A POET’S STORY
Peter Frazer
Since retiring, Peter Frazer is now able to devote more of his time to his passion for the written word. Peter is a founding member of the Toowoomba Bush Poets. Peter and his fellow members regularly perform for nursing homes and retirement villages in and around Toowoomba.
Currently Peter is the Queensland representative for the Australian Bush Poets Association and is actively participating in and promoting Bush Poetry wherever possible.
His first book of fourteen of his poems fulfills a hope he has had for many years – and will meet the many requests he receives for a book of his poetry. He is already planning his second book.
Beyond the Boundary Gate
The book cover featured a photograph of a typical western Queensland red dirt road. This image was taken by the author’s son, David Frazer, when they visited the country where Peter grew up, south of Bollon, in South West Queensland.
Design Print Online has access to tens of thousands of fonts. Typography is a special focus of the publishing service I offer each author. By selecting a particular suite of fonts that are suitable for your book I ensure your book has a unique presentation.
For the cover of Beyond the Boundary Gate certain characters have been ‘joined’ or ‘linked’. This has been done to give the impression of a brand used on sheep or a stencil used on wool bales.
Inside pages design
The choice of typefaces is of critical importance for a book such as this one, along with specific type characteristics such as kerning (letter spacing), font size and weight, and leading (space between text lines).
The right combination of these factors makes a significant difference to the readability of each page of Peter’s book.
Certain typographical features were applied to the text that were appropriate for a book of poetry. Examples of these in the spreads below are ligatures in the poem titles and the addition of the leaf glyph at the end of each poem.
Photos & colour scheme
Design Print Online has had over 40 years’ experience researching and sourcing appropriate photos and artwork for publications.
This process can be quite involved and time-intensive. The poem (Bunya Dawn) on page 22, required a very specific photo of bunya trees. Many other factors are taken into consideration for the selection of an image: composition, colours, resolution, orientation, diversity balance and professional reproduction.
In collaboration with the author a complementary CMYK colour scheme was selected and applied consistently throughout the book.
The text in the footers includes the book title (left side) and the author’s name (right side). In this way, if at any stage, pages are photocopied then the author’s details will remain with the copy.
Acknowledgements & Contents
These are two pages (usually pages 2 and 3) that are often overlooked in book design.
The design of the Acknowledgements page needs to be under-stated and elegant in its simplicity and clarity. The text will follow a specific pattern or order: the author’s copyright details; a statement of specific rights retained by the author; acknowledgements of the designer, illustrators, artists and photographers and any copyright permissions or licences (eg for royalty free stock images used in the book).
Website
One of the best ways to promote your self-published book in print or e-book is to develop a website with the principal aim of providing information, samples and background to your publication — and generate sales!
Peter Frazer’s website was developed after the book was published. It is even better if the website is up and running before publication to arouse interest and to encourage links to and from other websites and to various social media platforms.
Developing a website can seem a daunting task. However, for the purpose of promoting your book or e-book it can be simple and effective; with my assistance.
Today over 90% of website views occurs on a mobile device. For that reason it is imperative that your website can easily be read on a mobile phone, as well as a computer. For this reason I developed Peter Frazer’s website in what is known as ‘responsive website design’.
The images here are examples of his website.
In designing his website the essential elements were:
home page (landing page) that introduced the viewer to Peter, his background and his book
samples from his book
a contact form to enable inquiries about his performances and his book(s)
links to an audio interview
a page of videos
pages for local and national
search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to increase the website’s visibility in Google
A simple logo was developed and acts as a button for the the viewer to return to the Home page from any page of the website. It was resized for the purpose of a ‘favicon’ (a small image that will appear in Google searches and on the tab for the website).
Kindle e-book
The book’s contents have been modified for the standards required for Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform. ‘Chapters’ were created to provide easy navigation within the Kindle app. It was decided to use the option called ‘print replica’. This was to ensure that the correct lines of poetry would be displayed in the Kindle version.
The book was then uploaded to design-print-online’s KDP account. It is now available for purchase in the USA, UK, France, Japan, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, as well as Australia.
To preview a sample or to purchase Peter’s e-book click on the button below.
How to purchase?
Peter will have copies of his book to sell at many venues and facilities in South East Queensland and New South Wales for $10.
To order online click on the button below. $10 (+$4 postage)
