Publishing I

PUBLISHING ONLINE COURSE -Iintroduction to the publishing industry

"I found the course to be extremely helpful. It has given me the confidence and skills to present my work to publishers."
- Dilys

• Learn how the industry works,
• Learn the creative and artistic skills of the trade
• Learn how to market your work 
• Develop an understanding of the ethical issues and laws relating to the field.

Use this course as a step toward self publishing, furthering your opportunities working for publishers, or starting your own business. You will also have a chance to undertake a stimulating publishing project and implement the skills you have learned.

Lesson Structure

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. The Publishing World
   • Nature & scope of publishing, types of publishers, how books are published, market research
2. Publishing Procedures & Techniques
   • Colour or black & white; film or digital imaging,
   • types of printing, alternative ways of doing layout (eg. typesetting, paste up, electronic layout with Adobe products or MS publisher),
   • comparing types of digital graphic files, printing costs, etc.
3. Desktop Publishing
   • Word Processing,
   • Alternative publishing methods: Printing on a Computer Printer;
   • Supplying a "Master" to a commercial printer, or plublishing electronically (eg. Internet or CD)
4. Desktop Publishing
   • Software options,
   • use of colour,
   • black and white,
   • use of graphics,
   • putting it together, etc.
5. Illustration: Graphics
   • Line illustrations,
   • cartoons,
   • photos etc.
   • Freehand work,
   • Computer graphics, etc.
6. Illustration: Photography
   • Photographic Equipment & Materials;
   • Composition;
   • Development of Photographic Style
   • Portraiture, Posing for Photographs,
   • Planning a Photo Session,
   • Studio Photography,
   • Fault Finding, etc.
7. Researching
   • Types of Research (Exploratory, Experimental etc),
   • Primary & Secondary Data sources,
   • Planning a survey, Conducting an interview.
8. Marketing in Publishing
   • Understanding marketing & publicity
   • what makes a publication succeed or fail,
   • launches,
   • press releases, etc.
9. Publishing: Ethics & The Law
   • Public attitudes,
   • accuracy of writing,
   • bias,
   • monopolies,
   • media ownership concerns, etc.
10. Publishing Project
    • Here you actually publish something.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Define the scope and nature of publishing today.
• Describe some of the processes that are commonly used to perform work tasks in the publishing industry.
• Identify a viable process to follow for desktop publishing of a small publication for printing on paper.
• Identify a viable process to follow for desktop publishing of a small publication in an electronic format (eg. E book or web site).
• Evaluate different types of illustration for ease and relevance for use in different publishing situations.
• Determine photography appropriate for inclusion in a publication.
• Determine research required appropriate to the needs of a publication.
• Determine a marketing strategy appropriate to the needs of a publication.
• Identify the impact of legal and ethical issues on a publisher.
• Plan the production and marketing of a publication.

What is involved in Publishing

Every publisher is a little different. The process of professional publishing though, is usually more involved than what most people might imagine, and almost always involves many stages in a releatively complex process. These stages may include some, or all of the following: