Category Archives: PPG Style Guides

PPG Graphic Design Style Guide

The PPG Graphic Design Style Guide was created to ensure all our graphic designers follow the same professional standards for all our books. Each vendor we hire must follow these guidelines.

1. The graphic designer is responsible for sourcing/creating the bar code for each book based on ISBNs supplied by the publisher. The bar code is always placed on bottom right-hand corner of the back cover and PPG logos should appear as shown in this image:

PPG Graphic Design Style Guide

2. The gutter and margins should be set as shown here to ensure proper spacing in final printed book:

Gutter and margins for PPG books

3. When doing initial design samples for clients, send only two samples each of both the entire cover and one interior chapter. The entire cover includes the back cover, spine, and front cover as shown above. The sample chapter should include the title page and a couple extra sample pages to show the client how the margins, headers, footers, fonts, and spacing might appear.

4. Here is a link to the cover generator (barcode generator) that Ingram Content Group (Lightning Source) uses for its books: https://myaccount.lightningsource.com/Portal/Tools/CoverTemplateGenerator. Please use this tool to generate all book cover templates for PPG paperbacks and hardcover books. It will provide the most accurate spine measurement as it factors in LSI’s chosen paper weights here.

Page counts have to be guesstimated in the beginning since we won’t know the final page count until the final version of the book has been completed, so here is a guideline to use when generating a cover template. Typically, there are 300 words on a page (in the average non-fiction/fiction book). So, if a raw manuscript is 50,000 words long, assume that the book will be 167 pages, plus another 13 pages to account for front matter and back matter, for a total of 180 pages. Always round page counts up to the nearest even number. Build the first draft of the cover for this number of pages. Change it as needed as the book changes.

5. Never include a price on a PPG book cover. Only include the barcode excluding the price.

6. Only make the author’s/editor’s/proofreader’s exact changes to a manuscript. Never make judgment calls regarding punctuation or spelling or anything other than graphic design. Punctuation and spelling are the editor’s and proofreader’s jobs. Graphic design is the graphic designer’s job.

English is far from being a simple, straightforward language. There are many different editorial style guides associated with the English language, depending on which country an editor is representing: United Kingdom, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. We all have different ways of spelling and punctuating the English language, so we each use different editorial style guides when editing books.

For this reason, PPG creates a customized editorial style sheet for all our authors—to ensure consistency in editing for each and every one of their books. Since this sheet is only shared with the editor, proofreader, and author, it is impossible for the graphic designer to know which style is being used or make any editorial recommendations.

7. Eliminate all visible widows, orphans, and bad breaks from both the back cover and internal copy of the book. (You may not find them all, and that’s okay. Just do your best. The proofreader will find the rest.) “Square up” the each page so that facing pages are as symmetrical as possible (e.g., you never want the text/graphics on one page to be noticeably longer than the facing page). Symmetry is important to a professional result.

A book’s interior is usually either justified or flush left as shown in the diagram below.

If you choose justified alignment for your interior, then you have to be especially concerned with bad breaks in words. For example:

The words “curious” and “remember” are badly broken up in the above sample. To avoid this, you can kern that particular block of text either slightly looser or slightly tighter to ensure the full words land on one line rather than breaking up into two lines. Believe me when I say that extra little detail can subliminally affect the quality of your book in other people’s eyes. It takes no time at all to fix it, so I highly recommend that you do.

Widows and orphans are a concern whether your text is justified or flush left as shown in the below image:

As shown above, a widow is a lone word stuck on a line by itself anywhere in a page; whereas, an orphan is a lone one or two words that have landed by themselves on a line, up on the next page. Both of these things affect the flow and professional appearance of a book whether you realize it or not. Professional publishers always ensure these types of issues are eliminated by meticulously kerning certain blocks of text throughout the book (as opposed to adding in extra line breaks or paragraph breaks in random places to try to correct the issue).

8. Ensure the table of contents and all headers/footers are accurate before sending any proofs to PPG to forward to the author for review. Each draft should be treated as a finished book and sent to the author as complete as possible.

9. The graphic designer’s fees include the cost of up to two stock photos sourced by the graphic designer for the book. Designers should do everything possible to use whatever materials an author has provided in order to mitigate having to purchase additional stock photos up and above the included two. But if, for some reason, additional graphics need to be purchased, the designer must let PPG know the price so PPG can alert the author to either pay for this or provide their own alternatives.

10. All finished and working files must be returned to PPG at the end of the project in a zipped folder that is clear, orderly, and easy for the author to access and sort through.

Related reading: PPG Work-Made-for-Hire Vendor Agreement

You might consider syndicating this content on your own blog. If you do, make sure to attribute the original source so neither of us gets dinged on the SEO front. You can do that by including this line at the bottom of the article: This content first appeared on the PPG Publisher’s Blog and has been republished here with permission.
As a user of this website, you are authorized only to view, copy, print, and distribute the documents on this website so long as: one (1) the document is used for informational purposes only; and two (2) any copy of the document (or portion thereof) includes the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2019 Polished Publishing Group (PPG). All rights reserved.




