Fiction & Memoir
Chapter openers, scene breaks and running heads, set in a book typeface for long, comfortable reading.
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Book Formatting Studio · Tasman PublishersBook Interiors That Read Beautifully
For Australian and New Zealand authors: good typesetting is invisible. Done well, a reader never notices the pages, only the story. We set your interior for print and ebook, and deliver files that printers and retailers accept first time.
- Print-ready PDF
- EPUB & Kindle
- KDP & IngramSpark ready
- Print-ready PDFMargins, gutter, bleed and embedded fonts, ready for press
- Reflowable EPUBFor Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo and Google Play
- Real typographyDrop caps, small caps, true quotes and no widows
- Platform-checkedSet to KDP and IngramSpark specifications
Interior Formatting Samples
Every genre has its own interior. Pick a genre to open a typeset spread, from a moody thriller chapter opener to a full-bleed picture book.
ChapterOne
The Keeper
The storm reached Cape Mercy an hour before the ferry was due, and by nightfall there was no ferry, no radio and no road back to the mainland.
Nora Vail had kept the light on the point for eleven winters. She knew the sounds the tower made when the wind came round from the south: the low complaint of the stairwell, the tick of the old lamp housing, the long breath of the sea against the rocks below.
She did not know the sound she heard at a quarter past two. It came once, then again—a hollow knocking from the landing at the foot of the cliff, where no boat had tied up since the pier collapsed.
She took the torch and her father’s coat and went down the path with the rain coming at her sideways.
The beam found the water first, black and heaving, and then the shape on the rocks that she took, for one long second, to be a seal. It was not a seal. It was a man, and he was holding a letter sealed in plastic, and the name on the envelope was her sister’s. Nora had not said that name aloud in twenty years.
1
The Last Tide5.5" × 8.5" trade paperback · Garamond 11.5/15
❧
Prologue
◆
“Every crown remembers the fire that forged it, and every fire remembers the hand that fed it.”
— The Ashen Chronicles, Book III
vii
Prologue
The thief came to Harrowgate on the last night of the harvest fair, when the city was drunk on cider and lanterns and no one watched the old temple on the hill.
Wren had been told the relic was a cup. It was not a cup. It lay on a cushion of faded velvet at the heart of the sanctum, a circlet of black iron no wider than her hand, and when she lifted it the air grew warm, as though someone had opened the door of a forge.
She should have put it back. Instead she wrapped it in her scarf and climbed out the way she had come, laughing under her breath at how easy it had been.
⁂
Far to the north, in a hall that had been cold for three hundred years, a fire kindled itself in an empty hearth. By morning every rider in the keep was on the road south, and every one of them carried the same order: find the crown, and burn whatever stands between you and it.
The old steward watched them go from the gatehouse wall. He had served three kings and buried two, and he knew the smell of a war before it started.
‘Let them ride,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘The fire will find her first.’
viii
The Ember Crown6" × 9" trade paperback · Garamond 11/14.5 with Cinzel display
Ava Linden
the house smelled exactly as she remembered: salt, old timber, and the faint sweetness of the frangipani her grandmother had planted by the gate the summer Lena turned nine.
Nothing had moved. The blue bowl still sat on the windowsill. The deck chairs were still stacked under the stairs, their canvas faded to the colour of weak tea.
Lena stood in the doorway and let herself feel it for exactly one minute. Then she opened her laptop and started a list. Agent. Photographer. Paint the fence. Fix the step. Sell it by March.
She told herself the ache in her chest was jet lag, and the salt air, and the sheer stupidity of crying over a blue bowl. By the time she went to bed she almost believed it.
It was a good list. It lasted until eleven the next morning, when a ute pulled up outside, and the man who climbed out of it was the last person on the whole south coast she wanted to see.
12
Two
∼∼∼
Callum Reid had grown up. That was the first unfair thing. The second was that he was carrying a toolbox and a ladder, and wore the look of someone who had been told to expect her.
‘Your nan asked me to keep an eye on the place,’ he said, before she could speak. ‘Before. You know.’
Lena did know. She had missed the funeral by two days and a cancelled flight.
‘I’m selling it,’ she said.
He looked at the house, then at her. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll want the step fixed.’
She watched him walk round the side of the house as if he owned it. Maybe, she thought, in every way that counted, he did.
The step took him twenty minutes. The fence, it turned out, took the rest of the week, and by Friday Lena had stopped pretending she was not watching from the kitchen window.
On Saturday he came back with a tin of paint the exact blue of the bowl on the windowsill, and she did not ask how he knew.
‘Your nan picked it,’ he said anyway, and handed her a brush.
13
Salt & Summer5" × 8" paperback · Crimson-style serif 11/15 with script heads
Wombat woke up early.
Today was going to be a VERY big day.
He had a plan.
A very, very big plan.
Wombat’s Big Day!8.5" × 8.5" hardcover · full-bleed spread · Fredoka 22pt
Fish & Seafood
From the grill
Lemon & Herb Grilled Snapper
The simplest way to cook fish straight off the boat: a hot grill, good olive oil and whatever herbs are growing by the back door.
Ingredients
- 4 snapper fillets, skin on
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 lemons, zested and sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- Small bunch parsley, chopped
- 1 tbsp dill, chopped
- Sea salt & cracked pepper
Method
- Heat a grill or barbecue plate to high.
- Mix the oil, zest, garlic and half the herbs; rub over the fish.
- Grill skin-side down for 4–5 minutes until crisp, turn and cook 2 minutes more.
