Indie Publishing: How to Design and Produce Your Own Book

"Indie Publishing’s" special focus on the visual design of books makes it unique among publish-it-yourself manuals. Readers are taken step-by-step through the process of designing a book to give it personal style as well as visual coherence and authority. Design principles such as scale, cropping, pacing, and typography are explored in relation to each example, along with commentary on how to create effective title pages, tables of contents, captions, and more. The book aims to inspire readers with examples of print projects similar to those they might undertake on their own. Sample designs include a picture book, artist’s portfolio, exhibition catalog, poetry chapbook, novel, and zine. Indie Publishing addresses the important business aspects of independent publishing – from how and why you should get an ISBN number to creating promotional materials and using the internet to market your book. This comprehensive, illustrated guide concludes with a curated portfolio of the most exciting examples of independent publishing from the contemporary scene, reproduced in full color.

Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. She is the author of numerous books, including Thinking with Type (2004), D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself (2006), and Graphic Design: The New Basics (with Jennifer Cole Phillips, 2008).