Chapter 9

Publishing

The Publishing section builds the book you need from the book you’ve written: a manuscript for an agent, a reading copy, an ebook, a paperback or a hardcover. Each way of building it is a build configuration.

Build configurations

A build configuration says what to build and how: the files it writes, which scenes go in, and how the pages look. A book can have as many as you like, and builds each one the same way every time, so the manuscript you send in March matches the one you sent in January.

A new book comes with four:

The submission is the default: the one the preview shows first. The ebook and the paperback are part of Septangular Publish; without a licence they build as a sample of the first three chapters.

The Publishing sidebar lists the book’s configurations, each with the formats it makes (PDF · DOCX, EPUB, PRINT). Click one to show its page: its name, the scenes it includes, its outputs and the Build button. The default’s page says “(the default)” after its id. Stashed scenes are never built, whatever a configuration says.

To see a configuration’s pages before you build, use the live preview beside the editor (Chapter 3): it can show any manuscript or print configuration.

Building

To build, choose a configuration in the Publishing sidebar and click Build. If anything is unsaved, the button says Save and Build: Septangular saves the book first, as a version, and then builds, so what you build is always a version you can go back to. If the save can’t be made, nothing is built.

When the build is done, the page lists what it made under Built:

• the number of words, and how many scenes were left out by their status;
• each file, with its page count for PDFs and print books, and Open and Show in Finder beside it. Open opens the file in the app your Mac uses for it, such as Preview, Word or Books;
• for a print book, its cover template and the cover’s measurements;
• for a sample, which chapters it holds: “sample: the first 3 of 24 chapters”;
• any problems the build found, such as a cover too small for the stores, a print book too short for the printer, or a newsletter page still linking to example.com. These are warnings: the files are still written.

If the build can’t be made at all, the page says why in red. The usual reasons are a configuration whose scenes are all below its status (“includes no scenes”), a scene or page whose file is missing, and a cover picture that can’t be found or read.

Where builds go

Each output writes one file, named in the configuration. A new book’s configurations write into a folder called build inside the book’s folder, with file names made from the title: build/the-long-tide-submission.pdf, build/the-long-tide.epub. Building again replaces the file. A print book’s cover template goes beside its interior, with -cover-template added to the name.

Septangular also keeps working files in a hidden .septangular folder inside build. You can delete the whole build folder whenever you like; the next build makes it again. Versions doesn’t keep built files, since they can always be built again: the folders your configurations write to are left out of the book’s history. Appendix C describes the rest of the folder.

Making and changing configurations

To change a configuration, click Edit… under its name on its page, or right-click it in the sidebar and choose Edit…. The configuration editor shows every setting on one page. Click Apply Changes to make the change, or Cancel to leave it as it was. If a setting isn’t right (a font size of “huge”, say), the editor says what’s wrong and nothing changes until you fix it.

A changed configuration is part of the book like any other change: unsaved until you save, and undone by discarding unsaved changes. Its id, shown at the top of the editor, never changes, even when you rename it, so the editions it has published stay with it.

To make a new configuration, click + New Configuration at the foot of the Publishing sidebar and choose:

• Blank Configuration: one PDF manuscript in standard manuscript format, with every scene, named “New configuration”. It goes at the end of the list.
• Copy of “…”, for any configuration the book has: the same settings, named “… (copy)”, placed just after the original. A large-print copy of the paperback is a couple of changes away.

Either way the editor opens; click Create Configuration to add it. Its id is made from its name (“Large type copy” becomes large-type-copy). A copy’s files get -copy added to their names, so its builds never overwrite the original’s.

Right-click a configuration in the sidebar for the rest:

All of these are unsaved until you save. Configurations are kept in the book’s book.xml, a few readable lines each; Appendix D describes them, for anyone who would rather change them in a text editor.

The configuration’s settings

The editor’s first group, The configuration, holds:

The next group, What it makes, lists the configuration’s outputs: one or more files, each in a format of its own. A submission, for example, makes a PDF and a Word file from the same text. Add Output adds another (a Word manuscript to begin with: change its format if you want something else), and Remove takes one away when there’s more than one.

Each output has a format and a File, where the build writes it, from the book’s folder. The formats are:

Changing an output’s format keeps its file name, with the new format’s ending, and sets its other settings back to their defaults. An ebook has one more setting, its Theme (Classic, Modern or Plain; classic if you leave it). A print-ready book has these:

Choosing Hardcover for a book whose trim size hardcovers don’t come in changes the trim size to 6 × 9 inches. Paperbacks and hardcovers explains what each setting does to the page.

A configuration that makes an ebook or a print book has an Edition group too: the edition’s name and its own ISBN. See Editions and ISBNs.

