If you're working on a book that has a lot of tables, charts or graphics, it's best to talk to your book designer sooner rather than later to figure out the best way to create or supply those graphics. Here are some of the common problems I see when checking files from authors, especially when they are publishing (or self-publishing) for the first time.
Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
Graphics that have been used illegally.
This should go without saying, but graphics that you did not create yourself should be used with permission. This sometimes means you need to find the original source of the image and buy it, other times you just need to give an attribution in a caption or on your copyright page. If a colleague or friend made the graphic, you can ask if they want to be credited. But please, don’t use photos, graphics, tables or charts that you did not create without permission and attribution, if required.
For example, one of my clients wanted this image that she found online in her book, but did not know the original source and did not want to risk using it without permission or attribution:
I built her a similar graphic using the fonts and graphic style that we were using in the rest of her book:
Graphics that are too low resolution for print.
Graphics that have been pulled from Google images or that have been passed around on the internet are often too low resolution for printing. You can usually tell if the image is low resolution by checking the file size (the smaller the file size, it is less likely it is that the quality is good). Another way to tell is to zoom in on the image on your screen and see if you quickly begin to see a rough, pixelated edge to the graphics. This is not a good sign!
Your book designer will ultimately need your graphics as separate files (not just placed into a Word file) and it can save your designer time and you money if you provide them as individual, clearly-labeled files that the designer can easily insert one by one into your book. (Any graphic that has been placed into Word has lost quality; your designer will want to work from the highest quality file you have!)
It is especially important that graphics that have text in them be crisp and easy to read. This client had this low resolution graphic:
I kept the same content but made the text crisper and adjusted the greys to work well in print:
Graphics that are not understandable in black and white.
This is important if your book interior is going to be black ink only (grayscale). If you have graphs or tables that can only be understood because of the colors on them (such as: the pink slices of your pie chart represent watermelon, the red sliced represent strawberries), you either need to rebuild them to be understandable in black and white (such as using a dot pattern vs. a checkered pattern to show the difference between two slices) or get your book designer to rebuild them for you!
For example, the distinctions between the different shades of purple on this graph were not understandable in black and white, so we had to add some patterns to the graph and the key:
Graphics that don’t match.
It is often the case that graphics for a book have been collected from a variety of sources and don't match in style or format, giving the book a messy, unprofessional feel. If you want your self-published book to compete with a publishing house’s book—or to catch a publisher’s eye in hopes of getting a book deal—you need to make sure the graphics have some kind of commonality to them: this might be as simple as making sure they appear at the same width and height with the same styling (such as a black border around them and an italicized caption under each one) or might be more complex, requiring redrawing them in design software to make them all have a similar feel.
Graphics that don’t fit the proportions of your book.
It is sometimes the case that a full-page graphic does not fit well to the proportions of the book. In this case it may need to be reworked to fit inside the margins of your book.
I took this complex, oblong graphic:
And reworked it to fit the format and match the fonts and style of the book:
Graphics that are not editable (but could be).
If you are creating tables, charts or graphics yourself, it is good to talk to your book designer about what format would be best (jpeg? pdf? tiff? ai?). For example, many people create graphics in Powerpoint or Canva and give them to the book designer as jpegs. However, giving them to the book designer as pdfs might be better, because often that means the designer can edit different parts of your graphics (especially text/fonts) more easily. This saves your book designer a lot of time if they don’t have retype text or redraw graphics, time he or she can better invest in styling the look and feel of the graphic to match the others.
For example, my client drew this graphic using Google’s suite of tools:
She gave me access to the Google file, which I was able to export as a PDF. I used her basic design, but was able to use design software to edit the style and fonts so that they would match her book’s look perfectly. And I added a few fun graphics suiting the theme for good measure!
Talking through your needs with your designer ahead of time can save you a lot of time and money! Sometimes authors contact me months in advance of their book being ready, just to talk through the best way to collect or create their images. If tables, charts or graphics play an integral part in your book, consider booking a brainstorming session with me or at least email me your questions before you create all your graphics. This can potentially save you—and me—days of work! Here’s to your complex book, and making it as neat, beautiful, and readable as possible!