After the passing of her mother in 2020, personal organizer Rebekah Saltzman found herself grappling with the complexities of the shiva (mourning) period. This experience sparked a realization: there was so much she didn’t know and felt unprepared to handle in this unique season in her Jewish life. Her mother was no longer a phone call away to help with her questions.
Rebekah knew there had to be others who also felt adrift. This revelation led to the creation of her book, Organized Jewish Life: The Essential Guide to Planning Jewish Holidays, Events, and Every Day. Designed to offer practical advice for managing Jewish lifecycle events, holidays, and setting up a Jewish home, this book is a treasure trove of helpful information, tips and lists for Jewish families looking to streamline their lives.
I (Julie) enjoyed the challenge of typesetting this book and creating a look that would be clean and beautiful but also flexible enough to fit information of different lengths and styles.
When Rebekah first contacted me about her big book project, we discussed the page size. It needed to be a size that Amazon KDP offered, as she was already planning to use their publishing platform, but not too small to fit her many checklists and charts. We wanted a bit of a handbook feeling, a bit like a "Judaism for Dummies" guide. I think we achieved this with the final 7.25 x 9.25 inch size. At 330 pages it's thick enough to be an essential resource, but friendly, well-organized (of course) and not indimidating.
Below is a small glimpse into what Rebekah’s Word files looked like when they came to me, and what the designed/typeset pages looked like when I was done.
Font choices: In Rebekah’s book we used "ITC Souvenir Std" as the body font. It has an approachable, fresh feel while still being a serif font (serifs make large sections of text readable). The bold sanserif headings use “Lulo Clean" font, to add contrast and tie in with Rebekah’s Balagan Be Gone brand. The script font, "Espander Regular” added a touch of fun and life to a book all about living a full life.
Planning the pages: As you can see in this draft screenshot of the book below, we toyed with the idea of building in “tabs” on the right side of the pages, to quickly identify different sections of the book. Ultimately the idea was scrapped, mostly just due to needing as much width on the page as possible to contain the boxes, tables and charts.
Rebekah's Book Done Timeline
✍️ Writing started: August 2020
🎨 Files ready for design and layout: November 2021
✔️ Book done (released): September 2022
Rebekah's Book Done Takeaways
Tell me about how you came up with your book's title.
Because I am a personal organizer I knew the title had to use the word “organize” in some form. I tried arranging the title in different ways—ultimately I landed on Organized Jewish Life because it seemed like the easiest to say, and tells you what the book is about clearly. The more difficult part was choosing the subtitle: The Essential Guide to Planning Jewish Holidays, Events, and Every Day. It’s a bit of a mouthful.
Tell me a bit more about the cover design you chose.
I went through a lot of designers for the cover because somehow no one was able to capture exactly what I was wanting. Below you see some of the 50+ draft cover ideas.
Final cover illustration in grayscale
I ended up using an illustration created by a Jewish illustrator who understood the themes of my book and used symbols that are important in Judaism to try to convey the Jewish lifecycle. The illustrator and I went through many iterations of the cover illustration, maybe 20+ versions. When the illustration was finalized, Julie set up the front cover layout to match the look of the interior and then set up the spine and back cover to match.
Below you see the layout the way it looked before printing and wrapping around the interior of the book: back cover, spine and front cover.
Which part of your book project was the most fun or rewarding? Which was the most challenging?
The most rewarding part was seeing Organized Jewish Life listed live on Amazon. That made it all worth it.
The most challenging part of the process was the final push to get it there, those last nagging details. I just wanted to just get my book out there... so I was tempted to let things go, but knowing when you need to do a little bit more vs. when you have to walk away is the hardest part.
What was the biggest surprise during your book project?
Every aspect of the project took longer than I expected. The editing, the proofreading, the design, the marketing: even if I did my part quickly, there was no guarantee that the other members of my team could do fast turn around. Also, as a self-publisher, I was the project manager, keeping each person who was helping me on track. No matter how efficient I wanted to be, there were always hold ups.
Editing and proofreading was the most time-consuming task. Organized Jewish Life is a long and detailed book. There are dozens of charts, and lots of facts to check. There was also the standardization of Hebrew words to English transliteration, and making sure Hebrew words were spelled correctly. I tried to not be a perfectionist but also didn’t want to have a glaring error.
I was surprised at how many choices there are to make and how many aspects there are to launching a book: mock ups, managing editors, advertising, understanding Amazon KDP, and (of course) the cost! I knew these things existed but in my head it seemed like they just sort of happen, and yet, they didn’t. I had to learn a lot and be involved in each aspect of what was needed for my book launch.
What service providers or partners did you have in creating and producing your book?
Editor, professional proofreader, volunteer proofreaders, book designer (Julie), illustrator, and a photographer for the author photo for the back cover.
What is your best advice for marketing a book?
You need to create buzz, so I do giveaways a lot around Jewish holidays to help boost sales!
When you write another book, what will you do the same way? What will you do differently?
I have self-published a few other things on Amazon KDP since Organized Jewish Life. A meal planning workbook that coordinates with the book, a password keeper, and a Jewish Perpetual calendar. I am in the process of writing something new, and for this book, I hope to use the same team I did for the first one, but this time I hope that the process will be a bit more streamlined. This time I will have a better plan because I understand what needs to be done and I can manage different things simultaneously. Like while the book is being edited, I can focus on cover art and design, and while that is happening, focus on proofreading. In the final stages, I will get more of the promotional stuff ready so we can hit the ground running.
Is there anything else you want to tell me about your book project?
Working with a pro like Julie made the journey easier. I had no idea what I was doing so it was helpful to have experienced professionals guiding me and making suggestions. It was also worth it to pay for professional services, because the book is richer for working with professionals. Julie and her developer Luca also created the ebook edition of my guide.
Book Done Technical Details
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Page Count: 330
Dimensions (Page size): 7.5 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
Binding: Paperback / Kindle
Interior Details
Ink colors: Black
Interior paper: White
Bleed: No
Cover Details
Binding: Softcover, perfect bound
Ink colors: Full-color
Laminate: Matte
Printer: Amazon KDP
If you have a complex book or planner that you are wanting to produce independently in a creative but professional way, it’s important to hire an experienced book designer. Fill out this book project questionnaire if you already know the specifics of your project, or send me a message with any question you have about book planning, design or formatting through my contact form. Maybe your book will be featured here next!