Just like all the other aspects of publishing, the book printing process has its fair share of esoteric terms too. Here are just some you may encounter.

Acid-free paper

When paper manufacturers started mixing bleach into wood pulp and water to create white paper, they were dooming the materials that would use that paper. Lignin, a chemical compound within wood, interacted with the bleach to create hydrochloric acid, which slowly but surely turned the paper yellow and brittle as it aged. But thanks to a 1930 report by American chemist and librarian William Barrow, and the calls for standardization by some publishers and authors, much of today’s commercially produced paper is acid-free and can weather 200 to 300 years—seven to ten times more than the lifespan of acidic paper.

Case binding

Considered to be the most expensive and most durable type of binding, case binding allows a book to lay flat and involves several steps to protect against heavy usage:

• A cover is made out of durable cardboard or lightweight wood and covered with cloth, leather, or vinyl, then set aside;
• The book pages are arranged in order, and the signatures are sewn or stitched together to form one block;
• The book block is trimmed down to the desired dimensions; and
• Glue is applied to the book block’s spine, followed by a strip of fabric, and the hardcover case is finally wrapped around the book block.

Digital printing

Digital printing works by electronically transferring the digital files to be printed to the press, which then applies ink directly to the paper in a single go. It has been synonymous with print-on-demand because of its low setup expenses, speed (no printing plates needed), and convenience of not having to print a huge number of copies at once for you to recoup your investment. However, each book would cost more and have lower quality than if it were made using offset printing.

Offset printing

Majority of the cost of offset printing is owed to the creation of new printing plates for each print job. These metal plates are used to transfer ink onto a rubber sheet, which is then rolled onto paper. But after the costly setup, offset costs you less as you print more books. It also produces high-quality prints and allows for bigger trim sizes.

Paper weight

Paper weight refers to the thickness, or “caliper,” of paper stock, and can be measured with three units:

• Grams per square meter (GSM): an exact measure of the thickness or weight of paper; used across all paper types
• Point (pt.): typically used to measure cardstock paper; one point is equal to 0.001 inches 
• Pound (lb.): the weight of 500 “parent sheets” of a particular paper type

Perfect binding

Perfect binding covers are made from heavy cardstock paper which is often laminated or coated to provide more durability. The cover and pages are then glued together with super strong glue.

Trim size

Trim size refers to the dimensions of a book’s pages (in width × height) after a very large sheet of paper has been folded and trimmed. In the US, industry standards are usually based on the book type:

• Hardcover books range from 6” × 9” to 8.5” × 11”
• Trade paperback books range from 5.5” × 8.5” to 6” × 9”
• Mass-market paperback books tend to be around 4.25” × 6.87”

By genre, these are the common sizes:

Be sure to check out how we format our print books and handle offset printing. You can also explore our paper, trim size, and binding options.

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Love stories can usually be spotted a mile away, and yet they constitute a billion-dollar industry.

Readers keep picking up romance novels because of the irresistible tropes—or conventional plot devices, themes, and the like—that romance authors commonly use. Simply making your own iteration of a well-worn trope doesn’t guarantee success, though. Audiences applaud love stories that draw them in with the familiar and then take them to new, exciting, unfamiliar territory.

Make a good love story by using one (or more!) of the following tropes and making it your own.

When they’re Destined to be Together

The universe is sending all the signs that they’re meant to be, but things are never that simple.

When they’re in a Love Triangle

You know what they say: three’s a crowd. Usually one of them ends up getting hurt, but sometimes everybody loses.

When it’s Forbidden Love

Family, culture, geography—something—dictates that they can never be together, but they’ll be damned if they won’t try.

When they get a Second Chance

Maybe their exes made them swear off love, maybe they’re each other’s exes. But it’s never too late to try again…

When they say “You’ve Changed”

They’ve been together for a while now, but something happens to make one or both of them realize that they’ve fallen out of love.

When they’re Stuck Together

They barely know each other—or worse, they hate each other—and now they have to get through an experience together.

When Friends Become Lovers

They’ve known each other since childhood, and now something’s different…

When Enemies Become Lovers

They’re complete opposites and/or they hate each other’s guts, but then a pivotal moment starts making all the ice melt away.

When they’re in a Fake Relationship

For convenience, they pretend to be in love. But the acting soon becomes too real to ignore.

