Episode 40: [GUEST] Readability and Visual Branding of Your Book with @rubreart

It’s Part 2 of our podcast series with guest Mariska Maas (@rubreart). This week Elizabeth chats with Mariska about the readability and visual branding of your book. For many authors, it might not be the most exciting part, but depending on your genre, you may be able to have a little bit more fun with it than you think. Mariska has a “Cinderella” approach to her design process meaning she wants to create a one-of-a-kind design for every book. If you haven’t seen her Instagram page, @rubreart, it’s worth it to see her beautiful artwork, even if the covers and book interiors aren’t in your genre. She also emphasizes authors do not need to spend a lot of time on formatting if you have someone helping you, so if this is stopping you in your tracks from moving forward to publish, this is your friendly reminder to ask for help. For listeners of the podcast, she’s offering a 5 percent discount on her services if you book within 3 months of listening. She’s booking cover design and formatting clients into 2025 right now and offers a 3 week turnaround time on the project. Authors, this is a great way to book a service and set a hard deadline for yourself, especially if you are self-publishing. It’s very similar to what would be expected of you from a traditional publisher who wants to stick to deadlines to get your work out into the world. While the interior design of the book might not be the most exciting, it’s certainly the most important because it’s where your reader is spending the most time. Not every genre allows for a lot of design on the interior, but fantasy and romance genres are certainly where you’ll see more of it, and it’s a fun way to give your book a little something extra to delight the reader’s eye. When you’re formatting your book, there are a lot of details to pay attention to with respect to where the text falls on the page, the presence of hyphens, and making sure the beginning and end of chapters are up to industry standards. This is just a small drop of water in a gallon bucket when it comes to all of the details you need to pay attention to for your book. You don’t have to do this part alone, and in fact, it’s advisable to make sure you always have extra sets of eyes on your book or hire a formatter so you can focus on your writing. Of course, mistakes are going to happen. We’re all human and it’s only natural there will be times when a book goes to print and something is missed in the formatting stage. Don’t panic. Breathe. Take the steps to fix the error and move on with your day. For more about formatting the interior of your book and to hear a great strategy for how to get started right now, go listen to Podcast #40 right now! Who is Mariska Maas? Mariska Maas is the owner of the bookish design agency Rubre Art. She is a passionate book designer and illustrator. And has made it her goal to make a Cinderella one of a kind fit design for each and every book that she works on. No matter if it is for an indie author or a publisher, for everyone deserves amazing covers, interior formatting and illustrations. In her free time you can often see her doing arts and crafts, or reading a book from her never ending TBR.
Where can you find Mariska? Website, Linktree which includes the service request form, Instagram,

We invite you to subscribe to our email list to be the first to know about our weekly podcast episodes and upcoming group programs for writers!

If you prefer video versions of the podcast or want to leave a comment on this specific episode, you can find all of them on our YouTube channel.

Transcript

Elizabeth: 0:01

Hello listeners. I am back this week with Mariska Moss. If you missed it, we have a previous episode with her on cover design. And today we're going to be talking about interior formatting. So first I want to say that Mariska is the owner of the bookish design agency, Rupert Art, and she is a passionate book designer and illustrator. She has made it her goal to make a Cinderella, one of a kind fit design for each and every book that she works on. Um, No matter if it's for an indie author or a publisher, everyone deserves to have amazing covers, interior formatting, and illustrations. And in her free time, you can often see her doing arts and crafts or reading a book on her never ending TBR. She's got experience both within the publishing industry itself, as well as her own developed art skills. And she is, has worked on over 80 books last year and is booked out for this year. So. Get on her list guys. I found her on Instagram and was so impressed with her level of presence on Instagram, her regular posting, her beautiful images of her covers, but also, Mariska, you, I don't know how often you end up doing this for your chapter pages, but you have some gorgeous designs. When you look on the inside of the book and you see the chapter pages, that like half page, which is normally like a blank space where it just has the chapter title or number. I mean, you have all sorts of like, just beautiful imagery. Is that typical? Is that a more like, um, fancier design? What, where does that fall in the interior formatting world for you?

Mariska: 1:43

Truthfully, for me, it is very typical that I do everything custom illustrated. For the general publishing industry, not as much. But luckily, it is increasing, especially with the increased amount of special editions, especially in the fantasy and roman genre. So, I am trying to push myself a little bit out there to make that change happen, and I am very much enjoying it.

