ok, totally possible to create a landscape only book in iBooks Author:
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2012/01/ibooksauthor-and-fixed-layout.html
posted by Oktober at 8:48 AM on March 29, 2012
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2012/01/ibooksauthor-and-fixed-layout.html
posted by Oktober at 8:48 AM on March 29, 2012
She might want to look at photo books-- Shutterfly, for example, does landscape photo books (5x7 or 8x11). I've heard of people doing two page spreads by putting a full-size image on facing pages and lining them up exactly, but haven't tried it myself.
Going the e-book route is definitely an option-- I work at a company that does e-books (among other things) and we published a children's book last year for the iPad which featured two page spreads. We went through a bunch of options and I can't remember exactly how we handled them in the end, but I think we had each spread available to see fully (so with black bars on the top and bottom, and the spread taking up the whole width of the iPad held in landscape format) and then you could zoom in on either the left or right side of the page, and slide from one half of the spread to the other half.
posted by matcha action at 8:50 AM on March 29, 2012
Going the e-book route is definitely an option-- I work at a company that does e-books (among other things) and we published a children's book last year for the iPad which featured two page spreads. We went through a bunch of options and I can't remember exactly how we handled them in the end, but I think we had each spread available to see fully (so with black bars on the top and bottom, and the spread taking up the whole width of the iPad held in landscape format) and then you could zoom in on either the left or right side of the page, and slide from one half of the spread to the other half.
posted by matcha action at 8:50 AM on March 29, 2012
This is a good question to ask at the VerlaKay.com boards; they're for children's book writers and illustrators, who would be using similar resources when self-publishing.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:11 AM on March 29, 2012
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:11 AM on March 29, 2012
Response by poster: Thanks for the great answers, which Alicia found very helpful!
posted by Scram at 11:04 AM on April 1, 2012
posted by Scram at 11:04 AM on April 1, 2012
« Older how do build closer friendships | When should I consider coming down on condo asking... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by TheGoodBlood at 8:46 AM on March 29, 2012