How Books Are Made

Nov 21 2024 29 ep. 35 mins 16

How Books Are Made Podcast artwork

A podcast about the art and science of making books. Arthur Attwell speaks to book-making leaders about design, production, marketing, distribution, and technology. These are conversations for book lovers and publishing decision makers, whether you’re crafting books at a big company or a boutique publisher.

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To self-publish well, whose help do you need?

Nov 21 2024 12 mins

If you’re writing and self-publishing a book, where should you start? And who do you need on your team?This episode, we’re changing up our usual format with a short, practical answer to a common publishing question. In a whirlwind tour through writing, design, publication and promotion, Arthur explains how a writing coach, editor, proofreader, designer, and distributor can help

What does it take to crowdfund a book? – with Aaron A. Reed

Nov 07 2024 32 mins

The allure of crowdfunding is that you can sell your book before it costs you any money. But that’s harder than it looks!To find out what it takes to run a crowdfunding campaign properly, Arthur speaks to Aaron A. Reed, who has successfully crowdfunded several books, including one of the most well-funded non-fiction books on Kickstarter. Aaron is a writer and a game developer, an

How Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day – with Julia Norrish

Oct 25 2024 57 mins

Children's publisher Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day, then gives them away. And their method is catching on around the world.Book Dash believes every child should own a hundred books by the age of five. They gather creative professionals who volunteer to create new storybooks that anyone can freely translate, print and distribute. Then they work with partners to get

The fine-press printer’s art of not forgetting – with Graham Moss

Oct 11 2024 36 mins

At the heart of everything book-like is a printer, standing at a hand-powered press, turning paper into pages.When you hold a book that’s been typeset in metal, printed by hand on fine paper, bound and sewn with board and cloth, you realise with a visceral whoosh just how much a book can be a work of art.In this episode, Arthur speaks with Graham Moss, the founder of Incline Pres

Fine lines in type design – with Thomas Jockin

Sep 27 2024 35 mins

Everything we read is coloured by its typeface. And humans read a lot, so font choices probably affect more people than any other field of design.In our daily lives, we rarely appreciate how much work goes into good type decisions, and how much energy we spend accommodating bad ones.Every day, by choice or otherwise, we read messages, posters, menus, documents, web pages, and, of c

Risk, reward, and reality for indie bookstores – with Griffin Shea

Sep 13 2024 40 mins

There is no place more universally loved than a good bookstore. For its owner, achieving that is not as simple as it seems.The best book shops are much more than books on shelves and a coffee bar. Behind the tranquillity, its tiny team is buzzing for twelve hours a day, liaising with publishers, distributors, authors, literacy projects, landlords, even local government, trying to b

How editors and ghostwriters make books better – with Tim Phillips

Aug 30 2024 47 mins

Behind every great author is a host of unsung editors. By convention, they don’t get their names on books. What are they doing behind the scenes?A good book needs hundreds of decisions made and pieces organised. For this there are commissioning editors, development editors, production editors, copy editors, permissions editors, assistant editors, and proofreaders. Many books have

Building tools for creative communities – with Hugh McGuire

Aug 16 2024 34 mins

Creative communities can be a powerful force for good. Online, they grow around tools that let people be creative together. What comes first, the tools or the community?Two acclaimed book-making platforms with vibrant communities are LibriVox and Pressbooks, both created by Hugh McGuire. On LibriVox, thousands of people have helped to create audiobooks that anyone can download. On

Managing metadata for drama-free publishing – with Emma Barnes

Aug 01 2024 39 mins

We take for granted that books contain no mistakes, but the absence of mistakes is no small achievement. It takes care, commitment, and very, very good processes.In publishing, even a small mistake can spell disaster. Luckily, there are people who spend careers helping us avoid those disasters, by giving us the words and the tools to care about the details. Their work is not glamor

How do ebooks work at all? – with Dave Cramer

Jul 19 2024 34 mins

Would you believe that the entire ebook marketplace – including Kindle, iBooks, and thousands of ebook stores – depends on the volunteer work of about a dozen people?There are millions of ebooks for sale online, and thousands more every day. How could any human bookseller check that they even work, and that they don’t contain malicious code? The ebook marketplace can only exi