Elizabeth: 2:04

It's certainly eye catching. I mean, you can't like not flip through the little images that you have either on Instagram or on your website and just feel like, Oh, that looks like a fun book to read simply from the interior, which is wild because usually you think of the cover as being something eye catching. But if I grabbed one of those books because of the, Beautiful cover design which we covered last time And opened it up and saw all those beautiful chapter pages Oh my gosh Like you just know that someone put a little bit more effort and care into that book Which at least in my mind makes it seem a little bit more special

Mariska: 2:43

Yeah, I definitely agree on that aspect. That's also the reason I always used to do it. Because when I started out, I did the more typical, just chapter, and then distressed the text, and I was like, This is kinda, well, not sad, but I was missing the artistry that you always saw on the covers. And why shouldn't the rest of the book match the outside of it? I mean, people are having to look at it for hours and hours, and why not just give them a little bit of extra, or give the author that special little treat of upping their book design by giving them something one of a kind?

Elizabeth: 3:18

I love that. I love that. And I like that you're creating that as sort of a signature thing that you do. And I love and hope, agree that this should be an industry standard. It's beautiful. It's stunning. Um, now we're going to be talking about interior formatting today, and I feel like that's probably At least in most people's minds, the least sexy part about the whole book writing, publishing process. It's something that gets super relegated to the back burner. Um, I know plenty of people that have just taken it upon themselves to format their own self published books or, um, you know, really not put a whole lot of thought into it. But for me personally, as a reader, there's nothing more jarring than seeing, than reading something and suddenly the spacing changes, or there's like a whole bunch of like hyphenated words, and that's what you're looking for and taking care of as a formatter, right? Give me a little idea as a non, someone who doesn't really know a lot about it yet, because I haven't gotten to that point in my own, in my own book. What all are you looking at? What are you fixing? What are you tweaking? What goes into that?

Mariska: 4:31

There are a lot of things that I pay attention to. I think over the last three years that I've been making interior designs, that I've gotten the checklist from one to a hundred on little things to make sure that the book goes out to print. Because even while you're formatting, little mistakes can slip in. They're really, um, Let's just say, as you said, they are an isore, so too many hyphenations, uh, for instance, a chapter ending with two lines on top and having a huge whitespace underneath, um, like for instance, part pages on the left side instead of on the right, or I know for instance like having a double enter where there should not be one indentation that is not done equally, are A lot of things that you can pay attention to. I know I have a lot of tip videos on those things as well. But I think also the easiest way to catch one of those is take the three books that you have from bestsellers that you have in your nearest bookcase and lay them out in front of you and see what do each of them have in common. Like, for instance, chapter, where to put it, the indentation, paragraph separates, and make sure that you put them in your book as well. Because they are the professionals, and although you do want to self publish, you can take a page out of their book make sure that you're up to industry standards.

Elizabeth: 5:52

Very cool. Now, does it really vary a lot, um, based off of genre or is it just kind of industry wide trends as far as like, What you'll see for for formatting

Mariska: 6:06

I think in the fiction classification, the basis for everything is the same. Of course, if you have lecture books or for instance, uh, dictionaries, those are completely different. We do not have to look at those, but fiction has the same base for everything. That is, you have the, uh, A chapter page that starts with most of the time a chapter on top, you start the chapter, this can be done with a drop cap or a single line with no indentation and all the basic paragraphs have an indentation to make sure that the reader immediately knows, okay, this is a new paragraph that's starting. And then you have a paragraph separator for when you have a scene break, so that can be an icon, or three little asterisks. Then you have a line with no indentation, then it just keeps going and going. And the thing most publishers keep in mind is that you don't end a chapter with like two lines on a page, as I mentioned previously. Or that you don't have like, that every word is hyphenated. Because sometimes, depending on the book, if you read through it, you have like, a word hyphenated, next line, word hyphenated, and then Too many hyphenations. I make sure to go through every line. It is a very tedious process. And I'm sorry for all the offers that have to go through of it as well. it does help make readability for your reader better. Although I can imagine if you've gone read through your book like 300 times already that you do not want to do this while into your formatting. Um, but it is worth it. But um, those are definitely things you have to keep in mind.

Elizabeth: 7:34

well And I imagine kind of like you indicated earlier that there there can be issues too with if you fix fix something here It might create another problem, you know three chapters down the road or or whatever or even later in that same chapter um It seems like it could be a really overwhelming thing for a newbie who like really either doesn't know the rules of the industry well because this is their first time writing a book or hasn't done it themselves. Yeah, it just seems like really important visually, but also like a big, big elephant to chew, right? Like to, to think about the, the entire book. What is it that like, in what condition do you expect the author to give you their manuscript? Do you expect them to have gone through and, and done some of this for themselves? I mean, because at some way you have to know like, oh, this is actually supposed to be a scene break within this chapter, like, you're not deciphering that as you read, what, what are you, what's the expectation of, of where the author gets it to before they hand it over to you?

