Writing

General principles

The important things to concentrate on when writing a book are:

• The content of the text
• The structure of the text

These things matter because editors and typesetters need to be able to identify them quickly and easily.

In contrast, you do not need to be concerned with the layout of the text. In fact, the golden rule when writing is to keep the layout of the text as simple as possible (see Word processors for more about what this means). There are two reasons:

• It costs you, as the author, a lot of time, and distracts you from the process of writing.
• All of the work that you do to format the text has to be undone by either an editor or a typesetter. This is true even if you’ve copied the layout of a similar book given to you by your publisher as an example.

The only exception to the rule about layout is the situation in which you are typesetting your own book. If this is the case, then your publisher should provide you with detailed instructions, possibly including a word processor template. Even then, you should concentrate on content and structure first, and worry about the detailed layout only when you have completely finished writing – otherwise you’ll be constantly tweaking and revising the layout.

Word processors

Software

You should write using whichever word processor you are most comfortable with, but bear in mind that your publisher may specify that you deliver your book in a specific format (most likely Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect). If you keep the layout of your document as simple as possible, this will ease the conversion to the required format.

Simple layout

Simple layout means using only a very restricted set of word processor features:

Do use:

• Basic formatting: bold, italic, sub- and superscripts
• Fonts to distinguish headings and highlight structure

Do not use:

• Paragraph styles
• Automated list numbering
• Automated bullet lists
• Outlines
• Equation editors (except as described here)
• Text boxes
• Graphics boxes
• Embedded charts

...or indeed any other automated feature. The reason for this is that these features can’t, in general, be interpreted by typesetting software, so they have to be removed and reconstructed by the typesetter. This takes time and increases the risk of errors being introduced. By keeping things simple, the typesetter can simply use the actual text present in your files and construct the advanced features from the text.

Using DTP packages

If you plan to write using a DTP package or, for mathematical work, LaTeX, agree this with your publisher before you start. Using any of these packages restricts the options available to the publisher in terms of the choice of copy-editor and typesetter, which may add to the costs of production.

Figures

There is a great temptation, when writing, to add the figures to the word processor file. There is more information about the production of figures here, but when writing the rule to observe is that you should not include figures in your word processor files, but keep them separate.

Tables

Opinions differ as to whether tables should be placed in separate files or kept within the main word processor documents. The majority view is that they should be in separate documents, so unless your publisher tells you otherwise, do so.

Mathematics

Mathematics poses special problems for typesetters. It is almost always the case that displayed mathematics (equations on a separate line from the text) will be re-keyed by the typesetter, so you are free to use whatever means you wish to create them, including your word processor’s built-in equation editor.

However, any mathematics that appears within the main flow of the text (like this: a = b + c) should be typed using simple formatting: bold, italic etc. This can be used directly without re-keying.

LaTeX is often used for mathematical texts. If you want to use LaTeX, discuss this with your publisher before you start writing, as the number of typesetters able to work with LaTeX (or convert it to other formats) is very small.