(RPG Layout) Questions on layout for 6"x9" format

[baron samedi]

Hello Forgers!

I am looking for the advice of people who have some experience with layout for RPGs or books in 6"x9" format. I'm an amateur at doing layouts, I'm a writer first and foremost. I'm translating a French RPG to English. Right now, I'm in the process of thinking of the layout of the English version with pictures, borders and all. My French version is in A4 format, but English-language global distributors only accept 6"x9" or Letter format. Global distribution is a significant factor for me, so it will either be 6"x9" or 8"x11" (Letter). I wanted a change from Letter, so I tried to do something in 6"x9" format. This format is new to me.

I've made an early draft in PDF (6"x9" format) you can check out here:
http://membres.lycos.fr/aixenforet/lcoe-p1-3.pdf

Here's my problem: I'm not sure at all it's aesthetic, pleasing to the eye, easily readable, i.e "professional". I wondered what the professional standard was for this format, as I'm learning layout "by the road". I have seen very few RPGs in 6"x9" format, none with two columns and border images up and down, so I have little comparisons to gauge the results.

I am especially wondering, from a professional perspective:
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QUESTIONS
1- Is the use of two columns instead of one appropriate for 6"x9" format? Should I use only one column?

2- Does image placement pose a problem because of these two columns, i.e. are they "crushed" too much?

3- Do my borders (up and down), designed for A4 format, devour too much of the pages in 6"x9" format?

4- Are the title fonts different enough in size and type (bold/not bold) to be obviously different?

5- How could I aesthetically graft a cover image designed for A4 format (i.e. tall and narrow), all-encompassing to make it fit a 6"x9" format? If I'd use borders on left and write to compensate the lack of width, would it look "broken"?
___________________________________________________________________________

Please bear in mind it is an early draft; the text has not been revised, the borders are very low resolution unfinished sketches and title fonts may change. (I didn't put XXXs instead of text to see how well it read.) The title and copyright notice in the upper and lower borders won't be there in the final print.

Please bear in mind I'm not looking for comments at this time on the TEXT CONTENT but on the LAYOUT! This'll be eventually discussed at another time, after textual revision etc.

Thanks for your input!

Erick
author of The Last Chronicles of Erdor

[MatrixGamer]

At first glance it looks good. Then when I looked at it a second time the forced justification on the first page was annoying. Off hand I like the two column layout - it makes it different from a standard book - I'm reading a 6x9 book now of an African explorer done in one column. It reads easily but looks like a book not a game book.

If you are using a layout program like InDesign or Pagemaker your can play around with how it justifies type (as well as the spacing between lines "Kerning and leading").

Looks like you've got the book laid out for perfect binding? The larger margin on one side would give room for the glue to not cut off the page and unbalance it. Good idea.

Good luck with the project.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[baron samedi]

Hi Chris,

Thanks.

1. The justification does seem a problem a bit. I thought the same thing than you about "RPG books have two columns", since most paragraphs are very short, and I'd be afraid bullet lists would look awful in single column, unless the book is very small (e.g. Polaris, Dogs in the Vineyard). Poor thing is, I have to downsize my images by nearly 30% or more to fit this model, which is a shame because many are beautifully detailed.

2. Yes, it is laid for perfect binding softcover with a 1 cm or so margin inside. With 300 pages, I don't have much alternatives, and hardcovers are too expensive for what I'm looking for. I'm thinking of using the Lulu.com POD service, but since I don't want to do distribution etc., I'll also attempt to sollicitate a deal with possibly interested distributors.

3. This was set up with Publisher 1998. I'm wondering whether to use Quark 6.0, though I know its basics, because when I converted my original MS Word XP document, it lost the "Title Styles" (not sure this is the proper term in English). So basically I'd have to redo ALL text setup, which is a horror since I cannot spend that much time with the computers I happen to have this software on (I've got babies at home, and I come home late).

Unless I fumbled somewhere with Quark, I may stick with Publisher, though it is a pain for small adjustments.

Thanks for the help. It's reassuring to see you think it's not a total screwup. :)

Erick

[KeithBVaughn]

Just a couple of other suggestions. I agree with Chris to stop the full justification with no hyphenation. Use hyphenation to make the spaces between words more pleasant. I also had trouble telling where the paragraphs ended if the last line was long. If you aren't going to indent use double spacing to make the paragraph breaks apparent. Otherwise you can make an indent of 2-3 letter spaces and close up the text a bit. 

