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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mythusmage" data-source="post: 1127044" data-attributes="member: 571">I took the first option. Rare typos and punctuation glitches are one thing, but rampant typographical errors, spelling mistakes, and grammatical blunders tell me the publisher doesn't care.In the publishing business a shortage of competent editors is a common thing. Many fiction publishers now expect some self-editing and proofing by the author himself. That way their editors have clean copy to assess rather than the mess they'd otherwise have to handle.I suspect the problem many RPG publishers have is due to the following factors:Low standards. Publishers see a need to get product out on the shelves, so they accept material that is weak in execution, poorly edited, and incompetently laid out. The goal being to keep publishing in the hopes that quantity will make up for the lack of quality.So we get poorly composed prose, graphics swollen pages, and page layout that wastes space along with typeface selection that makes it hard to read what is there.My advice?Never use a paragraph/section/chapter/book when a sentence will do.Take the time to explain something. An item that is clear to you won't, necessarily, be clear to the reader.Editing can make or break a book. Invest the resources for good editing, it will pay for itself in due time.No one element of graphics can overwhelm the others or draw attention to itself. Layout, illustration, and typeface must act together to make reading a pleasure. With that in mind some graphics advice.Justify your margins. Ragged right hand margins are amateur and indicate a lazyness of thought on the part of the publisher. Indent the first line of a paragraph, with the exception of the first paragraph in a section. This is a better indication of a paragraph's start than a blank space between paragraphs and allows for the elimination of such.Minimize space between lines of type. Excessive white space between lines of type draws attention to itself and makes reading harder.Illustrations should complement the prose. Above all, the illustrations should never overpower the prose. Better a single, small black and white illustration that supplements the writing than a large color illo that hides the writing in its shadow (allegorically speaking). To put it another way, if prose and illustration are to share a page then the art should take up no more than half the page. Pet Peeve Warning: If you must use comic book style art (which most everybody seems to like), do your book in a 'graphic novel' style. This sort of attention grabbing art is ill suited to a prose heavy work such as a rule book. Try more 'subdued' art to illustrate your book on half gnoll dire illithids (for example) As I noted above, the illustrations should complement and 'illustrate' the prose, not overwhelm it.Choose a typeface, a font that is comfortable to read. Any font that draws attention to itself [cough]Engel[/cough] is just plain wrong.In short, you want your customer to read your books. So you want to do all you can to make reading those books a pleasure for those customers, keeping in mind the demands RPGs make upon people. If you can find nothing appropriate in the way of illustrations, do it plain text. Good writing and layout with a readable font will make up for the lack of art.Those are my thoughts on the subject.</blockquote>

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