The Man Who Designed Books

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The Typeflow blog

…is now at typeflownyc.com.

If you’re looking for the fixed-layout readaloud page, that’s here: typeflownyc.com/what-is-a-fixed-layout-readaloud-ebook

See you there!

New Typeflow ad

This campaign will be running in various places in late 2017, into 2018, starting with the next issue of Crimespree magazine. If you know a small press or indie author who might be interested—feel free to forward!

A few recent book designs

Just a few recent books designed and typeset by Typeflow.
Click the covers to see more.

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A Black Man in the White House

Cornell Belcher
Political nonfiction
Book and author featured on NBC’s Meet the Press
And an update:
This book just had a sales spike—
because it was quoted in Hillary Clinton’s new book!

Print and ebook design/production/art direction

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CDI Pocket Guide 2017

Richard D. Pinson, MD FACP CCS, and Cynthia L. Tang, RHIA CCS
Medical billing reference
Followup, CDI Outpatient Guide, coming soon.

Complete redesign of series
Print and ebook design and production

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Harp Security series

Laura K. Curtis
Four-novel series

Print and ebook design and production

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Silver Belles

Various authors
Fiction anthology

Print and ebook design and production

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The Hot Monkey Love Trial

Lawrence G. Townsend
Novel

Print and ebook design and production

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A Kirkus rave for SUPER LEXI!

I’ve been thinking I should get another blog entry up, showing off a few recent TYPEFLOW designs, but Kirkus beat me to it:

See that? “Fantastic series starter?” It also says “remarkable narrative voice,” “facinating protagonist,” and “an excellent chapter book.” Congratulations, Emma! A great client, and a really fun book to design.

One of my favorite little touches: The “Blah blah blah” on the copyright page.

I’ve done production and production design on thirty-leven million of these for Scholastic Books; it’s nice for Kirkus to go gaga over one that says Interior design by TYPEFLOW.

Got a chapter book that needs designing? Drop me a line. I love ’em.

A TYPEFLOW update—and the clients I’m looking for

Books come from authors. Directories come from databases. Both have their quirks. Databases drink less.

I wasn’t sure whether talking about directories here would make me seem less like a book person, but the truth is, I love both. For either, my job comes down to transformation: A novel is transformed from an ugly, unhelpful Word file into something like fine art; a directory is blobs of raw data refined into attractive, functional listings.

Typeflow does both. Here are some examples:

(Click to see a bigger version that you can zoom in on.)

A little about each:

Fancy Food Show Directory
Client: Specialty Food Association

That Fancy Food Show directory underwent a minor facelift and major database change at the same time, but the client was smart; we did a test run months before the next production cycle. So when it was time to create the directory for the Summer 2013 show at the Javits Center, everyone could be confident that the production design end of things would go just as smoothly as always–which it did. This is one of two repeating show directories for which I’ve been responsible for both the database import system and the production design, the other being for the Fashion Footwear Association of New York. (Can’t show that one, unfortunately.)

The Griffin Series
Client: Philip Williams
Genre: Science fiction
Formats: Print and ebooks

In addition to making directories, lots of ongoing work for Scholastic Books (if you have kids, or were one, you’ve owned some of these), writing an educational module about Nook Quality Assurance, and doing a bunch of small-press novels and nonfiction (which I like a lot), I’ve been designing a new science fiction series for Philip Williams, an independent author. The first in the series was released on September 1, with the rest coming soon.

I really enjoy designing a fiction series. For this one, I brought in Elisabeth Alba, whose work I saw in some Scholastic books I typeset, to create the chapter header illustrations.

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Clients I’m actively looking for in 2013/2014:

• Small presses and packagers who wish they had a production department
• Large publishers who need typesetting or ebook production on a contract basis
• Trade associations that need their directories or magazines put together quickly and accurately
• Anyone who does manuals, directories, listings, other long documents. What do you need?

Is that you? Let’s talk.

