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This course includes:

  • 5 hours on-demand video
  • 28 downloadable resources
  • Full lifetime access
  • Access on mobile and TV
  • Assignments
Design Design Tools InDesign

Adobe Indesign for Fiction Book Layout - Complete Guide

Learn how to use Adobe Indesign to create a professional PDF from your book manuscript
Rating: 4.6 out of 54.6 (29 ratings)
111 students
Created by Aaron Linsdau
Last updated 5/2020
English
English [Auto]
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What you'll learn

  • You will understand fiction book formatting.
  • You will learn how to choose fonts.
  • Pro techniques other courses fail to show.
  • How to choose and set margins.
  • How to order sections of your book.
  • Professional workflows and shortcuts.
  • How to avoid amateur mistakes.
  • Downloadable exercise files & check list.
  • Learn how to create PDF files ready for printing.
  • PDF formatting for digital printing.
  • How to work efficiently.
  • What you need for the task and not other stuff that doesn't matter.

Requirements

  • You will need an installed copy of Adobe InDesign CC.
  • No previous design skills are needed.
  • No previous InDesign skills are needed.

Description

Do you need to make a layout for a fiction book for professional publication? Perhaps you are an author and want to learn how the book layout process works so you can make your own PDF. This course is for you! Most other Indesign courses teach lots of extra material that won't help you. This course is specifically targetted to people who want to learn fiction and textbook layout without all the fluff.

  • Walter: "Your course was so helpful. My staff struggled for a month trying to learn Indesign from YouTube. We just wasted our time and missed critical opportunities. Your easy-to-follow teaching style literally hand-held us, taught my team time-saving skills, and saved us $1,000's of dollars in lost revenue. Thank you!" Walter P., Orange and Blue Marketing

From Aaron: "Hi there, my name is Aaron and I've professionally taught Indesign to hundreds of students. I've created hundreds of layouts in Indesign, from simple fiction books to complex guides and textbooks. Together we'll work through real projects will real manuscripts. You'll learn everything you need to know to be successful. This course is filled with instruction that gets you to success fast."

This course will save you from wasting $100's if not $1,000's of your hard-earned money. Many "pro" book layout designers learn from YouTube as they go, wasting your money. Other Indesign contractors charge insane amounts of money. That's why I made this course. It's for people who want to learn fiction book layout or need to do the job themselves.

  • Bethany: "What you just taught me almost made me cry. Before your class, my boss made me change the font in our company book twice. It took me a week. With what you showed me, I could've been literally done in a minute. One week cut down to one minute. I hope others find your course." Bethany R., Outdoor Medical Training School

This course helps you avoid these mistakes:

  • Creating text that's incorrectly spaced out and looks weird

  • Justified text that still looks jagged - pro tips

  • Overload of hyphen breaks

  • Orphans and widows - random text starting a page

  • Wrong hyphens - you probably used the wrong hyphens

It's so easy to make mistakes and not see them during book layout. Aaron has seen books with beautiful covers but the inside looked like a hack job. Trying to do book layout in Microsoft Word will make your book look terrible. Word just doesn't have the right tools.

This course includes:

  • Sample complete manuscripts for practice

  • Sample copyright page text completely free to use

  • Sample word processing program files for challenge assignments

Aaron shares the tricks he's learned over years of doing fiction book layout design. The goal of this course is to teach you how to make your own book PDF and not look like an amateur doing it. You'll learn the necessary skills to make turn your manuscript into a pro PDF.

Manuscript software formatting guidelines include:

  • Microsoft Word

  • Google Docs

  • OpenOffice

  • Scrivener

  • Apple Pages

Even if you used a different program, the instructions for the above software will help you figure out what you need to do. Ask questions in the course forum and Aaron will do his best to help you out.

There are a lot of small but important details in fiction book layout. Avoid making errors with this course. You spent 100's of hours perfecting your manuscript. Don't make the rookie mistake of making your book look like it was prepared by a fifth-grader.

Who this course is for:

  • Anyone wanting to create a professional PDF from their fiction manuscript

  • Aaron's course is for people with no InDesign experience. No previous publishing knowledge required.

  • This course is relaxed and bite-sized. It's broken down into small skills that won't overwhelm you. You only need basic computer skills to succeed.

Aaron Linsdau Learning: Skills. Fast.

Who this course is for:

  • This course is for people completely new to InDesign who want to avoid beginner mistakes.
  • No previous design or publishing experienced is necessary.
  • You want to make your fiction book look professional and have an error-free file.
  • This is well-paced course that will enable you to produce a final interior file to use for printing your fiction book.

