Plain of Silver Promo

A promo graphic for THE PLAIN OF SILVER. Coming in a little over a month!

Licensed

For the typefaces used in the interior of our Arachis Press books, we are scrupulous about using only fonts for which we have a license. This means—in our case—the Bitstream typefaces licensed via our software and an assortment of ‘free’ fonts. There are free faces that are quite satisfactory and entirely professional; we have mentioned before the free pack donated by URW++ to the Ghostscript project and that one could do a perfectly good job with nothing else.

But then there are covers. If one converts ones cover file to a graphic (as we do—we upload high definition PNGs to our printer), one can get away with using unlicensed fonts. It is when we embed those typefaces in PDFs (or other file formats) that we run into legal questions.

Now we’ll admit that a small publisher (or self-publisher) probably won’t be called out for this but it is best to be safe. And legal! Therefor, we do keep a number of fonts on hand (or on computer, we should say) that we would not use for interior layout but can be handy for cover design. These are, of course, primarily ‘display’ fonts that one might not use for interior text anyway.

The self-publisher who uses Canva (or a similar cover generator) needn’t worry about any of that. Any licensing is taken care of already. Similarly, ebooks (other than PDFs) should not be problematic; we simply specify ‘serif’ for the type in our EPUBs and allow the reader to choose the font they prefer.

Incidentally, we should mention that Microsoft’s fonts are not free to use in your books, even if they are included in your copy of Windows. And Times New Roman should not be used in a commercial release without paying for it—though we don’t know why anyone would want to.

So we have used Dutch 766, Bitstream’s copy of Imprint, in our books but we would not use the Imprint MT Shadow that came with Windows. Not as part of the interior text. On a cover? Maybe someday, if it is needed.

Ticking

Today, April 21 2022 is the official release day for Stephen Brooke's new poetry collection, TICKING. Print copies may be purchased at our Arachis Press Store or at retailers around the web, Amazon included. As usual, ebooks (EPUB and PDF) are free here.

Further releases are coming this summer: the fantasy novel THE PLAIN OF SILVER by Stephen Brooke is due on June 26 and the Sienna Santerre's new novel of coming of age in southern Florida will appear on Aug 6.

Summer 2022

We are a couple weeks away from the release of Stephen Brooke's newest poetry collection, TICKING, on April 21. This book will be available in print at our own store and at retailers around the internet (and elsewhere). As with previous poetry books from Brooke, there will be a free ebook (EPUB and PDF) at our site. (http://insolentlad.com/downloads/)

Beyond this, we are pleased to announce two other new books for this summer. The first is THE PLAIN OF SILVER, the first book of Destiny's Daughter. This new series is a sequel to the popular Donzalo's Destiny epic from Stephen Brooke. Official release date is June 26, 2022. Cover reveal and details to come.

This will be followed by a new novel from Sienna Santerre, ONE CHRISTMAS IN THE SUN. This is a sequel to ONE SUMMER IN THE SUN and is slotted for an August 2 release. More on it to come, as well.

Both books will be available in print 'everywhere,' in dedicated Kindle editions at Amazon, and in EPUB and PDF at our own store.

New For Twenty-Two

Our next release—and the only new book scheduled so far for 2022—will be a collection of poetry by Stephen Brooke, TICKING. Release date is set for April 21. As in the past, the print edition will be for sale 'everywhere' and the ebooks, both EPUB and PDF, will be offered as free downloads at our site. Here is the cover:

We continue to roll out new editions (minor cosmetic changes and typos only, plus dedicated Kindle versions) of our books. We are working on getting out Stephen Brooke's early fantasy novels first, the four books of Donzalo's Destiny and the three Malvern adventures. Do expect more novels later this year; we shall announce them when we have firm dates.

Amazon and New Editions

All three of our authors now have pages at Amazon:

Stephen Brooke: https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Brooke/e/B00BXHDFYW

O D Pike: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B096FV4DPN

Sienna Santerre: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B09Q6DMFWH

To be sure, all their books may be purchased at our own store, unless one must have them on Kindle. We offer print and EPUB, and are in the process of putting up PDF versions of most, as well. Print is available 'everywhere' and we may eventually distribute the EPUBs more broadly too.