When one of them’s a Secret VIP

One of them’s a bored royal or billionaire who descends to the realm of ordinary people in disguise, and the other—not knowing who they’re talking to—treats the VIP like anyone else, which makes the VIP fall head over heels in love.

Which one of these tropes will you be trying on for size?

The post What makes a good love story appeared first on AuthorHouse.

Whatever your genre, you’re sure to benefit from writing apps. The trick to supercharging your daily writing is to find a mix of apps that works for you. We recommend the following:

For enhanced typing

Grammarly

Compatible with: Android & iOS

“Better emails, clearer texts, mistake-free tweets. Write confidently in every app.”

Grammarly is a writing assistant that suggests corrections and detects your tone. The developers also allow integration with your phone’s keyboard for polished writing on the go.

Gboard

Compatible with: Android & iOS

“Gboard has everything you love about Google Keyboard—speed and reliability, Glide Typing, voice typing, and more.”

This keyboard app lets you multitask with its voice typing feature. No need to put off that idea that came to you while you were washing the dishes.

For planning and focusing

Todoist

Compatible with: iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, & more

“Ranked as ‘the best to-do list right now’ by The Verge, Todoist is used by 20 million people to organize, plan and collaborate on projects, both big and small.”

Todoist is a task manager that can contain all your outlines and daily writing reminders.

Bear

Compatible with: iOS & Mac

“Bear is a focused, flexible notes app used by writers, lawyers, chefs, teachers, engineers, students, parents and more! Bear has quick organisation, editing tools, and export options to help you write quickly and share anywhere and preserve your privacy with encryption.”

This app has such an uncluttered design that writing on it feels like inscribing your story on premium paper with a fountain pen.

Journey

Compatible with: Android & iOS

“The #1 Motivational Journal App”

More than a journal, this app gives you an inspirational writing prompt every day to keep you centered as well as creative.

Forest

Compatible with: Android & iOS

“Forest is an app that helps you stay focused on the important things in life.”

This app asks you to plant and nurture a virtual tree. As long as you keep working on your manuscript, you keep your tree alive. The developers also partnered with a tree-planting organization to plant trees whenever users spend virtual coins in the app.

For mixing things up

The Brainstormer

Compatible with: Android & iOS

“The Brainstormer is kindling for creative minds. A tactile tool to randomly combine a plot, a subject and a setting or style, the Brainstormer provides a moment of inspiration for writers, painters, or any creative mind. Combat creative block, spark new ideas and summon up quick subjects for doodling, sketching or journaling.”

This app lets you generate writing prompts when you spin three wheels for plot/conflict, theme/setting, and subject/location.

Character Story Planner 2

Compatible with: Android

“Every character has stories and every world has histories.”

Geared towards players of table-top role-playing games, this app can also be used by writers like you to plan out characters, scenes, locations, and more.

For fine-tuning

Ludwig

Compatible with: Mac & Windows (mobile version coming soon)

“Ludwig is the first sentence search engine that helps you write better English by giving you contextualized examples taken from reliable sources.”

If you think your sentences sound awkward or you’re not sure how to use a certain verb, you can take your cue from established media sites, scientific journals, and official documents through Ludwig.

Hemingway

Compatible with: Mac & Windows

“Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear. It’s like a spellchecker, but for style. It makes sure that your reader will focus on your message, not your prose.”

Despite his adult audience, Ernest Hemingway wrote stories that are actually readable to fifth graders. The Hemingway app judges which U.S. grade level is required to understand your text. The lower the level, the clearer—and more effective—your text.

We hope you can find the time to explore our recommended apps. A good combination of these will surely optimize your daily output and help you reach your goals.

The post Apps that can supercharge your daily writing appeared first on AuthorHouse.

As a writer, you are always told to show, not tell. And what better way to show your Yuletide spirit over family video calls than a festive background?

We’ve been endlessly creative when it comes to adapting to pandemic restrictions, and the holidays should be no different. But if all you want for Christmas is to relax, you can do so with backgrounds. There’s no need for you to clean up your house and decorate when you have a perfectly neat image behind you that lends the right amount of festivity to the occasion.

Do take note of Zoom’s instructions for setting up your background on your desktop computer. You must also sign out of the Zoom Desktop Client and sign back in for Virtual Backgrounds to take effect.

Now, take your pick from the images we’ve collected for you. Right-click on any of them and select Save Image As to download and enjoy.