How a manuscript looks

The editor’s last group sets how a PDF or Word manuscript looks. Leave a setting empty, or on Default, and standard manuscript format applies: its value shows in grey in the empty field.

Lengths can be in pt, in, cm, mm or em. In the running header, {surname}, {shortTitle}, {title} and {page} are filled in from the Title Page and the page number. In the chapter heading:

So {number}. {title} gives “12. The Lamp Room”. When the heading includes {title}, the title isn’t shown again beneath it.

Ebooks and print books take only Chapter heading and Chapter titles from here; their themes decide the rest. A configuration that makes only ebooks or print books shows just those two.

Manuscripts in standard format

A manuscript is what agents, editors and publishers ask for. With the settings left as they are, Septangular builds it in standard manuscript format:

• The first page has your legal name, address, phone and email at the top left, the word count at the top right, and the title in capitals with “by” and your pen name, centred, all from the Title Page. The word count is rounded as agents expect: to the nearest hundred under 10,000 words, to the nearest thousand above (“about 87,000 words”).
• The text is 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, paragraphs indented half an inch, and no hyphenation.
• The running header, “SURNAME / SHORT TITLE / 7”, is at the top right of every page after the first, which is unnumbered.
• Each chapter starts on a new page, its heading a fifth of the way down. A part has a page of its own.
• Scene breaks are a centred #, and END follows the last scene.

As it builds, Septangular turns straight quotes into curly ones, -- into an en dash, --- into an em dash and ... into an ellipsis. Comments you’ve written in scenes never appear. Appendix B shows what you can write in a scene.

Word files

The Word file holds the same manuscript as the PDF, but leaves the layout to Word: it’s built from named styles (Manuscript Body, Manuscript Quote, Scene Break, Running Header, and Heading 1 and Heading 2 for parts and chapters) rather than formatting on each paragraph. An editor who changes a style in Word changes it throughout, and chapters show in Word’s navigation pane.

Manuscripts, as PDF and Word, are part of Septangular Ink, and always complete. A reading copy is a manuscript with settings of your own: smaller paper, single spacing, a different font.

Ebooks

An ebook is an EPUB file, the format Apple Books, Kobo and Google Play take. Kindle Direct Publishing takes it too, and converts it for Kindle itself.

The ebook has, in order: the cover, if the book has one; a title page with the title, your pen name and the publisher; the front matter; a table of contents; the story, with a page for each titled part and the scenes of each chapter running on with a break between them; and the back matter. The contents list chapters under their parts, and the pages of front and back matter that have headings; the copyright page, dedication and epigraph stay out of it.

Its look comes from its theme:

Readers choose their own font, size, margins and colours, and stores override books that fight them, so no theme sets those and no fonts are put in the book.

The ebook’s details come from the Published editions fields on the Title Page (Chapter 3):

• Cover: a JPEG or PNG picture. The build warns when it’s under 1,400 pixels wide; 1600 × 2560 pixels is the usual size for the stores.
• Description: the blurb readers and stores show.
• Publisher, on the title page and in the book’s details.
• ISBN, which identifies the book. Without one, Septangular makes an identifier from the title and your name, which stays the same from build to build, so a rebuilt book stays the same book on a reader. An edition’s own ISBN takes the place of the Title Page’s.
• Language, such as en-GB; English if you leave it.

The book’s genre goes in as its subject. The ebook also says how it can be read (as text, with a table of contents and headings to move by), for readers that use assistive technology.

Paperbacks and hardcovers

A print-ready book is the book’s interior pages, as a PDF to upload to KDP Print or IngramSpark. Its pages, in order:

1. A half title (the title alone), then the title page with the title, your pen name and the publisher.
2. The front matter: the copyright page on the back of the title page, in small type at the foot; a dedication and an epigraph each on a right-hand page of their own; any other page on a right-hand page.
3. A contents page, if the configuration has one, listing parts, chapters and back matter with their page numbers.
4. The story, its pages numbered from 1. A part has a right-hand page of its own. Chapters open on a right-hand page (or on the next page, if Chapters start says so), sunk down the page.
5. The back matter, each page following on.

The pages before the story have no page numbers. In the story and after it, your name runs at the head of left-hand pages and the title at the head of right-hand ones, with the page number at the foot; pages where something opens have no running head, and pages left blank before a right-hand page have neither head nor number. The text is justified and hyphenated in the book’s language.

Themes

The themes match the ebook’s. All three set the text in Libertinus Serif at 11 point.

• Classic: centred chapter openings, the chapter’s number above its title, the first words of each chapter in small capitals, and spaced asterisks between scenes.
• Modern: left-aligned sans-serif headings, and a short rule between scenes.
• Plain: simple centred headings.

Font and Font size change the text’s type; the font must be on your Mac, and is put in the PDF. Large print sets 16-point type with more space between the lines, ragged right and unhyphenated, as readers with low vision find easiest.