Mariska: 8:47

fully expect an offer to not deliver their product perfectly because truthfully that is not fully their job and that it can be very hard to do so. So I always make sure to send my offers a guide, um, that says like, Oh, do's and don'ts for when you submit your manuscript to your formatter, uh, which is a file I've made over the last few years from, uh, Things that I've got it from offers. I was like, oh, this is actually not that handy But I couldn't blame it for it because I never told them it wasn't So I have like a little list of like like seven do's and seven don'ts and following that list helps me a ton So I tell people hey, if you want any text messages or letters or anything put it in your word document Make a little comment. Tell me. Hey Mariska. I want this to be added or I I want, for instance, a scene break to be here, and then I make sure they specify it with asterisks and not just enters. I make sure they remove all. Older tabs because truthfully tabs can be quite tricky when I work personally from InDesign But even if not, they can just pop up and they have like this big of a space which you don't notice so always do find delete your tabs and also Just to make sure that like italics or anything special just to label it and to remove all the double enters Maybe do double spacing, because truthfully, if you write a full manuscript, I bet in the books that you've already published, there are multiple double spaces if you have not deleted them. So make sure to check for those as well. And after they follow, like, the tidy guide, I have a manuscript that is fully ready to go, and I think it took them three hours to go through it, max, to fix everything. And I will be sure to have a book, uh, sorry, manuscript for interior formatting, Of which very little chance of mistakes is because if you do the prepping well, especially your word document, the chance of Errors is like way more minimized and you have less trouble having to go through the interior formatting later on to check for mistakes. I

Elizabeth: 10:49

That's great. Yeah. And you do, you do put up videos all the time about, especially about the interior formatting and the tips and the tricks for people to use. What are, um. Like major pitfalls or doomsday scenarios.

Mariska: 11:09

think the such a doomsday scenario, I know that the biggest doomsday scenario for every author is if you publish your book and there's a mistake. Truthfully, I've worked with publishing houses and with other people are always gonna happen. I know a book that we've had two editors on, it went for drafts and even as an interior formatter, I would still pick things out. Friends is like a little spelling mistake, and then we published it, and two or three weeks later you get an email from a reader being like, Hey! You know that book that you published? Well, uh, I spotted like three more like mistakes on page this and this and this. Doomsday scenario for every one of you, but truthfully it is very common in the industry and that's why we have reprints two, three, four, etc. Um, products of being self published depending if of course you buy it in stock, but normally for Ingram and KDP you can immediately text your typographer or easier formatter or do it yourself and just upload a new copy with ebooks even easier. And the mistake is easily fixed. So even though it might be a doomsday scenario, no stress, can be fixed, and everybody, sadly enough, still happens to it, including me sometimes. That's always why I have to double check with the authors. Um, and I think, like, pitfalls that I sometimes see is Just depending on the basic layout and I said they don't match with industry standard There are like bigger spaces or they don't want to use hyphenation and suddenly you have this big of a gap where it should be like a way smaller one or Truthfully, I could keep talking about pitfalls For hours. Won't do that, but um, Biggest, easiest thing, if you have done your own interior, just have someone read over it before you send it out, cause you have, your eyes have been looking at it for so long, you need a second opinion. That is the easiest way to, like, prevent pitfalls as well. I

Elizabeth: 13:07

Well, and you had mentioned, you know, the KDP before, I know that they will give you like once you put it on there and before you have it, Amazon set to sell it, you can get like an author's copy. So you can see it like in print and see exactly. So you're not necessarily looking at the computer screen anymore. You're now holding it in your hands and you're able to actually see it as your readers going to see it. And I think even seeing it in that format could help, help your eye catch things that maybe it wouldn't notice on a screen so easily.

