How do you setup a TeX document to self publish a book online?

Question

I am a casual TeX user. Mostly I have used it to type up some reports/homeworks for class in my graduate engineering work. In the past I have used document type "article". And then kept all the defaults.

I need to self publish something online. At the highest level I would like to know: How do you setup a TeX document to self publish a book online?

Some more low level questions:

• Is there a document type for "book" and what is its name?
• I am looking at Amazon Createspace. Amazon Createspace's requirements are: filetype=pdf, trim size, margins (gutter and outside margins). All of these various trim size, margins gutter/outside can be adjusted in the Tex document?
  • Has anyone seen any good TeX templates for Amazon Createspace?
  • If you could demonstrate how to tweak a specific "book" document type that would be very helpful also.

Other than the above questions, please feel free to offer any other sort of help since I am completely new to this process (advice, links to good tutorials, links to wikibooks).

Answer 1

Martin gave a full answer with various examples (mentionning book, memoir and scrbook).

When it comes to scrbook, here is an example I have set to fit CreateSpace and Lulu's requirements. I generate US Trade formats (6x9 in):

% WITHOUT BLEED
% US Trade => 6x9
\documentclass[paper=6in:9in,pagesize=pdftex,
               headinclude=on,footinclude=on,12pt]{scrbook}
%
% Paper width
% W = 6in
% Paper height
% H = 9in
% Paper gutter
% BCOR = 0.5in
% Margin (0.5in imposed on lulu, recommended on createspace)
% m = 0.5in
% Text height
% h = H - 2m = 8in
% Text width
% w = W - 2m - BCOR = 4.5in
\areaset[0.50in]{4.5in}{8in}

And here is a similar one which requires a bleed (0.125" on CreateSpace):

% WITH BLEED
% US Trade => 6x9, with a 0.125 bleed
% Adjust images size and gutter so tabs bleed by .125
% See https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/InteriorPDF.jsp
\documentclass[paper=6.125in:9.25in,pagesize=pdftex,
               10pt]{scrbook}
%
% Paper width
% W = 6.125in (6+0.125 --- bleed)
% Paper height
% H = 9.25in (9+2*.125 --- bleed)
% Paper gutter
% BCOR = 0.375in (0.5+0.5-0.625 --- margin with bleed)
% Margin (0.5in imposed on lulu, recommended on createspace)
% m = 0.625in (0.5+0.125 --- bleed)
% Text height
% h = H - 2m = 8in
% Text width
% w = W - 2m - BCOR = 4.5in
\areaset[0.375in]{4.5in}{8in}

The rest of the books are quite standard, and really depend on what you want to put in them.

Answer 2

There are a couple of book classes. The default one is simply called book. Then there is the book class of the Koma script bundle called scrbook which is more suited for European styles IMHO. There is also the memoir class which can be used for books. Some people prefer it because it seems to be highly configurable.

To tweak the margins etc. I would recommend the standard geometry package, at least for book. The scrbook and memoir classes might have some own settings for that.

Should you need some special page format, like a special page size printed on A4 with professional crop marks you can use the crop package. This might be mandatory for print publishing, but for simple PDF online publication this should not be necessary or even wanted.

Answer 3

Here's an MWE for Memoir which is meant to be processed using XeLaTeX. In addition to setting crop marks, it will also properly set the pdf Trimbox which pre-press applications expect:

\documentclass[showtrims]{memoir}

\setstocksize{846bp}{648bp}
\settrimmedsize{10.75in}{8in}{*}
\settrims{36bp}{36bp}
\settypeblocksize{600bp}{480bp}{*}
\setcolsepandrule{18bp}{0pt}
\setulmargins{111bp}{*}{*}
\setlrmargins{36bp}{*}{*}
\setheaderspaces{*}{54bp}{*}
\setheadfoot{18bp}{21bp}
\setmarginnotes{1bp}{1bp}{1bp}
\checkandfixthelayout

\quarkmarks

\usepackage{atbegshi}
\AtBeginShipout{\special{pdf: put @thispage <</TrimBox [36.0 36.0 612 810]>>}}
\special{pdf: put @thispage <</TrimBox [36.0 36.0 612 810]>>}

\begin{document}
Test\clearpage Test
\end{document}

Verify by turning on the option under Acrobat | Preferences | General | Page Display:

Show art, trim, & bleed boxes