Nobody talks about layout, because you can't see it. When a book is laid out well, the reader doesn't think, 'what a comfortable font' or 'how nicely spaced these margins are.' They just read. They sink in. They don't stumble. Layout is infrastructure: when it works, nobody notices; when it doesn't, everyone feels it but can't quite say what's wrong.
My experience with the layout of my first book wasn't a great one. I decided to have it done at the same place where I'd ordered the editing, and where I was planning to print the proof copies. That seemed logical. My coordinating manager, Nika, handed me off to another staff member in charge of layout. I was asked a few questions and sent to a landing page where I had to choose the book's trim size, the font, the margins, where the page numbers would go, where the illustrations would sit. I filled everything in, and was told: 'Please wait.'
Then came the back-and-forth emails with my revisions. We went at it for about a month and a half. That's a lot already — but it wasn't all of it.
I'd only planned to print proof copies at this print shop. I wasn't thinking about a full print run — I still hoped that, in the meantime, one of the publishing houses I'd sent the manuscript to would pick it up after all. But no miracle happened. Little by little, I approved the layout and paid for the proof copies to be printed.
By then I'd also registered on several self-publishing platforms, and it was time to upload my book there. Imagine my surprise — read: I was furious — when the lovely coordinating manager Nika informed me that I couldn't use the layout (which I'd paid for, mind you) on other platforms. I could only publish my book through their own service.
It turned out to be about the licensed fonts, which they used deliberately to lock authors into their platform. It made me furious enough that I wrote her a long letter laying out my position — very politely, I might add. And then I just got offended and deleted my account with them altogether.
The moral, of course: read the fine print. My own fault.
I complained to my husband, and he quickly found a woman on Kwork who laid out my book for me in three days. And I finally got my precious book up on the self-publishing platforms.