Indie Publishing: How to Design and Produce Your Own Book by Ellen Lupton

Indie Publishing: How to Design and Produce Your Own Book Reviews

• 
  Melanie Hughes

  I read this book for my MBA independent study. It was great! I learned a ton in a fun way about publishing. I only gave it 4 stars because I wish it was longer.
• 
  Amy Rhoda Brown

  I picked this up at the bookstore (which I almost never do - most of my books are second-hand, loaners, curb finds or library books) because it seemed very pertinent to my new career as a freelance editor and book production consultant. (Or something, not sure how I'm going to brand that last part.) Basically, I help people self-publish.
  
  Indie Publishing is about self-publishing, covering everything from online print-on-demand services to regular printing services, publishing with a home printer or by photocopier, and even how to make 100% hand-made, hand-bound, one of a kind art books.
  
  There was a lot of stuff in this book that isn't relevant to me: a lot of it is about publishing poetry books, portfolios, picture books and art books, whereas my bag is getting prose to the eyes of readers in as elegant a way as possible. But there was a lot that was useful to me: information about the publishing process, the basic structure of a book, some typography, thoughts on book covers, promotion ideas, a discussion of binding styles... Even a sidebar about how to keep the book-related files on your computer organized.
  
  For such a little book there is a ton of information packed in here, and I'm glad I bought it.
• 
  Princeton Architectural

  Once referred to derisively as "vanity publishing," self-published books are finally taking their place alongside more accepted indie categories such as music, film, and theater. Indie Publishing is a practical guide to creating and distributing printed books regardless of your background, skill set, or ambition. It will help you realize projects of every scale and budget, from the traditional bookmaking techniques used to create zines to the more ambitious industrial production methods required to produce hardcover books in large quantity.
  
  Indie Publishing's special focus on the visual design of books makes it unique among publish-it-yourself manuals. Readers are taken step-by-step through the process of designing a book to give it personal style as well as visual coherence and authority. Design principles such as scale, cropping, pacing, and typography are explored in relation to each example, along with commentary on how to create effective title pages, tables of contents, captions, and more. Indie Publishing aims to inspire readers with examples of print projects similar to those they might undertake on their own. Sample designs include a picture book, artist's portfolio, exhibition catalog, poetry chapbook, novel, and zine. Indie Publishing addresses the important business aspects of independent publishing—from how and why you should get an isbn number to creating promotional materials and using the Internet to market your book. This comprehensive, illustrated guide concludes with a curated portfolio of the most exciting examples of independent publishing from the contemporary scene, reproduced in full color. If you have content to share and you want to give it a fresh and orderly form, this book will kick-start your project and keep you motivated until the ink dries. Indie Publishing is the eighth title in our best-selling Design Briefs series, which has sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide.
  
  
  
  
  Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. She is the author of numerous books, including Thinking with Type (2004), D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself (2006), and Graphic Design: The New Basics (with Jennifer Cole Phillips, 2008).
• 
  Tosh

  One of my favorite type of books are books about ...Books. This is sort of a manual in how to make and design and produce your own books. It is cleverly designed, and full of good details for the upcoming punk publisher.
• 
  Madi

  I had to read for one of my publishing courses. It as informative and interesting. I learned a bunch of new stuff about publishing a book. I liked the way the book was laid out, the different author contributions, and how easy to read it was, not technical where you could barely understand it.
• 
  Patrick

  A helpful book with great formatting. Slightly outdated, give its age, but still has useful information for anyone looking at Indie and Self Publishing.
  
  It would be nice to see the creators involved revisit this work, though it would be sad to see these helpful tips left behind if people see the books' pub. date and think it's irrelevant.
• 
  Kimmie Larsen

  Read for class
• 
  David Katzman

  Indie Publishing: How to Design and Produce Your Own Book is a mildly useful, pretty to look at guide to … doing just what it says. My main issue is that this book is a very high-level survey of many different types of book making that will likely not be useful to most people. The authors spend chapters on poetry chapbooks, zines, picture books for kids or adults, exhibition catalogs, handmade books, and more. It’s rather light in content for each book type so it acts as more of an introduction than a thorough guide to self-publishing. It provides some value by showing visually what some of the other guide books only describe. And they walk you through Print-on-Demand publishing in step-by-step fashion. But they do make one glaring recommendation mistake, which is to not send out many review copies because they can be “expensive.” All the other self-publishing guides I’ve read recommend review copies as the primary and best method of publicizing your book.
  
  Overall, my recommendation would be to skim this book at the library and don’t buy it. It might be inspirational to you, and it might spur you to invest more than you had planned to design an attractive book, and that’s great. It could lift the quality of self-publishing to some extent. But you’ll be spending the cover price on content that you don’t need and pretty pictures. The bible is still [Book: Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual, 16th Edition].
• 
  pinknantucket

  A useful book, and so nicely laid out. As I'm attempting to BE an indie publisher myself, I appreciated the sections like "Nuts and Bolts" (ISBNs and so on), "Anatomy of a Copyright Page" and the crash course in InDesign. There are some good instructions about how to bind books yourself (simple ones) as well. I would have liked a bit more about managing the whole process (scheduling, sourcing stories, editing and so forth) but this book is upfront about coming at the whole thing from a design perspective so I shan't complain on that front. Lots of nice case studies to look at.
  
