Blog (page 19)

A Friend Writes: It was a hot, dry day in Printer’s Gulch. Slatch Greems sat on the front porch of The Painted Lady Bookstore, thumbing through a weathered copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. He was trying to figure…

Selecting a paper color or weight isn’t something most authors have ever thought about. If you’ve had experience designing books, then you know how paper affects the look and feel of your book, but most self-publishers haven’t given it much…

You can’t judge a book by its cover, or so the popular expression goes. But we do. We can’t help it! A good cover draws us in and makes us curious, both important elements when trying to entice a potential…

I always enjoy learning about the kinds of work women have done in industry and trades. Recently, I found this online exhibit at Princeton. It’s called Unseen Hands: Women Printers, Binders & Book Designers. According to one entry about the…

So, the heavy lifting is over. You’ve found your voice, opened yourself to criticism from friends and family, found a place to print your book, and maybe even learned a little bit about paper, page layout, and cover design along…

Thursday afternoon we were pleased to host visitors from Spain. Maria Dolores Bordes, owner of  Libreria Central, a bookstore in Asturias, Spain, and Francisco Javier Melon, a book distributor, also from Spain. They stopped by with friends Susan Novonty and…

Yesterday I received a query from a man who has written a family history. Not unusual. His project, however, is a whopping 700 pages, and he would like it to be printed as a hardcover book. As we conversed, I…

If you have a fond childhood memory of books/ bookstores, you’ll enjoy the “Quotation of the Day” that I picked up from this morning’s Shelf Awareness (Daily Enlightenment for the Book Trade). Worth repeating, reprinting, even committing to memory: As…

I spent Friday in Ithaca for the NYSHAC – New York State Historical Association Conference. The three-hour drive out that morning was ambitious, but with over 150 passionate NYS historians all in one place, it was definitely worth it! I…

Hello from The Troy Book Makers! After 4 successful years, we’ve decided it’s finally time to start blogging. Publishing has taken some pretty radical twists and turns recently, so we’d like this blog to be a place self-publishers can come…