PPG Canadian Editorial Style Guide

The PPG Canadian Editorial Style Guide was created as a starting point for our editors. It is used for all PPG authors who haven’t requested another specific editorial style guide for their books.

PPG Canadian Editorial Style Guide

Obviously, English is far from being a simple, straightforward language. There are many different editorial style guides associated with the English language, depending on which country an editor is representing: United Kingdom, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. We all have different ways of spelling and punctuating the English language, so we each use different editorial style guides when editing books.

This is why PPG creates a customized editorial style sheet for all our authors—to ensure consistency in editing for each and every one of their books. The styles are driven, first and foremost, by the author’s preference (if any) as to which primary guide he or she wishes to use (e.g., The Oxford Style Manual for British authors, The Chicago Manual of Style for American authors, a special blend of the two for Canadian authors as shown below). From there, the customized editorial style sheet is created by a book project’s primary editor, and everyone else follows that editor’s lead for every single book published by that author going forward.

PPG Canadian Editorial Style Guide

Spelling and Spelling References

A-B-C-D-E

Use behaviour and behavioural, not behavior and behavioral

Use clamour, not clamor; but write clamorous, not clamourous

Use colour (and colourful); not color or colorful

 

Er and ‘er: Use the word “er” to denote a speech filler, but use ‘er to denote an informal contraction of “her”: e.g., Oh, er, bring the truck ‘round to the gas pump and fill ‘er up.

 

 

 F-G-H-I-J

Use favour (and favourite), not favor or favorite

Use flavour (and flavouring) not flavor or flavoring

Use humour, not humor; but  write humorous, not humourous
K-L-M-N-O

Use labour, not labor; but write laborious, not labourious

Use metre, not meter

 

 

 

 P-Q-R-S-T

Use savour, not savor

Use TV, not T.V. (plural is TVs)

 
U-V-W-X-Y-Z

 

 English Spelling/Translations

Generally, Canadian spelling uses “our” for words such as labour, humour, etc, but there are a few exceptions: sailor, tailor. Also, some “our” words drop the “u” when a suffix such as “ious” is added: e.g., laborious, not labourious

 

Words such as “center” and “meter” use “re” in Canadian spelling: e.g., centre, metre

Grammar and Punctuation

Style Guide(s) Used

Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 16th Edition

 

Oxford Guide to Writing English: The Canadian Handbook

 

“Numbers in Fiction” The Editor’s Blog (Beth Hill, January 25, 2013)

http://theeditorsblog.net/2013/01/13/numbers-in-fiction/

 

 Abbreviations and Acronyms

As per The Editor’s Blog, avoid using abbreviations for units of measure and rates of speed (especially for dialogue within the story), if possible. See blog post for examples.

 

For acronyms, spell out the words (or meaning of the acronym) in full the first time an acronym is used.

 Capitalization

Capitalize names and do not place quotation marks around the names of other animals: e.g., write Lucky, not “Lucky”.

 

Capitalize brand names and manufacturers.

 Dates and Time

As per The Editor’s Blog, avoid using ordinal numbers (e.g., 1st, 30th) for dates that include the month or month and year.

 

Ex. Write first of June, not June 1st or 1st of June. (Also avoid using superscripts with ordinal numbers in dates; e.g., write 25th, not 25th.)
Dictionary Used

Oxford Canadian Dictionary of Current English

 

 Design (Info re layout, font, margins, trim size, etc.) Italics (as per CMOS)

Use italics to denote unfamiliar foreign words or phrases (or foreign sounding words and phrases; e.g., Genus Humanitas or Genius Humanitas); rather than italics and quotation marks.

 

Italics (or boldface type) can also be used (sparingly) to show emphasis.

 Numbers

As per the PPG Style Guide, spell out numbers from zero to nine, and write the numerals for anything greater than nine (e.g., 10 not ten).

 

Exceptions:  Write the numbers as words when writing dialogue. (Source: “Numbers in Fiction”, The Editor’s Blog)
Punctuation

 

 Quotation Marks

Quotation marks may be used to signal that a word is being used in an unusual way or to denote sarcasm or irony. (Note: The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) discourages frequent use of quotation marks for this purpose. Where quotations are used to introduce an unusual phrase or jargon, CMOS recommends dropping the quotation marks for subsequent uses of the same word or phrase.)

 

Use quotation marks around a word or term when you are referring to it as a word.

 Symbols

As per The Editor’s Blog, write out the words for symbols: e.g., use dollar, not $, percent, not %; degrees not °, etc., especially for dialogue.

 URLs (as per PPG Style Guide)

Write urls in lowercase letters

Related reading: PPG Work-Made-for-Hire Vendor Agreement

You might consider syndicating this content on your own blog. If you do, make sure to attribute the original source so neither of us gets dinged on the SEO front. You can do that by including this line at the bottom of the article: This content first appeared on the PPG Publisher’s Blog and has been republished here with permission.
As a user of this website, you are authorized only to view, copy, print, and distribute the documents on this website so long as: one (1) the document is used for informational purposes only; and two (2) any copy of the document (or portion thereof) includes the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2019 Polished Publishing Group (PPG). All rights reserved.