1. Christmas Eve in the living room

Imagine being with your family in this cozy space, waiting for the clock to strike twelve.

2. Décor galore

Wear an ugly Christmas sweater to add to the silliness!

3. Cozy library

No need to whisper while you’re using this one.

4. Wintry drinks

Hot chocolate? Eggnog? Wine? Whiskey?

5. Poolside affair

Take your family on an impromptu tropical getaway. Goodness knows everybody needs one.

6. Snow-covered park

Hear the crunch of freshly fallen snow under your boots and feel the cold wind against your cheeks.

7. Strolling through the marketplace

Fancy walking among the open-air stalls of a Christmas market in Vienna?

8. Central Park

Remember to bring your ice skates!

9. Northern Lights

Now this is a lights show.

10. North Pole

You might bump into St. Nick himself.

Don’t forget to take screenshots and tag us on Facebook!

The post Backgrounds you can use in your holiday Zoom calls appeared first on AuthorHouse.

Whether or not you’ve managed to have your book published by now, it pays to keep a few things in mind. In anticipation of that, we’ve posed some questions to our resident experts in the company’s marketing department.

AuthorHouse: How do I communicate my book design ideas to my designer?

Cheryl: The most important step is for the designer to have a good idea of what your book’s about. This will help him/her understand your vision of the world you created. Next step is to understand the demographic of the reader; this can be achieved through research. And lastly, feedback. This step can be fun. Bouncing off ideas to each other can lead to more and more ideas which you yourself never thought of. Creatives are an enthusiastic bunch! This often takes time but this is how collaboration and teamwork goes.

Cheryl has been our design supervisor for 4 years. She handles the visual branding in various projects for AuthorHouse.

AuthorHouse: What should I keep in mind when optimizing my social media platform?

Jessa: Every social media strategy would really depend on your goals and objectives, so always start by ensuring you have a clear goal and objective. Keyword research is a must to know what topics, keywords, or even hashtags your audience uses to find information about your industry. Optimize your content for your audience (e.g., test your headlines since this is the first thing your audience sees when finding your content in any social site). You should also find the right time to post content to maximize engagement. These are just some of the many things to keep in mind when optimizing your social media platform.

Jessa has been our SEO specialist for 3 years. She’s responsible for helping us gain organic and paid traffic on our website.

AuthorHouse: Is an author website necessary for my marketing efforts?

Jackie: Yes. A proper website allows you to have your own platform where you can share activities, upcoming events, or other books on the way. But more importantly, it boosts your credibility as an author. How often have you searched for an author and thought twice about buying their books when you couldn’t find a dedicated website in their name? Conversely, how impressed were you whenever an author turns out to have carved out a space for themselves in the vast virtual world?

Jackie has been our assistant manager for 3 years. She oversees our team’s tasks and liaises with other heads in our department.

***

The great thing about self-publishing with us is that our authors don’t have to be experts at all the aspects of creating a book—we’ve got in-house experts to take care of everything for you.

For more in-depth guidance, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our publishing consultants at 833.262.8899. They’ll be happy to point you to the exact service that you need. You can also get started by signing up for a free publishing guide.

The post Our experts in SEO, design, and marketing offer some pro tips appeared first on AuthorHouse.

What is the setting of a story? Put simply, it’s the place and time in which things happen. But setting can be much more than the spatial and temporal aspects of a narrative.

Why is setting important in literature?

You’d think that setting is like the theme of a story—something that simply arises as the story unfolds—but it can actually go so far as being a character unto itself. It can be more than just the backdrop, and while a picture paints a thousand words, you don’t necessarily need a thousand words to paint a picture. You can start out with a whole metonymical intro about two Italian households that are both alike in dignity, or you can pull a Samuel Beckett and simply say, “A country road. A tree. Evening.”

Either way, in so many words, you will have helped the reader get a feel for the mood of the story, which in turn helps them imagine the world they just entered and stay longer in it.

So what does setting mean in a story, exactly?

It’s a somewhat complex literary concept with more than one definition. There are a number of ways to think about what setting means: what it comprises, whether or not it’s interchangeable, and what it brings to the story.