Trim sizes and margins

The trim size is the page’s size. Paperbacks come in the sizes KDP Print and IngramSpark offer, and A5:

5 × 8, 5.06 × 7.81, 5.25 × 8, 5.5 × 8.5, 6 × 9, 6.14 × 9.21, 6.69 × 9.61, 7 × 10, 7.44 × 9.69, 7.5 × 9.25, 8 × 10, 8.25 × 11 and 8.5 × 11 inches, and A5 (5.83 × 8.27 inches).

Hardcovers are KDP Print’s case-laminate hardcovers, the printed cover wrapped round boards, and come in five sizes: 5.5 × 8.5, 6 × 9, 6.14 × 9.21, 7 × 10 and 8.25 × 11 inches. A hardcover’s pages are laid out just as a paperback’s; only its cover template and its page limits differ.

The margins mirror: the inside margin, by the spine, is wider than the outside one. The thicker the book, the wider the inside margin must be, so text doesn’t curve away into the spine:

Septangular lays the book out, counts its pages, and lays it out again if the count moved it into another band. The outside margin is 0.6 inches.

Checks

The build warns when the book has too few or too many pages for KDP Print: a paperback needs from 24 to 828 pages, a hardcover from 75 to 550. A larger trim size or smaller type makes a long book shorter. It also warns when a picture in the front or back matter is too small to print well: pictures print at 300 dots per inch, so one 600 pixels wide prints 2 inches wide, and one that would print under an inch and a quarter gets a warning.

IngramSpark prefers PDF/X files, which Septangular can’t write yet. KDP Print takes the PDF as it is.

Cover templates

A printed book’s cover is one piece, wrapped round it: back, spine and front. Its size depends on the trim size and, through the spine, on the page count and paper. Every print build works it out and writes a cover template beside the interior: a one-page PDF the size of the whole cover laid flat, for you or your cover designer to work on top of. It marks:

• the trim, where the printed cover is cut, with an eighth of an inch of bleed all round;
• the spine’s folds;
• the safe areas, dashed, that text and faces should stay inside;
• the barcode’s place, low on the back cover by the spine. KDP adds a barcode there if you don’t.

The build results give the measurements, to check against the printer’s own calculator: “Cover: 12.22 in × 8.75 in with bleed; spine 0.97 in (388 pages on cream paper).”

The spine’s width is the page count, rounded up to an even number, times the paper’s thickness, as KDP Print’s calculator works it out: 0.0025 inches a page for cream paper, 0.002252 for white or colour. Spines of fewer than 80 pages are too narrow for lettering, and the template says so. IngramSpark’s papers are slightly different, so for an IngramSpark cover, check its own calculator.

A hardcover’s template is the case-laminate cover: two boards, each 5 mm wider and 6 mm taller than the page, the spine between them, and 15 mm of wrap all round that folds inside the boards instead of a bleed. A 10 mm hinge beside the spine on each board, where the cover bends, is kept clear of text. The spine is the pages’ thickness plus 4.8 mm for the boards; colour paper is premium colour, which is thicker. The results say “Hardcover cover:”, with the wrap, the spine and the boards’ size.

Front and back matter

Front and back matter are the pages around the story: the copyright page and dedication before it, About the Author and what to read next after it. Ebooks and print books include them; manuscripts never do. They’re part of Septangular Publish.

In the Manuscript sidebar, Front Matter sits above the book and Back Matter below it. To add a page, click the group’s + (or right-click the group, or click it while it’s empty), or use the + at the top of the sidebar, under Front Matter or Back Matter. A kind of page the book already has isn’t offered again, except Other Page….

Most pages are written: Septangular makes a file for the page in the book’s matter folder, starting from a template with notes on what goes there, and opens it in the editor. Write it like a scene; the notes are comments, which never reach the page. The page belongs to the book once you save. In a picture’s place, put the picture in the matter folder and write a line like ![Photo of me](author-photo.jpg); pictures must be JPEG or PNG. Links work in matter, so a newsletter page can link to your sign-up page; the build warns if it still links to example.com.

Details filled in

In any written page, these are filled in when the book is built:

A line whose detail isn’t set is left out altogether, so “ISBN {isbn}” disappears until the book has an ISBN, and “Published by {publisher}” until it has a publisher. The copyright page’s template writes the year it was made into its copyright line and its “First edition” line, rather than {year}, so they don’t change when you rebuild next year.

Pages Septangular makes

Two pages can be made at build time, with no file of their own. They show “made when built” in the sidebar; click one to see what it will hold.

