Est.2016
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Typesetting Mistakes That Make a Book Look Self-Published
publishing
There is a specific look that tells a reader a book was produced without a typesetter. Very few readers could describe it, and almost all of them register it. It has nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with about eight decisions on the page.
The margins are too small and the gutter is too narrow
The most common single error. Text runs too close to the trim edge, and the inner margin does not account for the binding.
The inner margin needs to be larger than the outer one, and how much larger depends on the extent and the binding method. A thick perfect bound book swallows a significant amount of the inner margin because it will not open flat. Type set to a symmetrical margin in that book will be partially unreadable in the middle of the page.
The measure is wrong
Measure means line length. Comfortable reading sits at roughly 60 to 75 characters per line including spaces.
A single column of 10pt type across a wide page produces lines of 100 characters or more, and the eye loses its place returning to the left edge. This is the reason large format illustrated books use two or three columns rather than one, and the reason a novel is the width it is.
Everything is justified with no hyphenation
Justified text with hyphenation switched off produces rivers of white running down the page, because the software has nowhere to put the excess space except between words.
Either turn on hyphenation and set it sensibly, meaning no more than two consecutive hyphenated lines and no hyphenation across a spread break, or set the text ragged right. Ragged right is entirely respectable and is easier to get right.
Widows and orphans everywhere
A single line stranded at the top of a page, or a single word alone on the last line of a paragraph. Both are avoidable and both are visible.
Fixing them properly means adjusting tracking across a paragraph by tiny amounts, or occasionally reworking a line of copy with the author’s permission. It is slow, and it is a meaningful part of what a typesetter is actually doing.
Straight quotes, double spaces, and manual returns
Straight quotes and apostrophes instead of typographic ones. Two spaces after a full stop, a habit from typewriters. Line breaks used to force spacing. Manual indents made with tab characters.
Each of these is a small thing and together they are the clearest signal that a manuscript was poured into a template rather than set.
Hierarchy that does not hold
Chapter openings that vary in position from chapter to chapter. Subheadings that sit closer to the text below than to the text above, or the other way around. Running heads that disappear on some spreads and not others. Folios in different positions on left and right pages for no reason.
The rule is that space groups things. A subheading should sit visibly closer to the section it introduces than to the one it follows. When that relationship inverts, the page stops explaining itself.
The baseline grid is not being used
In a well set book, the lines of text on facing pages align with each other, and captions, footnotes, and image edges relate to the same underlying rhythm.
Without a baseline grid, every element sits where it happened to land. Individually nobody notices. Across 300 pages it reads as untidiness.
Images placed wherever they fitted
Illustrations should sit at consistent positions, usually aligned to the top or bottom of the text block, at a limited number of standard widths. Captions should be one consistent style in one consistent position.
An illustrated book with images at nine different widths, floating at nine different heights, looks assembled rather than designed.
What to do about it
If you are producing more than a couple of titles a year, work with a typesetter. It is not an expensive line in a book budget and it is the difference between a book that looks like a book and one that does not.
If you are setting it yourself, build a proper master page and paragraph style set once, before you place any text, and then hold to it. Most of the errors above are the result of local fixes made page by page rather than decisions made once at the start.