Mariska: 13:38

absolutely would recommend everyone to get a printed proof copy, because I know for instance once that I knew an author who had something in the files for publishing and suddenly the italics of the R had become little dots because somehow the font had not been embedded. So the PDF looked amazing. But somehow, when printing, the italic R's have disappeared. Uh, easily fixed, but without getting a proof copy yourself, you wouldn't have noticed. As well, for instance, with margins, uh, like the little white space on the outside and on the inside. your computer, it might look fine, but unless you have a printed copy and you're able to open a book, especially with these really thick ones, you won't know if you have enough space, or for instance, your text is disappearing into the spine. well, for instance, the adding of images. Thanks. Images are really amazing. Definitely recommend adding maps or character art or anything in your book. But you also have to make sure that the print quality is, is, is up to par. Like, text, most of the time, prints completely fine. But with images, you have to check if they're good enough quality, if they print well. And approved copies, always, also definitely recommended for that. text. They're really pretty to have on your shelf and it's like a limited edition for for just you So also nice in that aspect.

Elizabeth: 14:51

I love that. Now, what, especially those who try to DIY this, this step, what do they need to be mindful of in regards to licensing and fonts?

Mariska: 15:03

Yeah, licensing sounds way more intimate than it is. I know it's a very legal thing But licensing, the basics comes down to it is that you're allowed to use a font or an image for a certain purpose. most of the time if you're publishing, which you are commercially doing because you're trying to make money off it, you need a commercial license. Um, for images, you can easily get it from like, uh, photostock images or pixels or another website. And you can buy a license for an image starting from one euro to free, depending on where you purchase it. And the same goes for fonts. There are a lot of options for free fonts. There are some fonts that you can just buy for once for like 30 bucks and you can use it forever. you can, for instance, buy it as a license. Like, I know I personally use Adobe. I pay a monthly subscription fee and I can use all the fonts in our database for ebooks, for prints, a really good option. Personally, if you're just doing one book a year, Adobe's not recommended because it's too pricey for months. For me personally, as a designer, absolutely great. Otherwise, a bit out of your budget most likely. Uh, and I would just recommend Google Fonts. It's completely free. Uh, I know Creativa Fabrica has multiple freebie fonts. Um, so if you want great fonts on a budget, just make sure you Google commercially free fonts. And I know there are a lot of fancy fonts that are just free. It's absolutely gorgeous out there.

Elizabeth: 16:31

Oh, fun. Right, too, and that's the other thing, like you just mentioned, fantasy fonts, making sure that the fonts, too, are appropriate for, Your genre and being aware of that too, which you are as someone who does this professionally but maybe someone who You know is writing in a certain genre, but just happens to like a more curly Q font That might not be appropriate for the genre that you're writing in. So keep that in mind as well listener Um, well amazing. for talking to us about interior formatting Mariska is offering a 5 percent discount as a promotion for anyone of our listeners. If you fill out for her form within the next three months. So any of our services, whether that's cover design or interior formatting or illustrating that you're looking to do, if you use the code IWC5 within the next three months, you can get 5 percent off. Um, What is the current wait time and how long does it take you to do the interior formatting for, say, like, uh, I don't know, 100, 000 word book.

Mariska: 17:42

So currently my wait time is starting to reach out into 2025. So I'm fully booked for 2024. Very privileged to be able to say that because I've been, I'm allowed to work with very many amazing in the offers. but if your book is coming out in 2025, I can usually have it done within a three week time slot. So you can send me an email or a request and then we can see what timeframe works for you, when your deadline is and when I will be able to fit a person in.

Elizabeth: 18:12

Amazing. Now, for those who are, um, self publishing and maybe haven't They haven't finished their, their manuscript yet, and they want to get on your calendar for the cover design, for the interior formatting, that sort of creates a little bit of like self imposed deadline for them, right? So it's like, you gotta have your, your, you know, at least your manuscript finished by this point, so I can do your interior formatting in this block of time, right? Or is there a little bit of wiggle room, or how does that work?

Mariska: 18:44

Um, I would prefer no wiggle room truthfully, because as I said, I tend to book out six months in advance. But in case that it is needed, I might be able to discuss something if I have the availability. Preferably keep to the deadline that you have and otherwise let me know in advance and then we can see what we can arrange.

Elizabeth: 19:06

Right. Very cool. Well, thank you once again for joining us listener. We hope you've enjoyed this two part series. You can follow Mariska on her social media. She's on Instagram and Tik TOK with weekly tip video. She also has an email list. Um, visit her website. You can see wonderful testimonials and examples of both the cover designs and those engaging chapter pages that I mentioned on that interior formatting. Thank you again, Mariska, for being here for these two episodes. Um, and hopefully we get some beautiful interior formatted books out there and we can continue to enjoy our reading experience, right?

Mariska: 19:48

Yes, absolutely agree. Thank you for having me.