Story Boarding The Cloth of Egypt
I’m a one woman shop and I wear a lot of hats. One of my least favorite hats to wear, (aside from bookkeeper, which just sucks) is that of book layout and production artist. I know, I could hire someone to do this, but since I’ve spent all my money buying assiut , vintage ephemera like photographs and maps, and all the supplies to make more than a dozen costumes, I’m pretty tapped out. What this means is that I will have to do all my own book production! If that sounds like complaining, it’s not, it’s just the name of the game when it comes to self publishing.
Before I start laying out the material for the book using inDesign, I go old school and storyboard the entire project. My approach is to work in “spreads” two pages at a time. To make this go quickly, I’ve devised a two-page template that I use to sketch and notate the details of each spread. I put these into a binder where I can effortlessly flip through the various pages and get a strong sense of what the final document will look like. Oh yes, and I always always use pencil. Once I have finished the entire book mock-up, I roll up my sleeves, grab a cup of coffee and fire up inDesign. Are you an self-published author? Check out my templates below.
