INTERIOR DESIGN IS HARD Interior layout is easy to dismiss. It’s just the formatting of words on a page. Google Docs does that automatically. What’s the big deal, right? Just like covers, what seems easy is actually very difficult. In fact, working with type is considered the most difficult thing to do in design. The first thing to realize is that there’s a lot more that goes into designing the interior of a book than you might expect. These are just some of the decisions that must be made: • trim size (as explained later) • color vs. black and white • other physical considerations (paperback vs. hardcover, paper stock, etc.) • font selection • page margins • spacing decisions • artistic direction and design elements • sidebars (if any) • if/how you want to incorporate illustrations, photography or other graphics There are also all the more nerdy publishing details that your proof- reader should have caught but likely didn’t, like making sure you’re using the right dashes in the right places (hyphens, em and en dashes all have distinct uses). The same goes for quotation marks (straight vs. curly vs. foot/inch marks—all different things), math- ematical symbols (× vs. x) and nearly every other symbol you can (but won’t) think of. For example: Did you know that certain fonts and justification styles can give your readers headaches? Your interior designer does. Did you know that breaking a paragraph improperly, leaving just a partial line on the next page can interrupt the mental engagement 296 · ThE SCriBE METhOD