Speaking of those PDF versions, that is part of getting out new editions of many (if not most) of our titles. No drastic changes, just some cosmetic fixes, typos missed at some point, that sort of thing. The EPUBs should look better. This is a process we shall continue through this year and possibly into next. We are getting the earliest Stephen Brooke fantasy novels, the four that make up Donzalo's Destiny, and the Malvern Trilogy, up first.

New releases? There is admittedly not much planned right now, aside for Stephen Brooke's latest poetry collection, 'Ticking.' We'll give plenty of advance notice on that one. And be sure, more new books will be forthcoming!

More on Free Fonts

Having said some words on free fonts for publishing (in the previous post), I thought I’d, ah, say some more words. Specifically, I’d mention a few popular choices that have become widely available. Why not in alphabetic order?

Alegreya is a lovely serif typeface that seems a little too ornate for the typical fiction book. I would not however, hesitate to use it for poetry—and have. Moreover, it pairs beautifully with the sans version, also free. Alegreya Sans for headings, Alegreya for body, is a combo that works great.

Century Schoolbook is one of the fonts included in the URW++ Ghostscript package I mentioned before. CS is always a good, workmanlike, and highly legible typeface. After all, it is widely specified for legal documents. For a novel? It would certainly work but might look a little old-fashioned, stodgy even, to some readers. For children’s books, as well as nonfiction, it remains a good choice.

Cormorant is a variant on the ever-popular Garamond style of typefaces, but one a little too quirky for long stretches of text. It lacks the readability for that. Great for titles, though (as is the related sans, Ysabeau), and we used it for a book of quotes once.

Crimson I mentioned before and suggested getting the latest version from the designer. It is another Garamond-ish font (or more in the Granjon vein, actually) and has some similarities to the popular Plantin typeface. That’s a good thing. There have been reports of oddities when it is printed so that is something one must watch for (as with any font). Another good workmanlike font with a touch of elegance.*

EB Garamond is pretty much the cream of the free Garamonds (although we mostly use the URW++ Garamond No.8) and practically identical to the widely used Adobe Garamond. As both are based on the same original type samples, this is not unexpected. Some might claim it is not quite as refined as the Adobe offering in terms of kerning and such, but it looks every bit as good to us. One could certainly use this typeface exclusively for text and forget the rest.

Gentium has been around a long time and is thoroughly tried and tested. It looks pretty good, too, less stodgy than many popular choices but not overdone. It does suffer somewhat from the same problem as Times New Roman; that is, it can look too closely packed in long lines. We’ve used it for poetry and it works there. It would not be a bad choice for a magazine, used in narrower columns.

The same is largely true of Linux Libertine, another font that has been around a while.

PT Serif was designed for the Russian government. It has more than a passing resemblance to Microsoft’s Constantia, probably the best of those ‘Clear Type’ fonts they brought out as a package some time back. Of course, any and all those Microsoft fonts included for ‘free’ with Windows are off-limits for publishing, but PT is a quite adequate and usable typeface.

Which brings us at last to the very popular Volkorn. As much as I like this font, I’ve never seen it as working that well in a novel. Maybe it could but I’d be more likely to use it for nonfiction. It is a solid, readable font—almost too solid.

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Some others I might mention: Fanwood, which is based on a ‘standard’ typeface for fiction, Fairfield. The same designer, Barry Schwarz, has also crafted OFL Sorts Mill Goudy, based on Goudy Old Style. Both certainly look good but are perhaps not quite as time-tested and refined as some other offerings. Schwarz has some other Goudy-based offerings too; one might or might not find them useful.

Libre Baskerville and Libre Caslon are both projects that might not be completely perfected but might provide what one needs for a self-published project—especially if one wants that classic look such fonts provide.

Literata is a Google font originally designed for use in e-readers but one needn’t limit it to that. There is a version for print, in a large variety of weights. I’ll note that it looks somewhat like Adobe’s Minion.

Lora is also available from Google and is, again, intended more as a screen font than a print one, but doesn’t look bad on a page.

All these typefaces may be found readily enough online. Search the names. Perhaps I’ll write a post on a few of the commercial fonts we like and use, down the line, but this is enough for now.

*An addendum: There is now a Crimson Pro that is an even better choice, and available in a number of weights. If you wish to try out Crimson, this is the way to go (and it may be downloaded from Google Fonts).