So, the first step in book binding is digital. Getting the work and front matter, scrubbing it for anything you don’t want, and typesetting what you do want to make it look right. (Or at least how you want it to look.)
That means deciding what size you want to print at (because that determines how many lines will fit on a page), formatting the title page, adding the front matter information about where and when it was published, setting up headers or footers for page numbers and the title and author, all that stuff that makes it look like a Real Book TM.
Oh hey, I’ve already had to pick a font for my title, the author name, the front piece, decide on formatting for that. And I made the art for the title page there too.
Picking fonts and sizes for my body text, chapter headings, and deciding if I want to use a drop cap.
This fic was pretty straight forward. Not a lot of texts to format. No poems. Those are both things that have come up in some of my other typesetting.
But I did need to decide if I was going to use book ornaments, and if so, which ones?
In the end, I decided to do the only choice that felt right for this fic. Make my own. This is a fic about hiking the Appalachian Trail! Scrolls and Flourishes are pretty, but not really the right vibe.
What is the right vibe? I’m glad you asked.
Making a divider line of boot prints, adding a trail marker stamp at the end of chapters, and chapter ornaments based on the trail signs.
Currently, this piece is still all in different colors for each different style I’m using for fonts. It allows me to check which style looks like what easily and make changes to large amounts of text by changing the style. Before printing, I would change the font color to black.
But I’m not ready to print yet.
For a couple of reasons.
I have a couple of pages of blank space, which I could just leave at the back of the book, no problem. Or I could draw something else to go with the fic and fill it out. I have to decide which I want to do.
But more than that, before I print it, I need to actually make the binding tools and get things ready for the physical binding.
