"In a well-made book, where designer, compositor, and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive.”
—Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style

The most important thing for a successful novel or memoir is a compelling, well-written story. We’re going to assume that by the time you’re ready to publish, your manuscript has achieved its absolute best final form.

From there, we take over. Our goal is to create a book that begs your reader to pick it up and start reading. (Then, of course, we want them to stay up late, turning pages.) When you hand over your manuscript, we begin working with you, but we are working for your reader, too: Every aspect of the book must be developed with him or her in mind. For us, that means producing clear, readable text with appealing pages and a cover that will grab the reader’s attention.

We start by considering the genre. Although there is a wide range of creativity when it comes to covers (just see our book shelf for examples of the covers we’ve produced), novels generally have a look that brands the genre.

Think about this for moment: Can you tell from glancing at a novel’s cover whether the book is horror? Fantasy? Romance? YA? Most of the time, the answer is “Yes!”

How does that happen? Luminare Press gathers your ideas through our cover questionnaire, and then we get started. Specific elements guide the creation of your cover’s image: knowledge of the genre, the setting (medieval France? Chicago in the Jazz Age? The Future?), and your ideas. Maybe you supply us with examples of covers that you admire or a unique image in your possession. Sometimes we search for a piece of art that will fit your work.

The cover usually takes a few rounds, and we collaborate with you to get all the components—spine, back cover text, author biography—just right.

The interior is a similar process—though fonts and sizing are not quite as genre specific, we design with your story in mind. We’ll send you sample pages for feedback. We adjust the chapter headings, fonts, and spacing to suit you, and make sure that the elements inside your book are compatible with the cover.

And in the end, you’ll have a book that brings your story to life—a book whose style matches its substance and just begs to be read.