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I’d like to show you more than just these two jobs, but I can’t fit it all into one blog entry, and I’m too busy to write three or four. Other recent stuff: newsletter production, multi-language medical manuals, big mass-market children’s picture books. If you’ve got something, I’d love to hear from you: keith | at | typeflownyc | dot | com.

Another TYPEFLOW update

August? My last update was AUGUST?

Well, I’ve been busy. Business just keeps getting bigger and bigger and better and cooler. TYPEFLOW has essentially tripled its business in the last two years.

This’ll be quick, because I have to get back to the cool stuff, but—

This week I’ve been working on a bunch of children’s and Young Adult books for Scholastic (fiction and nonfiction, novels and picture books, print and ebooks), wrapping up two print/ebook combinations for two indie presses (design and production), and publicizing Typeflow’s second book of original short fiction (concept, editorial, design, production, and everything else). I can’t share the Scholastic stuff—the biggest actually is kind of a big deal; I’ll tell you about it after it’s out, if I remember—but here are some of the other things that filled up February:

The Muffia

Client: Water Street Press
Genre: Fiction
Formats: Print and ebooks

I’ve designed and produced the interiors of all four of the books you’ll see at their website. (Not the covers; just all the interior work.) This one’s a romantic thriller with a big vibrator angle, so here’s what I did for the chapter openers:

Yeah, I know. I’m very ashamed of myself.

Ride 2: More Short Fiction About Bicycles

Client: Typeflow
Genre: Fiction
Formats: Print and ebooks

The first RIDE did nicely and got noticed; the second one’s now out. (The blog’s here, with print and ebook ordering links, author interviews, and all that stuff. The call for entries for RIDE 3 will happen soon.)

I did both the cover and the interior on this one, with art by Taliah Lempert.

The Forgotten Gift

Client: Elden Nelson (Fat Cyclist)
Genre: Fiction
Formats: Print and ebooks

Because of the bicycling connection, when Elden wanted to publish his late wife’s YA fantasy novel, he emailed me. I took on the project and introduced him to Jenn Reese of Tiger Bright Studios, who did a knockout job on the cover. (I do covers—here are a few—but I knew she’d do this one way better.)

Click to download a PDF of Jenn’s cover and the first few pages of my interior:

(And there are some more teaser pages up at his blog.)

So that’s the quick version of what TYPEFLOW was up to last week.

Maybe it won’t be another six months until the next update—or maybe it will—but if it is, that doesn’t mean things are slow here. It means there are so many cool book projects flooding the gates that I don’t realize how long the blog’s been updateless. If you’ve got a book project in mind and you like what you see here, drop me a line. You might be the reason for the next six months of silence!

A Typeflow update

The reason there’s not much new here isn’t that nothing’s going on; it’s that a huge amount is going on, and updating the company blog isn’t as high on the list as doing the work.

I’ve taken on a large client (Scholastic Books), and I’m doing a lot of work for their trade department. Children’s books and fixed-layout books haven’t been part of of Typeflow’s skill set–but they are now!

My schedule is settling down again. Please drop me a line if you’ve got a project you want to get going.

A few recent cover designs

Three recent projects, for which I did both cover and interior designs. I’ve been so busy, I don’t even have time to tilt these and give them drop shadows.

New fiction anthology: RIDE—SHORT FICTION ABOUT BICYCLES

This is Typeflow’s first original book, a collection of short stories with only one thing in common: Bicycles.

(Why bicycles? We like bicycles.)

In printed books, color interior art is expensive—which is why you almost never see it. In an ebook, though, you can go full-color without any added costs. So each of these stories gets its own full-color “internal cover.”

The printed version has the individual story covers too, but with black-and-white versions of the interior art. (Full-color cover, though.)

Reviews of RIDE have been showing up on popular bike blogs (like this one), and sales have been steady since it came out. We’re kind of thrilled.

RIDE 2 is now in the works!