How Books Are Made

If you’re writing and self-publishing a book, where should you start? And who do you need on your team?
This episode, we’re changing up our usual format with a short, practical answer to a common publishing question. In a whirlwind tour through writing, design, publication and promotion, Arthur explains how a writing coach, editor, proofreader, designer, and distributor can help your book do its job – and what it means to be the centre of your fan community.
Links from the show:
Arthur’s list of writing coaches recommended by trusted sources
Electric Book Works

The allure of crowdfunding is that you can sell your book before it costs you any money. But that’s harder than it looks!
To find out what it takes to run a crowdfunding campaign properly, Arthur speaks to Aaron A. Reed, who has successfully crowdfunded several books, including one of the most well-funded non-fiction books on Kickstarter. Aaron is a writer and a game developer, and the author of 50 Years of Text Games. Right now, he’s in the middle of another crowdfunding campaign, for his role-playing-game kit Downcrawl 2e.
Links from the show:
50 Years of Text Games
50 Years of Text Games Kickstarter campaign
Downcrawl 2E on Backerkit
Subcutanean
Aaron A. Reed’s website
Electric Book Works

Children's publisher Book Dash makes beautiful books in a single day, then gives them away. And their method is catching on around the world.
Book Dash believes every child should own a hundred books by the age of five. They gather creative professionals who volunteer to create new storybooks that anyone can freely translate, print and distribute. Then they work with partners to get those books to preschool children and their families to own.
In this episode, Arthur wears his Book Dash co-founder hat, and speaks to its outgoing Executive Director Julia Norrish about how and why their ambitious approach to book-making actually works.
Links from the show:
Book Dash
Research on the difference that books make in children’s homes
Book Dash’s latest event in Johannesburg
Book Dash’s event in Bologna
Electric Book Works

At the heart of everything book-like is a printer, standing at a hand-powered press, turning paper into pages.
When you hold a book that’s been typeset in metal, printed by hand on fine paper, bound and sewn with board and cloth, you realise with a visceral whoosh just how much a book can be a work of art.
In this episode, Arthur speaks with Graham Moss, the founder of Incline Press in Oldham, near Manchester in England. Incline Press works with poets and artists to make limited-edition books with hand-set, metal type on vintage machines. This year, Graham was awarded the prestigious Cobden Sanderson Award from the Society of Bookbinders for his work in hand printing and publishing.
Graham’s deep knowledge and rich story-telling is a joy to learn from, and reminds us that, no matter the technology we use, book-making has always been about people, love, and dedication.
Links from the show:
Incline Press
Incline Press on Instagram
Video: Graham Moss on the Arab Press
New Borders: the working life of Elizabeth Friedländer in the University of Victoria vault library
Elizabeth Friedländer’s ‘Elisabeth’ typeface on Bauer Types
Video: Graham Moss on Memento Mori : Memento Vivere
Video: Page-by-page review of Memento Mori : Memento Vivere by Ubiquitous Books
The launch of Punch & Judy
Liverpool Book Art exhibition, October 2024
Electric Book Works

Everything we read is coloured by its typeface. And humans read a lot, so font choices probably affect more people than any other field of design.
In our daily lives, we rarely appreciate how much work goes into good type decisions, and how much energy we spend accommodating bad ones.
Every day, by choice or otherwise, we read messages, posters, menus, documents, web pages, and, of course, books. Not only did someone design their layout, but someone designed the fonts in that layout. Every single letter was painstakingly designed. And every letterform has a personality: it’s trying to make you feel something, just like Comic Sans feels like silliness, and Times New Roman feels like school.
In this episode, Arthur talks to type designer Thomas Jockin. Thomas is the founder of TypeThursday, a worldwide community of type designers, and a lecturer in design and philosophy. They discuss how type decisions are made, how type designers work on new and existing typefaces, how fonts can make it easier for people to understand what they read, and what technological advances mean for type design, for reading, and for society.
Links from the show:
The End of Print: the Graphic Design of David Carson by Lewis Blackwell
Lexend
Readex Pro on Google Fonts
Quicksand on Google Fonts
TypeThursday
Exploring Hangul with Aaron Bell
Digital Transformation in Design: Processes and Practices, edited by Laura S. Scherling
Electric Book Works