• Also By, added in a series, lists the series’ name and its books in order, this one among them. Added outside a series, it’s a written page for your own list.
• Next in the Series is the next book’s first chapter, whatever its scenes’ status, introduced as “Here is the first chapter of …, book 2 of …”. In the last book of a series there’s no next book, so the page is left out, with a warning, until there is.

Chapter 10 has more on series.

Your profile

About the Author, the newsletter invitation and Also By are usually the same in every book. Right-click one and choose Save to My Profile, and every new page of that kind, in any book, starts from it, with its photo. Use My Profile’s Version replaces a book’s page with the profile’s, unsaved until you save, so a book under another pen name can keep its own. Your profile is kept on your Mac, not in any book.

Arranging matter

Right-click a page for Move Up and Move Down, Rename Page… for a page of your own, and Remove from Book (Keeps Its File): the page leaves the book, but its file stays in the matter folder. Pages are built in the order the sidebar shows. To keep Back Matter close at hand in a long book, choose Show Under Front Matter from Back Matter’s + menu, or View → Back Matter Under Front Matter; it only moves the group in the sidebar.

A configuration takes all the matter, or none (see The configuration’s settings). A sample keeps the front matter and leaves out the back.

Editions and ISBNs

One manuscript makes every edition: ebook, paperback, hardcover, large print. Each is a configuration, and each can have its own ISBN, as the stores require. In the configuration editor, the Edition group holds:

• Edition: its name, such as Paperback or Large Print. A new book’s ebook and paperback are already named “Ebook” and “Paperback”.
• ISBN: this edition’s own ISBN, digits and hyphens. It replaces the Title Page’s ISBN in this edition: an ebook is identified by it, and {isbn} fills it in.

On the copyright page, {edition} gives the edition’s name, and {isbns} lists every edition’s ISBN, one to a line, each with its edition’s name:

ISBN 978-… (Paperback)
ISBN 978-… (Ebook)

The Title Page’s ISBN comes first, if no edition has it. The copyright page’s template has a line for {isbn}; to list every edition instead, change it to {isbns}. Correct a typo once, and every edition has the correction the next time you build it.

Published editions and errata

When you upload a book to a store, mark it as published, and Septangular keeps exactly the text that went out, to compare with later.

After a whole build of an ebook or print book (not a sample), the page offers Mark as Published… under what was built. Name the edition (the configuration’s edition name is offered) and click Mark as Published, or press ↩; Esc cancels. Septangular marks the version the build was made from: since every build saves first, that’s exactly the text in the files. The mark is part of the book’s history at once.

The configuration’s page lists its published editions under Published, each with its date and What’s Changed Since…. Versions lists them too, as “Published: …” (Chapter 8).

What’s Changed Since… lists every change to the story since that edition: scene by scene, in the book’s order, each change as the paragraphs were (Was) and as they are now (Now). Each scene is named by its chapter and title, with how many words it gained or lost; a scene added since is marked as new, and one taken out of the book as taken out. Click a scene’s name to open it. Only the story’s scenes are compared: not the front and back matter, notes or the Story Bible.

• Compared with is “Now (the latest saved version)” to begin with; choose another published edition to see the changes between the two. Unsaved changes aren’t included until you save.
• Copy as Text copies the list, ready for an errata page, or for checking before you upload a corrected edition.
• Back to Publishing, at the top, returns to the configuration.

Septangular Publish

Manuscripts, as PDF and Word, are part of Septangular Ink, the free app, and are always built whole. Septangular Publish, a one-time purchase, unlocks the rest: ebooks, print-ready paperbacks and hardcovers, cover templates, front and back matter, editions and box sets.

Without a licence, ebooks and print books are built as a sample of their first three chapters, with the front matter, ending with a page that says it’s a sample and how many chapters the whole book has. The back matter is left out. Open a sample on your reader, or send it to your printer’s previewer, before you buy. A sample can’t be marked as published.

The Septangular Publish panel shows on the page of every configuration that makes an ebook or a print book. To enter your licence key, click Enter Licence Key… there, or choose Septangular → Septangular Publish… while a book is open, which opens the Publishing section with the key box ready if Publish isn’t unlocked. With no book open, the same command says whether Publish is unlocked, and to open a book to enter a key. Paste the key, which starts SEPT-, and click Unlock. A key that wrapped over several lines in an email pastes as it is. If the key isn’t right, the panel says why: copy all of it, from SEPT- to the end.

Once unlocked, the panel says whom the licence is for and when its updates run until. The key is checked on your Mac, with no account and no internet connection, and kept there. To move it to another Mac, click Remove Licence from This Computer…, and enter it on the other; keep your key somewhere safe.

A licence includes a year of updates and keeps working for good: it unlocks every version of Septangular released before its updates end. A version released after that says the licence needs renewing for this version, and builds samples until you click Enter a Renewed Key… with a renewed key. The versions your licence covers carry on working whether you renew or not.