Course content

15 sections • 102 lectures • 5h 12m total length

  • Preview01:55

  • Preview01:21
  • Preview01:46
  • Setting up Preferences in Indesign so Everything is Ready to Go
    02:56
  • Creating Your First Project
    03:12
  • Setting Up and Customizing the Indesign Workspace For Your Needs
    05:29
  • Creating and Saving Workspaces
    02:16

  • Overview of Your First Book Layout
    01:34
  • Adding the First Text Box to Your Layout
    02:00
  • Text Box Adjustments & Mini Exercise
    04:22
  • Font Selections and Adjustments
    05:50
  • Text horizontal and vertical positioning
    04:03
  • Snap and Smart Alignment
    02:45
  • Preview Your Layout, Bonus Pro Tip
    03:36
  • Zoom and Navigation Controls, Plus Shortcut Keys
    02:12
  • Pages Panel - Your Book Overview
    01:51
  • Create the Book's Title Page, Pro tips
    06:03
  • Creating the Basic Copyright Page, Bonus Content, Student Challenge
    06:41
  • Preview01:53
  • Generate Filler Text to Start Your Book - Pro Tip
    01:49
  • Body Text Formatting Basics, Pro Critical Layout Tip
    05:34
  • Copying Text Boxes - Pro Tip For Speed
    02:43
  • Pages Panel: How to Manage Pages, Pro Tip to Avoid Errors
    04:27
  • Saving File Formats, Generating a PDF, Sample Included
    06:24
  • Handling Older or Incompatible Files, Samples Included
    02:33

  • Overview of Preparing a Microsoft Word Document for Layout
    00:52
  • Paragraph styles
    03:40
  • Special Characters
    02:39
  • Manage and remove tabs
    02:34
  • Double and triple spaces, spaces before and after paragraphs
    03:48
  • Use a single font
    01:28
  • Paragraph style management
    02:50
  • Tracking and changes
    01:25
  • Grammar and spelling
    00:24

  • Overview of Preparing a Google Docs Manuscript for Layout
    01:01
  • Paragraph formatting and styles
    01:31
  • Finding and removing special characters
    02:32
  • Removing tab indentation from Google Docs
    02:24
  • Remove spaces before and after paragraphs
    01:59
  • How to set to a single font if possible
    02:08
  • Grammar and Spelling
    01:06
  • Exporting from Google Docs for Indesign
    02:13

  • Prepare an OpenOffice Manuscript for Book Layout
    00:59
  • Removing paragraph styles
    01:47
  • Finding and removing special characters
    01:00
  • Removing tab indentation
    01:51
  • Removing spaces before and after paragraphs
    01:26
  • Remove double, triple, etc spaces
    01:34
  • Set to a single font if possible
    02:00
  • Remove tracking and comments
    01:36
  • Using your spelling and grammar checker
    01:34
  • Exporting for Indesign
    02:09

  • Overview of Preparing a Scrivener Manuscript for Layout
    00:54
  • Removing paragraph styles
    03:39
  • Finding and removing special characters
    02:42
  • Removing tab indentation
    02:57
  • Remove spaces before and after paragraphs
    02:54
  • Remove double, triple, etc spaces
    02:46
  • Set to a single font if possible
    01:44
  • Use your spelling and grammar checker
    01:48
  • Exporting for Indesign
    02:06

  • Overview of Preparing an Apple Pages Document for Layout
    01:09
  • Removing paragraph styles
    02:20
  • Finding and removing special characters
    02:49
  • Removing tab indentation
    02:41
  • Remove spaces before and after paragraphs
    01:47
  • Remove double, triple, etc spaces
    02:46
  • Setting a single font if possible
    01:50
  • Use your spelling and grammar checker
    01:55
  • Exporting for Indesign
    02:09

  • Overview of Placing a Manuscript Into Indesign
    00:53
  • Placing a manuscript
    04:59
  • Using File-Place to drop your manuscript into your book layout
    04:14
  • Using Copy - Paste to add a manuscript
    03:52
  • Linked Documents - Pros and Cons
    06:53

  • Overview of the Fundamentals of Indesign Layout
    00:50
  • Move the title and other text to another page
    02:07
  • Text threading
    02:11
  • Breaking up chapters
    04:32

Instructor

Aaron Linsdau
Professional Instructor
Aaron Linsdau
  • 4.2 Instructor Rating
  • 41 Reviews
  • 157 Students
  • 3 Courses

Aaron Linsdau is a professional instructor and has taught hundreds of students over the years. His goal is to make education fun and accessible for everyone. Feedback and continuous improvement are important to him.

He is also a polar explorer and holds the world record for surviving the longest solo expedition to the South Pole, surviving a record 80 days in Antarctica alone during the expedition.

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