Images are an asset to any published book if appropriate. This means that all published books do not necessarily need images, and this page is created to help you to decide if you want photos or not, and if you do, how to insert them into your manuscript. Inserting photos is not a hard thing to do. As a matter of fact, most document software programs such as Word Document or Open Office provides an easy way to insert images into your manuscript. They provide a menu with options to guide you in inserting your images and manipulate the size, the color or even the quality of the image.
Should my manuscript/book include images?
The logical answer is IT'S UP TO YOU. That's right. This is YOUR book, YOUR baby and YOUR decision on how it looks and reads. There are some not-so-legal rules to which type of books should include images such as:
1. PICTURE BOOKS should include images (of course). The only thing you should know is that black and white image printing is free and color image printing is not. We can tell you more about that here.
2. NOVELS are not known to have images present in them. We will tell you our professional opinion to why this is so, but first let's deal with terminology. Here is the definition of "novel" taken from Wikipedia: A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. We submit to you that since a novel is more of a narrative story, images provide a break in the readers mind. Sort of like a commercial that interrupts an awesome movie. Images (for the most part) are just unnecessary to the novel reader.
3. The size of novels are usually 4.25X7. This is a small book, so images in a small book can be hard to see for some readers.
4. Images take up too much space in such a small book. Again; if you are writing a narrative story, you need all of the limited space that you are provided with to tell the story. Images would just be in the way for many reasons such as those stated above.
How do I insert images into my document?
Different software have different methods to insert images into documents. Visit the "help" link that is included in the software that you are using. We have a quick tutorial for you if you are using Word Document. You can find that tutorial here.
Should my manuscript/book include images?
The logical answer is IT'S UP TO YOU. That's right. This is YOUR book, YOUR baby and YOUR decision on how it looks and reads. There are some not-so-legal rules to which type of books should include images such as:
1. PICTURE BOOKS should include images (of course). The only thing you should know is that black and white image printing is free and color image printing is not. We can tell you more about that here.
2. NOVELS are not known to have images present in them. We will tell you our professional opinion to why this is so, but first let's deal with terminology. Here is the definition of "novel" taken from Wikipedia: A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. We submit to you that since a novel is more of a narrative story, images provide a break in the readers mind. Sort of like a commercial that interrupts an awesome movie. Images (for the most part) are just unnecessary to the novel reader.
3. The size of novels are usually 4.25X7. This is a small book, so images in a small book can be hard to see for some readers.
4. Images take up too much space in such a small book. Again; if you are writing a narrative story, you need all of the limited space that you are provided with to tell the story. Images would just be in the way for many reasons such as those stated above.
How do I insert images into my document?
Different software have different methods to insert images into documents. Visit the "help" link that is included in the software that you are using. We have a quick tutorial for you if you are using Word Document. You can find that tutorial here.
INSERTING IMAGES
