Font Roll

I've never figured out why so many self-publishers use Times to lay out book interiors. It was designed for narrow columns and can be awkward to work with on a wider page. It's also the default typeface of so many word processing programs, that is as common as ice cubes. Not to mention, it has become almost a trademark of POD books and sure-fire way to let people know your book is self-published.

Times, Arial, Helvetica, Comic Sans and now the over-used Papyrus, need to be set aside and more interesting choices given consideration. There are tens of thousands of fonts out there and hundreds of them would work great for setting text in a book.

A few years ago book publishers started crediting images and designers on the cover or copyright page, and they've also been doing the same with fonts.

If you find a book that is nicely done, check the copyright page and see if it tells you what font they've used.

Here is a list of some I've found:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 12 pt Adobe Garamond. (There is an article about Garamond in our free eZine, K Means Black).

Angela's Ashes (hardcover): Bembo (Bitstream produces a look-a-like called Aldine 401 that's far less expensive).

The Secret Life of Bees: Granjon; Display font: Pouty Ornaments: Bodini

The Memory Keeper's Daughter: Granjon

Three Cups of Tea: Stempel Garamond

Comments

[Stephen Tiano]

I agree with you that one of the things that mars a lot of self-published books is the unimaginative font choices.

As a matter of fact, I just blogged—about a week ago—about free fonts for book designers. Not ridiculous display fonts, but serif fonts for body text and sans for display heads and items. I remember that, after investing in hardware and software, paying for fonts so that you have more to work with than just the resident fonts, like Times, is a back-breaker.

And pirating fonts should not be an option even considered.

But there are legitimate type designers creating new fonts that they release for free. Read all about it on Tiano Design.

[Stephen Tiano]

One more "by the way" ... Please check out my blog and consider adding it to your blogroll? I'm adding your blog to mine. You don't blog as often as I'd like, considering how you do a really good job writing and raising issues when you do blog, but it's valuable stuff so I'm adding you.