Fight On!: Lulu Formats

[calithena]

I'm thinking now we'll do a lulu 6x9 B&W trade paperback in saddle stitch or perfect bound. But I'm very open to persuasion for other formats. There's something old-school fanzine about plain old letter size for instance.

Perfect bound requires a minimum 32 pages, saddle stitch can be smaller.

What are your thoughts? Color covers are OK but a B&W interior seems a must.

Also we need a font choice that's easily available in a lot of formats (or at least word and pdf) without special software or conversion hassles. I know there's a lot of sympathy for Futura because of some history but honestly I don't find that very attractive.

Anyway, this is the thread where you weigh in on layout/design/format stuff. Go to www.lulu.com if you feel you need a more informed opinion about what the options are.

[jrients]

The paper used on the 6x9's at lulu is this lovely creamy shade that I think would be perfect. What do you think of Century Gothic for the font?

[kesher]

Dood, it's gotta be 6x9; how else am I gonna fit it in my box? Plus, Jeff's right about the shade of the paper.

I like Georgia for fonts, although I'd also love to see some sort of non-courier typewriter font used for that true 'zine vibe...

Something like this:simplythebest.net/fonts/fonts/hammerkeys.html


*edited for linkage

[coffee]

Saddle stitch is the way to go. It holds together.

Perfect bound...isn't. My old FASA Star Trek RPG was "perfect bound" and started falling apart during the first reading.

I want this fanzine be sturdy.

[kesher]

Oh, I forgot about the binding.

What coffee said.

[Deleted]

coffee said:

Saddle stitch is the way to go. It holds together.

I second that assessment (same thing happened to me with Shadowrun). Although 6x9 would be great for "keeping it in the box", I favor Standard Letter--the main reason being is that it's large: more room for dungeons, illustrations, maps, modules, etc. As for a certain font, I personally favor Book Antiqua, but Times New Roman might be best (it's pretty universal). But in all honesty, as long as the font is easily accessible by everyone, it works.

As an aside, just how many pages do you estimate the 1st issue to be?

And a friendly suggestion: IMO, there should be a standard # of pages set for each issue, regardless of size/typeset; you don't want to cram the first few issues so full of goodies that you end up running out of material to print (not that we would, but it can [& has] happened). Contributers come, contributers go; you might want to consider gatering enough material for at least (6) issues or so before you send the 1st to print. Just an observation.

[calithena]

6x9 doesn't fit in the box, but I agree about the nice paper. I also agree about saddle stitch. I'll check out the different suggested fonts after the thread's sat a while.

[jrients]

I've been fairly hard on my copy of Encounter Critical. It's perfect bound from lulu but shows no sign of falling apart.

[calithena]

Has anybody seen something letter size printed up by lulu?

I'm thinking it makes my life so much easier if I don't have to do weird page sizes, if I can just go straight from word to pdf without a lot of reformatting hassles. 6x9 is cool but the old digests are actually 5.5 x 8.5 so 6 x 9 actually doesn't get you an OD&D/Arduin/Little Soldier etc. sized book.

It seems like they'd use the same paper, but I don't really know.

The other argument is just tradition, pretty much all gaming mags were letter size even when the books were half sized digests.

I'm going to go check some of these fonts now.

[calithena]

Is there any good reason not to use Garamond?

[jrients]

calithena said:

Is there any good reason not to use Garamond?

Not that I know.

My Encounter Critical module was done letter size by lulu. The paper is slick but not very heavy. It kinda feels like a cheap glossy magazine. It's stapled and I feel like the cover could come off with heavy use.

[calithena]

Font size? I'm tempted to do 10 to pack more in, but maybe 12 for readability makes more sense. 11? 8? Any thoughts?

[kesher]

I would vote for 10; I think 12 would just be tooooo big. Eight would be very Arduinesque, but probably dicey for readability...

[Deleted]

kesher said:

I would vote for 10; I think 12 would just be tooooo big.

IMO, 11 is the way to go. It strikes the perfect balance between eye-strain & "text-hogging".

[coffee]

I would be completely cool with 11 point Garamond. And 8.5 x 11 (letter sized) would work; a lot of the magazines I know of were that size.