Today I’m excited to share a project that I’ve been working on off and on since February and that was published earlier this week. It’s entitled Living in the True Spirit of Christmas: An Advent Devotional, and you can buy the book and the ebook on Amazon here and here, respectively.

Although most of my work is plain-old copy editing and proofreading, you wouldn’t know it from the recent work I share here online. Projects involving layout and design work are just more fun to share online—there’s actually something pretty to look at. 🙂 I really enjoy these types of projects, and since they usually span good chunks of time, it’s fun to celebrate their closure by sharing them with all of you.

For this project I did a couple rounds of copy editing and proofreading, but I also did the design, layout, and typesetting for the book for both print and ebook formats. I also did back-end setup for the publishing process; the author chose to work with Amazon’s CreateSpace and KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) programs, and it was a great opportunity for me to stay up-to-speed with those.

I thought I’d share a peek into a few files from the design stage—and give you sneak peek into part of the book in the process (you can read a sample of the ebook at Amazon, too). Here are just a couple of the layout drafts I put together for the author’s review early on in the process. You can click on each image to see it a bit larger.

I really like this one’s graphic feel—the extra-large holly leaves feel playful and eye-catching. This next layout had a softer feel, inspired by Christmas twinkle lights:

(Keep in mind that the text used in these samples was early-stage and was essentially being used as placeholder text during the design process.) Here’s the final layout we went with, with actual text:

The author wanted a modern, clean, easy-to-read design layout, and I think this turned out really well.

The book is divided into four sections for each of the four weeks of Advent. Section openings are each a variation of this:

Like the cover, the section openings feature photography by Andy Brehm Photography, an outstanding landscape photographer who I also happen to be related to. 🙂 Andy recently returned from a trip to Namibia (think surreal, National Geographic-esque photos of the oldest desert in the world).

For the ebook we went with a slightly stripped-down design, but we were able to maintain the overall look and feel in both formats. I’d love for you to check out the book and let me (and the author!) know what you think; leave a comment here, or, better yet, leave a review on Amazon. 🙂

So that’s a look inside a project that’s kept me busy lately. Thanks for letting me share! To see more of my recent work, check out my online portfolio.

Looking for an editor? Kelsey Mitchener Editing Services specializes in nonfiction copy editing and proofreading. Get in touch and let’s work together on your next project!

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