Good Luck,
Keith

[Adam]

1- Is the use of two columns instead of one appropriate for 6"x9" format? Should I use only one column?

Personally I'd stick to one column. It's hard to make thin justified columns look good -- for example, on page 3, look how different the paragraph in the left column starting with "The players take ..." looks compared to "This one lone player ..." in the right column.

I'm not sure what sort of settings MS Publisher has to control the amount of letterspacing and wordspacing, but you should take a close look at those settings to make your text look more uniform -- but there's only so much you can do with columns that are so thin.

2- Does image placement pose a problem because of these two columns, i.e. are they "crushed" too much?

I'd avoid placing images in the center, floating between two columns [it makes the already thin columns even thinner, and then you end up with stuf like the "Countless words ..." paragraph, which has some really ugly spacing issues], and I'd ensure that there is more whitespace around the image.

[Matt Wilson]

Hi Erick:

Here's a couple quick thoughts for you.

1) with 6x9, definitely go with one column. A good rule of thumb is to have a column about 10-12 words wide.You can stray from that a little bit, but too narrow and too wide present readability problems. To get two readable columns at 6x9 you'd need to make your text pretty small.

2) As far as margins go, it's aesthetically pleasing to go smaller to bigger in margin size in this order: inner, top, outer, bottom. But there's a LOT of room to play around there. Low-cost paperback books certainly don't follow that rule, and I'd say it's far less important than giving your text columns a comfortable length.

3) You'll find that with one column, both image placement and borders will be less of a challenge.

I like your page borders.

Oh, and plenty of folks around here have published books in 6x9 format. I think Stranger Things is 6x9, and you can preview sample pages here.

Hope that helps.

[Zach]

Upon first viewing the 6x9 edition of Intergalactic Cooking Challenge, a lot of people commented that it didn't resemble a gaming book. It was meant as a compliment however, praising the portability of the work. 300 pages of this wouldn't have the same effect, but it would regardless give the book a memorable shape.

Another example of (borderless) single-column design can be seen here. The margins are 1" on the top and bottom and 0.8" on both sides (with a 0.2" gutter).

[baron samedi]

Thanks everyone!

I'm going to sound dumb, but I don't understand what these words mean in English, and though I can extrapolate, it'd be helpful if you could clarify a bit:

- Hyphenation means...?
- Ident means...?

As for one column, much of the rest of the book might seem awful: I have sections with titles and only 2 or 3 sententes. This text is the intro ; the rest is more "bullet form", written for two-column use. I'm not sure alterning from one-column to two-columns is a good idea visually, and having only one column will make the page count explode over 300 pp., I fear. I'm really not sure about one column text. I found the games DITV and MLwM extremely difficult to read because they have one column... (Polaris, in comparison, felt an easier read because the text was more "dense" and smaller font). And my text is designed so that there's a title about every three or four sentences. This gets even "worse" in the game rules section. There are many paragraphs with a single line in the later sections. In one column, the whole text would seem a grocery list, I fear.

I agree about the problems with "placing images in the center". Unfortunately I have many square images that'd look bad on the side. When I set up my French layout, I realized that alterning image placement made for easier reading (but I was in A4). I'll try to make a minimum of center-placed images, though. This isn't perfect. I'll have to work more on that for a good solution... 6x9 is decidedly a challenge.

MS Publisher has about NOTHING in matters of control of the amount of letterspacing and wordspacing. The more I read you, the more I think I should use Quark. Mmmm...

One last thing: I have an attention deficit disorder. Reading a single column text with a large font, for me, is difficult. (Reading a very dense dictionary is easier.) I happened to find the reading of Testament d20 (300 pages, font size Times 8, two dense columns) much easier than My Life With Master (circa 60 pages, font size Book Antiquq 12, one column) because my eyes couldn't focus on the text.  I need to find a compromise between a book I can read and one my customers will enjoy. 6x9 isn't making this balance easier... Hence my bit of anguish. :-/
I'll check out the examples you gave me and make some tests with one columns.
Some questions:

1. Should I drop the justified text and go with left-side only justification? Might this solve some things?

2. I should also increase the space betwen paragraphs?

3. Should I alternate between chapters with 1 column (e.g. background) and others with 2 columns (e.g. rules etc.)?

4. Should I get rid of the title in the upper border?

Thanks!