  My copy: Purchased from Metropolis books upstairs on Swanston Street when I was supposed to be buying a present for someone else.
• 
  Jamie Collins

  Am I planning to publish my own book? More than likely that's the path these trotters will take if any of my morass of pennings materialize into a complete work - Bwahahahahaha! So nice to imagine though. If you ARE one of those impassioned and disciplined folk with an edited manuscript and no dear publisher with the wisdom to recognize the sublime art that you have just slipped beneath their crooked proboscis, then Indie Publishing is an informative resource that will guide from the basics of acquiring an ISBN, to design, style, printing, marketing, and selling to Jane Q Reader. It's also packed with eye candied examples that make it a fun book to just peruse as well.
• 
  Claudie Muchindu

  While this is a helpful book it does seem to offer a lot of initial information that you'd still need to conduct more research on. Great as a starting point though.
  
  EDIT: My opinion of this book hasnt changed. Its a great starting point to help you map your own journey but it wont make your decisions for you and that's great. There are loads of helpful tips in here from bes format of pictures before printing your work to the 'ugliest form of binding'.
  
  Great for people needing a bit of direction but have possibly been overwhelmed by the level of detail online.
• 
  NoBeatenPath

  An interesting book about producing and distributing your own book. It covers how to design a book and then looks at getting it printed - POD (print on demand), going through a publisher and even some instructions on making your own books.
  There is a lot of great information in this book, and most of it is set out clearly. Occasionally it can be a bit too 'hipster/indie' for its own good, but if you are a beginner to the world of how books are made, this would be a good place to start finding out the basics.
• 
  Dea G.

  I want to be an independent publisher, and I thought this book might give me some tools and ideas. It has an arty, depoliticized bent, but does cover some interesting design topics [damnit, I TOTALLY would have forgotten about the endpaper!:]. It also teaches techniques for making books using web software and by hand. Furthermore, it is a very pretty boook, and sometimes I just like pretty books about making books. An InDesign manual might have been more useful, but would it have been more fun?
• 
  Linda Tapp

  I have had this on my shelf to read for quite some time and after reading it, I really wish had read it sooner. I have self-published several books already so much of this information was a refresher for me but I still learned so much more about the design aspects of a good book. When I encourage others to create eBooks and other information products, I will definitely recommend this book as a great guide to the basics.
• 
  K.A. Levingston

  An absolute must-own for anyone considering indie publishing, whether to get a novel out to readers or to hand-make a book for family and friends. Chock full of great information on the physical design of your book, with gorgeous diagrams and easy-to-understand formatting tips and tricks. I'm so glad I snagged this from the library- now to wait for my copy to come from Amazon! :D
• 
  Michelle

  This book doesn't touch on e-books at all, but if you're interested in doing a combo of both or even just the ebook there is still plenty of relevant information that will help in envisioning, designing and laying out your own book. Great easy but thorough read with many brilliant examples from real world indie books.
• 
  Catherine

  Useful, highly visual introduction to different mechanisms for publishing your own books. I found it helpful for understanding some parts of the production process that had been a bit murky before. Recommended!
• 
  Alshaimaa

  love its simplicity.
  different techniques you can use in designing and producing your own book.
  she starts every technique with an example and then moves to the main point.
  I like this strategy, starting with a familiar example and then moves up.
• 
  Michele

  Like I need one more thing to do...
• 
  Ingrid Keir

  This books is GREAT! It takes you through the basics of publishing - a DIY approach and offers helpful illustrations that are easy to follow.
• 
  J

  I'm starting to develop a crush on Ellen Lupton. Her books, website, and down-to-earth advice are refreshing.
• 
  Alethea A

  I liked this book. Experts and Intermediates won't learn much that's new, but newbies will learn a lot. It's well designed, simple in its instruction, and give pretty good basics.
• 
  Amy

  A beginner's guide to publishing their own books -- simple and well laid out. Full review:
  http://pikaland.com/2010/04/16/review...
• 
  Elusive.Mystery

  A decent little book about the basics of book planning and publishing process.
• 
  Lord Beardsley

  This book is a must for anyone interested in book art, making books, graphic design, illustration, art, literature. It will be used as a constant source of reference for me from now on.
• 
  John

  cool-looking. i never made a book, tho.
• 
  Evelyn Pryce

  Very good if you're thinking about self-publishing. Useful examples and some practical information. Very much a starter's guide.
• 
  Ana

  Ensina a fazer um livro de fio a pavio, mas mais na vertente prática. Falta-lhe um pouco mais a parte técnica (normas gráficas etc)