Hi, I'm Nigel Nicholson. As a way of earning a small income whilst also acting as a house-spouse (let's have some gender inclusive language around here), I have developed a small phototypesetting business. I identify myself as N²productions in the books that I have set, and with a simple N² on any maps that I produce.

I produced my first Camera Ready Copy (CRC) for a book in 1997, using Calamus DTP software on an Atari ST Mega 4 computer, outputing the pages on an Atari laser printer at 300dpi.

Technology has moved on a bit since then (although the Mega 4 still gets some use). I now do my work on a Windows machine, but still using DTP software in order to have the detailed page control that is required for good typesetting. I produce either laser output at 1200dpi, or Adobe Acrobat PDF files to allow direct printing from CD.

I have set over 40 books of assorted complexity, ranging from simple text with a few endnotes to books that have included such things as musical notation, Greek, Hebrew and Sanscrit text, multiple pictures and diagrams, or footnotes and endnotes together.

A few years ago I produced some web pages with some samples of my work on them. If you would like to see them, click here.

If you are in need of having some work setting, and would like to contact me to discuss it, please do not hesitate to email me. To any academics out there who have been asked by their publisher to submit CRC, I would give the simple advice of "don't try to do it yourself" - unless you have a lot of time to spare. Just because you have a collection of Word files does not mean that you are close to having a book. Like all DIY, it can be fun and even satisfying to do it yourself; but it is a craft that has to be learnt, and is a lot easier and better when done with the right tools.