- Serve with lemon slices and the remaining herbs.
47
Coastal Kitchen8" × 10" full colour · recipe grid with photography
3
Protect Focus
Why the calmest teams do fewer things, better
“Interruptions are the biggest meeting nobody ever scheduled.”
41
Protect Focus
The cost of switching
Every time a manager interrupts someone, the cost is not the thirty seconds the question takes. It is the twenty minutes it takes that person to find their way back into the work.
Calm teams are not less busy. They are more deliberate about when they are available. In practice that means three things:
- Shared focus hours with no meetings.
- Questions batched into one daily check-in.
- ‘Not now’ treated as a respected answer.
Try this weekBlock two ninety-minute focus sessions for your team and protect them like client meetings.
At the end of the week, ask one question: what did you finish that you would not otherwise have finished? The answers are usually the best argument for doing it again.
Focus is not a perk. It is the raw material of every piece of work your team is proud of, and protecting it is one of the few jobs that only a manager can do.
42
Lead Without Noise6" × 9" paperback · serif text, sans heads, callouts
Sample pages typeset for fictional books to show different interior styles. Titles, authors and text are not real.
From Manuscript To Finished Page
Drag the slider to see what typesetting actually does. The words are identical. Everything else changes: the typeface, the measure, the spacing, the quotes and dashes, and the way a chapter opens.
- Book typefaces chosen for long reading, not the Word default
- Proper punctuation — curly quotes, real dashes, correct ellipses
- Balanced pages — no widows, orphans or rivers of white space
- Chapter openers with drop caps, small caps and a consistent sink
Manuscript
Typeset
Chapter Two
Callum Reid had grown up. That was the first unfair thing. The second was that he was carrying a toolbox and a ladder, and wore the look of someone who had been told to expect her.
‘Your nan asked me to keep an eye on the place,’ he said, before she could speak. ‘Before. You know.’
Lena did know. She had missed the funeral by two days and a cancelled flight, and she had been trying not to think about it ever since.
‘I’m selling it,’ she said.
He looked at the house, then at her, and something in his face closed like a gate. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll want the step fixed.’
She watched him walk round the side of the house as if he owned it. Maybe, she thought, in every way that counted, he did.
Chapter 214%
Ebooks That Reflow On Every Screen
An ebook is not a PDF. Readers change the font, the size and the colour, and the book has to hold together whatever they choose. Try it: change the text size and theme on the reader.
- Clean, valid EPUB for Apple Books, Kobo and Google Play
- Kindle-ready file tested for Amazon’s reading apps
- Linked table of contents, metadata and cover built in
- Accessible structure so screen readers and dark mode work properly
Formatting For Every Kind Of Book
A novel, a cookbook and a picture book are three completely different jobs. We handle all of them.
Non-Fiction
Headings, lists, tables, callouts, footnotes and indexes, organised so readers can find their way around.
Picture Books
Full-bleed spreads with text placed around the artwork, so nothing important falls into the gutter.
Cookbooks
Recipe grids with ingredients, method and photography, consistent from the first recipe to the last.
Large Print
A re-set edition at a larger size with adjusted leading, for readers who need it.
Poetry
Line breaks and stanza spacing preserved exactly, with long lines turned the way poets expect.
Set Up For Your Printer And Every Store
We work to the exact specification of the platform you publish with, from trim size and paper to bleed and spine.
5″ × 8″Novella, poetry
5.5″ × 8.5″Fiction, memoir
6″ × 9″Trade, non-fiction
8.5″ × 8.5″Picture books
8″ × 10″Cookbooks, workbooks
- Amazon KDP
- IngramSpark
- Apple Books
- Kobo Writing Life
- Google Play Books
- Barnes & Noble Press
- Draft2Digital
- Local offset printers
From Manuscript To Print-Ready Files
You approve sample pages before we set the whole book, so the look is agreed early.
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01
Manuscript Check
We review your file, styles, images and special elements, and confirm trim size and platform.
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02
Sample Pages
A chapter opener and text spread in your chosen style, for you to approve before the full set.
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03
Typeset & Proofs
The whole book set and balanced, then sent to you as PDF proofs to check and mark up.
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04
Final Files
Print PDF and ebook files, checked against your platform’s specifications and ready to upload.
Book Formatting Questions
What authors usually ask before we start.
What file do you need from me?
A Word document (.docx) or Google Doc of your final, edited manuscript is ideal. Send images, maps or illustrations as separate high-resolution files and we place them in the layout.
Do you format for both print and ebook?
Yes. We set a print-ready PDF for paperback or hardcover, and a reflowable EPUB for ebook stores, including a version ready for Kindle.
Which trim size should I choose?
It depends on your genre and page count. We recommend a size that matches what readers expect on the shelf for your category and that works with your printer, and we can re-flow the book if you change your mind.
Will my files be accepted by KDP and IngramSpark?
We set up margins, bleed, fonts and colour to each platform’s published specifications and check the files before delivery, so they are ready to upload.
Can I make changes after the book is typeset?
Yes. You review PDF proofs before anything is finalised, and we make corrections from your proof notes. Changes are easiest before the final files are released.
Do you format picture books, cookbooks and illustrated books?
Yes. Fixed layouts with full-bleed artwork, recipe grids, sidebars and photography are all part of what we do, in print and as fixed-layout ebooks where the stores support them.
Ready For An Interior Readers Will Never Notice?
Send us your manuscript details, your trim size and where you plan to publish. We'll come back with a fixed quote and sample pages before the full book is set.
Work with an Adelaide-based author services team today.