Creating a book cover with a single Photo covering both front and back pages

[AaronMoss]

I'm pretty new to publishing so not sure of the correct terminology to use, so I'll start with my usual process.

I usually create a book (for this example an A5 portrait formatted book). The front cover (page 01) starts on the right side of a spread of 2 pages. With all internal pages then being a two page spread. Finally the back page of the book being the left side of the spread of 2 pages (page 16 for example).

My current book design however requires a single image to span across both the front and back cover as a single entity. (basically wrapping from the back to the front cover).

So my question is how do I approach this? I have a couple of thoughts and I don't know if either is the correct method in terms of efficiency or more importantly when it's handed off to a printing company, I get back what i'm expecting.

Thought 01 - As the front cover is page 01 and the back cover is page 16, do i have to duplicate the image and create 2 images split equally down the middle and paste the right side image on page 01, and the left side image on page 16? This seems very time consuming and causes big issues when editing the image after splitting it into 2 images. (i.e. changing the contrast twice for each half of the image, or worse having to split the image in 2 every time I replace / update that image)

Thought 02 - Do I just create a new master page for the book cover which is A4 Landscape (=2X A5 portrait) and treat the front and back cover as page 01? and therefore have no specific back cover page (page 16). Will this cause issues at the printing company end, as the cover page is now not defined as A5?

Any help would be greatly appreciated to how I move forward. Finally relating to this issue, what's the process when you need to design the spine of a thick hardcover book?

Thanks

[William Overington]

This is interesting.

I do not know the answer, but for the booklet it seems to me that the printing is going to be done on A4 sheets that will then be folded (or on sheets a little bigger than A4 so as to include bleed areas that are then trimmed to A4 so that a picture can go to the edge of the paper).

So it might be possible to have it as A4 or A4 plus bleed areas in Affinity Publisher.

Do you know who will print it? If so, could you ask them what they are able to accept as input?

Someone told me that (some) printers have software tools available to them that allows them to manipulate a PDF document flle so as to prodce a new PDF document for them to use to print.

So, for example, someone at one company told me that if I wanted a sixteen page booklet that I could send them a PDF document of sixteen single A5 pages as pages 1 through to 16 and they have software that would automatically sort the pages so that sheets of A4 plus a bleed area to be printed on both sides of the paper would be produced, though it might be that the printing would be done on much larger sheets of paper then cut into multiple sheets after printing. 

So maybe a sort of "A4 landscape for A5 portrait booklet" PDF document would be an option that they have available. 

William

 

[Komatös]

Hello @AaronMoss and welcome to the forums.

I have created a template for you. I used an own master page for the continuous cover.

 

Book A5 16 pages.afpub

[William Overington]

51 minutes ago, Komatös said:

I havecreated a template for you. I used an own master page for the continuous cover.

Can you explain how one introduces the photograph into a book made using that template please?

William

 

[Komatös]

@William Overington

Yes, of course. Click on the master page 'Cover' and replace the existing image with your own.

[William Overington]

30 minutes ago, Komatös said:

@William Overington

Yes, of course. Click on the master page 'Cover' and replace the existing image with your own.

Ah, what master page I thought - I have not used Affinity Publisher much - then I looked at lower right of the screen where it says 1 of 18 and to the right of it is a small logo, which, when I moved the pointer over it displays the message

Toggle Master View

so I clicked on it and a large landscape format page was displayed.

William

 

[AaronMoss]

Thanks All that's a  great help    I didn't think of using the Page Master for the image location.            

[Komatös]

12 hours ago, AaronMoss said:

...  Finally relating to this issue, what's the process when you need to design the spine of a thick hardcover book?

Thanks

For calculating the spine thickness look at this side:

https://www.gutenberg.com.mt/spine-width-calculator

[markimark]

@Komatös thanks for the template, helped me jump start my front-to-back cover with spine, made adjustments for my 2 5.5x8.5 artwork pages.  I did notice that when I placed a 300dpi publisher file into this that the sizes did not seem to match even with both documents being 300 dpi, any ideas as to why?  Also, I enjoyed my visit to Hamburg years ago, beautiful city.  I've also had Hamburger in America, but I don't think this is really from Hamburg, at least not in it's current form, :J

never mind, got it

 

[Komatös]

@markimark

You are welcome!

Yes, the hamburger was not invented in Hamburg.

Etymology
The exact origin of the word "hamburger" has not been handed down. What is certain is that the first syllable "ham" has nothing to do with the English "ham" (German Hinterschinken).[2] Rather, it derived from the short word for fried minced meat (English hamburger steak), which Hamburg immigrants introduced in the 19th century.[3] This was also confirmed by an American etymology dictionary.[4] There are competing theories about the origin of the word hamburger.

There are competing theories on the origin of hamburger:

Several hypotheses assume that the name actually originated in the German city of Hamburg. There is a traditional snack called Rundstück warm in Hamburg. This consists of a wheat roll ("Rundstück") with a slice of roast meat inside and gravy poured over it. Another variation of this "hamburger patty" consists of a wheat roll with a minced meat patty made from beefsteak and egg yolk. This recipe, it is hypothesised, came to the USA with German immigrants. Moreover, meatballs with rolls were a popular dish on the emigrant ships that often set sail from Hamburg. At the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, such minced meat rolls - still without an "er" ending - were verifiably sold as "Hamburg".
In a US cookbook from 1842, the term hamburger steak appears for a steak made from ground beef (American English ground beef, British English minced meat). The minced steak was also called "Hamburg-style steak", named after the northern German city.
Another theory, however, is that the name originated in 1885 at a fair in Erie County near the American town of Hamburg, near Buffalo in the US state of New York. There, the Menches Brothers had a snack stand where they experimented with beef as a substitute due to a shortage of roast pork (Hot Pork). They called their creation hamburger, in keeping with their birthplace. This theory is officially promoted by New York State with the slogan New York's Gift to World Cuisine, The Hamburger, but is widely disputed.[5]
Another theory is that in the early years of the settlement of the USA (before the establishment of cattle farming) imported beef (mainly via the port of Hamburg, chilled with bar ice) was a luxury good, the slang word hamburger generally denoted beef of superior quality; this was thus to be emphasised.
The English word "hamburger" can stand for the type of minced meat used (lean ground beef) as well as for the naked meat structure without bun or other ingredients. If this meat was placed in bread or a bun, it was called a hamburger sandwich. In the middle of the 20th century, both terms were shortened to hamburger or just burger. In German, hamburger or burger always refers to the entire snack of meat and bun; in GDR cuisine, the term grilletta was common.

Source: Wikipedia