What it comprises. Setting can mean each of these components or the sum of all of them:

Place. Geography (land masses, oceans); landscape (mountains, valleys); urbanization; indoors/outdoors; Earth, outer space, or a fictional location

Time. Daytime or nighttime; the past, present, and/or future

Culture. Diversity, wealth (or lack of), progress (or lack of)

Change. Eventual (seasons, town construction) or sudden (a thunderstorm)

Going back to the picture analogy, it depends on how much you zoom in. How much detail is visible to the reader? And how much do these details (or the lack thereof) affect the way characters think and act?

Whether or not it’s interchangeable

Deep in the Hundred-Acre Wood

Where Christopher Robin plays

You’ll find the enchanted neighborhood

Of Christopher’s childhood days

Although the Hundred-Acre Wood is an iconic setting, it’s possible that the stories of anthropomorphic teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and friends could be transplanted to any other setting and still work, making the Wood a sort of backdrop. A setting is more of a backdrop when you’re conveying it vaguely to give it universality and timelessness.

On the other hand, Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl has what’s called an integral setting since the narrative is situated squarely in 16^th century Tudor England.

What it brings to the story. Now we’re entering award-winning territory. Many authors are praised for their capability to create a setting with heaps of believability, eccentricity, or relatability. When you define the environment, create a culture, spell out rules and laws, and basically establish a whole world, you’re on the right track.

Let’s do a world building exercise.

Picturing a setting can be difficult, even for wordsmiths, which is why you need to work extra hard to know all the details of your setting. Let’s start by covering every single aspect. Too many words about setting can actually alienate your reader, so eventually we’ll stop expanding your world and pare it down to your preferred level of detail or the level of detail that your story necessitates.

Begin by searching Google or Pinterest for a picture that somehow represents your story. Out of the billions of images and illustrations on the internet, there’s bound to be at least one that matches the tone or mood that you’re going for.

When you’ve found your picture, think about why it called out to you, and try to answer the following questions:

• What’s the tone of your story?
• What would you absolutely want to see in the world of your story? Visualize its geographical features, qualities, weather. Populate it with as few or as many beings as you like, and think about what those beings look like and how they behave.
• What’s the nature of your hero (or antihero)? Where do they live? How do they dress?
• How would your protagonist interact with the world? What is their relationship to it and the people around them?

As you build on the tone of your story, try finding more pictures to create a setting board. These are the following you may want to find:

• People who look like your characters (physical features, outfits, etc.)
• Furniture, houses, buildings, etc.
• Evocative art pieces

Hopefully this simple visual exercise will help you envision your setting more clearly.

***

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in character and plot that we forget the world they’re ensconced in. You don’t have to be able to answer every question about your setting, but grounding yourself in visual cues will help you give your reader a story to remember.

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Then again, ending a book is more than just writing “the end.” It can even become a chore too, what with all the parts you have to figure out. Let us help you with that.

Some time ago, we covered the basic difference between an epilogue and an afterword, but here we’ll list and define all the things that readers can expect to find at the end of a professionally written book.

The post Ending Your Book Professionally appeared first on AuthorHouse.

Now we’ll present the final three tips for improving the dialogue in your self-published book!

3. Be Discerning with Dialect and Slang

The general rule of thumb regarding dialect and slang is “less is more.” Scotsmen do not have to talk as though they are reciting a Rabbie Burns poem, Frenchmen do not have to sound like Inspector Clouseau, and not every Cockney talks as though they were born hugger mugger to the sound of Bow Bells. Instead, you can modify your character’s speech to give a suggestion of dialect so that your readers can imagine how they sound but still understand what they are saying.

4. Punctuate for Professionalism

In order to produce the most professional manuscript you can, your dialogue needs to be punctuated correctly. Make sure your dialogue:

– Begins on a new line whenever there is a new speaker.

– Has quotation marks around the words. US standard is to have double quotation marks and UK standard is single. Just make sure you are consistent once you have chosen which to use.

– Has punctuation inside the quotation marks.

– Ends with a comma before a dialogue tag or with a full stop before an action.

5. What Can You Improve Upon?

Make sure you read your dialogue aloud when you are editing it. If it doesn’t flow or sound authentic when you are saying it, it will not come across as such to your readers. Look out for tired clichés, and register the rhythm and pacing of your story. Also ensure that your dialogue is contributing to your story by making sure it is performing at least one of its six functions, as outlined in the first part of this series.

The post Five Areas for Improving Your Story’s Dialogue (Part Three) appeared first on AuthorHouse.