A newly printed box of books arrived from IngramSpark. I am delighted with how they look. I did all the re-formatting myself and it was a steep learning curve. But they are beautiful and I love them. Book design is an art.
When I published To Charm a Killer, I sent it out for formatting and it came back looking clean and professional. But I thought: I can do this myself. I have a fair knowledge of desktop publishing. How hard can it be?
It was hard. But I persevered, and I’m quite proud of this edition of To Sleep with Stones. Here’s how it looks with the changes I made to last year’s printing.

 
I added more white space to the top and bottom (margins), eliminated the chapter number, changed the position of the page numbers, and added a drop cap in the same font as the chapter head—this font is Celtic Garamond and I love how it fits the book. My cover designer used it, and I was able to purchase a commercial license for it. I also found a free-use Celtic icon to use for scene breaks that I really like. These are things a reader might not notice, but when you’re designing a book, they’re all important. You can read about my formatting experience here.

The beauty of being an Indie publisher is that you make all the decisions. Yes, it is a steep learning curve that I’m still climbing, but there are times like this, when I can sit back and hold my baby in my hands and just feel good.