Publishing Layout Design

This post is being crafted and is not yet complete.

Bear with me, 

This information is for people already following the progress.

AG

The First Generation 

Gnome-sized Book Design.

It originated as far back as 2010.

Note that this is a Right Hand Gutter page.

There were actually many iterations of this page design 
leading up to this page

and the components used in this design 
were created basically from scratch.

The Third or forth generation e-Storybook Cover Design.
This was a shared design with the Gnome-sized Books.

Developed after the cover for
Gnomes in a Gnutshell
This is an early version of the inner page.
It was the first experiment for an
e-Storybook
Note the Artwork in the lower left-hand corner (above)
it is a link to the next section.
Depending on the file size and the method of delivery,
some variation of a link may or may not be used.
Initially, this was used for both control and DRM.
There were numerous variations of these designs.

 Here is a promotional shot of the forth Prototype 

of the Hard Copy Books of Volume One. 

As you can see the size and shape 
are quite different from those early pages.

 I will include both early and later inner pages,
 as well as samples of the finished design below,

 including the entire Preface, 
which is important 
to help understand the project as a whole.

This link presents the a narrated version of the entire Preface;

Promotional Sample of the e-Storybook

You can see from this shot that we are producing 

Gnome-sized Books, Big People Books, 
and the e-Storybook - 
Gnomes in a Gnutshell 

 Note that the title information is adjusted for each volume. 

The New Layout is essentially of the same nature, 
but with some significant alterations.

 The Hard Copy Books and the e-Storybook
 have been matched exactly as to size ratio,

but the hard copy books 
need to be scaled to the capacity of the printing press.

That was an issue that only became apparent 
when changes or corrections needed to be made to all the layouts, 

which were each slightly different 
and thus contained in separate files.

Well that was a problem, 
so the last revision was to adjust the Master Layout

to accommodate all three designs.
 You'd think that would have automatically been done.

But no, each product was developed separately,
 for different purposes and had different specifications.

Only gradually did all three layouts intersect, 
thus making it possible and necessary 

to match the layouts for final production.

There have been many subtle design elements 
added to the already extremely complex layout
that have greatly improved the look of both 
the Hard Copy Books and the e-Storybook edition.

It has been a delicate balancing act 
to get those elements to work for both 
the printed and electronic editions.
One does not automatically work with the other 
and you would be surprised to find out
just how many minor adjustments
 are required to achieve such a feat.
There are literally hundreds of elements 
combined to achieve the look of the collection
and there are numerous adjustments 
within those hundreds of elements as well,
all of which need to be cross-referenced.
It has been a daunting task

The size and shape of the new layout is different, 

but  very close to the pages of 
the published Prototypes shown above.
(I posted the final pages on the main blog)

More importantly, the new layout 
approaches the components in a different fashion,
which will allow me to complete the other five stories 
contain within
The Gnomic Tales
in the same format,
without doing all the same layout work again..

It took me, literally, years to come up with the method, 
which is much better than ever before.
 I am rather amazed that it took me that long
 to realize the new layout design,
because if I have employed this method before, 
I would have saved myself those years of difficulties.
I guess it was necessary to get to where I am 
by the pathways that I traveled.

I will update this post when images 
from the new layout are available to me
for use with this computer. 
All my work is done on a Mac.
 This machine is Windows.

Here's an interesting shot;

Thanks for checking in.

AG