affinity publisher Creating illustrated books with Affinity Publisher: An old dog learns a new trick.

[A J Grantleigh]

Greetings from someone who never used desktop publishing software until age 75. (Admittedly, I was a programmer/analyst on the mainframe IBM360 during the 1980s.) However, my previous experience is thus analogous to a dirigible mechanic trying to fix a modern fly-by-wire fighter jet. Back in my misspent youth, I was an historian, a museum curator, a darkroom technician and magazine editor, and wrote several books and many articles. With some book projects that had been rusticating on the back burner for decades, I shopped around for a powerful, yet affordable, publishing software and kept coming back to Serif Affinity. I purchased the suite of programs and the updated versions and have not regretted that decision.

After the steep, but not daunting, learning curve from knowing absolutely zero to being able to actually produce print-ready pdfs, I edited, designed, illustrated and published a three-volume introduction to (U.S.) Civil War paper ephemera, and a reprint of a Victorian "dime novel" between August 2022 and February 2023. I'm currently in the final stages of resurrecting the works of "Bracebridge Hemyng," a nineteenth-century London barrister-turned sensational novelist who created "Jack Harkaway."

A friend created a video "book trailer" on YouTube for the Civil War volumes:

The books average about 300 pages each, with hundreds of illustrations in full color.

And here is my preliminary cover design for the upcoming "Jack Harkaway" biography/bibliography:

 

Still discovering the ins and outs of Affinity Designer and Photo, but they have made these projects much easier and allowed total artistic and editorial control.

My message is: If an old geezer can do it, go for it!

 

[Twolane]

Welcome from another aged geezer who turned his e-books into POD books available on Ingram Spark and Amazon. Best of luck!

[Barry Newman]

Really great and useful work @A J Grantleigh It's great to see that you're using your time wisely.

It's always a special feeling to see the result of your work printed.

[A J Grantleigh]

Thanks for your kind welcome. I also have been using Amazon's KDP as my vanity press. Not going to get rich, but it is satisfying nonetheless to turn a nebulous idea into a three-dimensional book. If it can make one reader happy, it's "mission accomplished."

All the best...

[Barry Newman]

4 minutes ago, A J Grantleigh said:

Thanks for your kind welcome. I also have been using Amazon's KDP as my vanity press. Not going to get rich, but it is satisfying nonetheless to turn a nebulous idea into a three-dimensional book. If it can make one reader happy, it's "mission accomplished."

Yes, recognition is nice, but using life meaningfully is best!

Have a great weekend!

[A J Grantleigh]

Wholeheartedly agree -- life is too precious to be wasted.

Have a great weekend yourself.

[jmwellborn]

1 hour ago, A J Grantleigh said:

Wholeheartedly agree -- life is too precious to be wasted.

Have a great weekend yourself.

Your remarkable "just learning to use Affinity" books are a tribute to stick-to-itive-ness. Also a salute to misspent youth!!!  And such a refutation to some complaints that occasionally appear in these forums saying "Publisher can't . . ." or "Designer can't . . . " or "Photo can't . . ."  when the person commenting simply needs to find out/learn how they CAN.   For me, they are a joy to use every day.  Welcome to the Forums! 

[A J Grantleigh]

Thanks for the positive feedback.

My time as a mainframe programmer in the days when our glorified adding machines required a city block's worth of housing, air-conditioning and a team of flunkies to mount and dismount tapes and disks, taught me  a.) NOT to trust computers unreservedly; b.) Patience and; c.) how to devise sneaky work-arounds to technical glitches. (Being naturally bullheaded and stubborn doesn't do any harm either.)

After making every greenhorn goof on Volume I, I was totally stumped when Publisher crashed after my combined chapter files got too big. While doing something else, like pulling weeds, the proverbial light bulb went on: What ho! if Publisher can't handle the huge file, Apple Preview should be able to. So, I combined the exported pdfs to Preview and stitched them together with a minimum of fuss. I understand Version 2 has fixed this issue, but if it hasn't, I'll go back to what worked before.

People are smart but often clueless. Computers are dumb but meticulous. They do literally what you ask them to do, but not always what you want them to do. As always, Never Assume!

 

Best,

[Oufti]

1 hour ago, A J Grantleigh said:

if Publisher can't handle the huge file, Apple Preview should be able to. So, I combined the exported pdfs to Preview and stitched them together with a minimum of fuss.

I wouldn't trust Apple Preview too much to handle PDFs (no problem for other file formats) if they're ever going to be printed (at least on anything other than a desktop printer). 

Its support for PDF standards is not very well known...

[A J Grantleigh]

Thanks for the input.

I haven't encountered any problems. Had good results with Preview. Perhaps just lucky...

Anyway, Publisher seems to have fixed the file size problem in Version 2.