Support for Indie Authors discussion

I have finished editing my manuscript (adult literary novel, 100K words) and am in the formatting stage. I plan to publish on CreateSpace, using a 6X9 trim size. I'm playing around with different fonts and sizes in the hopes of keeping my page count as low as possible. My computer is a Mac and I'm using their Pages software. I've come across plenty of font recommendations for MS Word users, but unfortunately my software doesn't have most of those fonts. Are there any other Mac Pages users out there? If so, which font and size worked best for your book? So far, Georgia 11 point is looking pretty good, but if any Mac users out there have had success with a different font/size, I would like to hear from you.

Thanks!

Great question. I love Comic Sans but it doesn't work for the eBook model. I've tried Times New Roman, Garamond and Calibri . The last one is not bad. Size 14.

Mac Pages user reporting in! I use Palatino for print (also when writing.) It is a 'spacier' font, but I find the ease of reading to be excellent. I started with Garamond, but I found it a bit harder on the eyes. Palatino is my favorite so far.

I also use Pages. Font wise it's Helvetica or Arial. I find either easy to read.

I use Georgia, Baskerville or Iowan and have gone as low as 8pt on some paperbacks. Initially, I thought it was too small, but you'd be surprised how tiny the fonts are in many of the Scholastic Book Fair paperbacks.

I printed up a sample page using different fonts. I compared those with print books. 11-point print is definitely larger than what's in most adult trade paperbacks. I think a smaller font will be fine if I add a little more white space so it doesn't look too crammed-in.

Jens wrote: "I have finished editing my manuscript (adult literary novel, 100K words) and am in the formatting stage. I plan to publish on CreateSpace, using a 6X9 trim size. I'm playing around with different f..."

I'm also a Mac Pages user. I tend to keep to the traditional Times New Roman, 12-point for my text. I use Trebuchet MS for the chapter headings. I publish on CreateSpace using the 6x9 trim size, too.