Erick

PS. Thanks for the image borders. I'll tell my illustrator you like them. They'll be beautiful when finished; the bird will be painted, the lizard'll have higher resolution and the celestial rings at the right will look less "solid".

[Matt Wilson]

Bon jour, Erick:

If you really want two columns and want a format different from A4, try something in landscape format, which is a page that's wider than it is tall.

For example, Agon, by John Harper, is 9x7.

Hyphenation means breaking multi-syllable words apart to justify lines of text. Here's an example:

Erick asked us about our layout preferen-
ces in his recent post on the Forge.

Indent usually refers to starting a new paragraph a few spaces inward.

Most paperback novels use both these methods.

[baron samedi]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the precisions and advice!

We call hyphenation "césure" in French, so you can understand both words don't seem alike at all. Similarly, we call ident "retrait de paragraphe" (paragraph withdrawal) so it was a long shot for me, I was trying to find a link with the word "identure".

I'm thinking about ident, in fact: it's almost never used in French language publications (paragraphs are separated by a blank line most often) so I have an aesthetic "yuck" reaction to them, but I guess I should use them. The paragraphs do seem dense. I wonder if I should increase the space between paragraphs from 0.2" to 0.3", but I have a few quotes that are made of many one-liners.

As for format, many print-on-demand (POD) services such as Lulu.com indicate a book has either to be 8"x11" or 6"x9" for global distribution. Since I desire to use global distribution and an ISBM, my choice is forced for one of these two formats. Lulu.com seems a service with minimal hassle for authors (from what I read on the Forge) so I think I'll get more options if I respect their format specifications. If I want my project to be cost-effective for my illustrators, I've got to make a bit of compromise. :)

Thanks a lot! My layout vision is forming!

Erick

[Lance D. Allen]

For what it's worth, I think the 2-column layout works. My word is a little bit less authoritative than Matt's though, as he knows a lot more about this than I do.

If you want an alternative to the single-column look though, check out how Dogs in the Vineyard was laid out; There's a single column in toward the fold of the book, with side-boxes with additional explanations etc. out toward the edges of the page. It's a layout that worked well for Dogs, but may not really meet your needs.

As for the technical details of MS Publisher.. I do believe you can set kerning and leading.. I just think it's in a less than intuitive place. Try right-clicking in the text box you're working with, and looking in format text box. Failing that, look into Format > Paragraph in your toolbar at the top of the page.

A landscape look might work really well, if your distributors/printers can do it. Have you specifically asked if 9"x6" is doable?

[MatrixGamer]

I thought you might be using MS Publisher. I've had similar problems in documents I've made using that program. It bascially bites. If I hadn't got it for free I don't think it would have been worth it.

If you know Quark then in the long run use that for future works. I went the Adobe route so I'll be moving to InDesign eventually. No matter what program you use though convert it to a PDF before sending it to the printer. They hate Publisher!

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[baron samedi]

Thanks Chris, Wolfen;

I was definitely going for PDF! I think I'll use Quark. I don't know it well, but I think it'll do the job better.

As for landscape formats... It's a question of taste, I guess, but I happen to hate it. I've written a few things for the Mechanical Dream line, all books of which have different formats (!) and landscape was the worse as for ease of use IMHO.

Same thing; after looking at the samples you gave me, I prefer 2 columns. I printed it and it's not so bad, the issue is with image placement. I think that by adjusting character widht and doing away with justified text, it could be an improvement.

Thanks, guys, this is helping a lot. :)

Regards,

Erick

[madelf]

I think the two column layout looks okay, I doubt that'll give you much problem (assuming you take some of the advice above, relating to indents & spacing, etc).

Where the layout in your sample is breaking down most is in the image placement. The center placement crushes both columns, badly. If you restrict the width of your images to the width of a column and slide it into one column or the other, then one column is fully intact and the other simply has a break where the image is. That should eliminate the problem of squashing columns and odd word spacing. (You'll have to watch out that the image doesn't break the pacing of the text in awkward places, but that shouldn't be too difficult).