Love in Dark Settings

The PDF file of Rebirth is off to the proofreaders, so I can give you folks your first glimpse of what the paperback will look like. The letters are smudged in this enlarged reproduction, because of the manner in which I placed it online, and of course there's no guarantee that I won't end up revising the layout of this particular page. But you'll at least be able to see what a handsome typeface Hoefler Text is.



Oh, man, do I want someone to write a book on how to lay out drop caps. Half the questions I sent my father had to do with them. What do I do if the second letter is too close to the first letter? What do I do if the second letter is too far away from the first letter? Should the second letter be spaced differently, depending on whether it's part of the same word as the first letter? What should I do if the second line is the beginning of a new paragraph? And what the heck do I do if InDesign, in its infinite wisdom, decides that optical margin alignment means that a friendly quotation mark starting the second line should be nudged over till it's cuddling up with the high-ranking, austere drop cap? (Probably has something to do with InDesign paying attention the content of the text.)

Anyway, I'm projecting a late August to September publication date for the paperback, which is later in the year than I'd like, but at least it'll be out this year.