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My new hiking guide book: 25 randonnées autour du Lac d'Annecy

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My new book is out and is available on Amazon! It was self-published through Amazon KDP and is called: 25 randonnées autour du Lac d’Annecy - Accessibles en transport en commun (25 hikes around Lake Annecy - Accessible with public transport). I finally received a proof copy yesterday (it took a while…) and I am pretty satisfied with how it came out.

Here is a sample PDF with a few hikes: Sample PDF. Also check out the companion web page for the book, with GPS tracks for download, as well as links to additional photos and alternate routes for the hikes.

It is a guide book in French that catalogues a few hikes around Lake Annecy. They have already been featured on this blog as hike reports, although some itineraries have been edited based on multiple hikes. The theme of the book is to let the hiker see the lake from all directions. It features mostly hikes in the Bornes and Bauges mountains but also two in the Jura directly north of Annecy. I also included instructions for accessing the hikes using public transport since this is what I use and I think they are not very well know. The hike directions are in French but it is very visual with a lot of photos and maps for trail direction (made with OpenStreetMap data in QGIS).

It is available on all Amazon stores as a paperback (with Print-on-Demand):

Here are a few photos of the book:

Above, glossy cover. The book is in the US letter format (8.5’‘x11’’), which is the biggest dimension allowed by Amazon KDP for color books.

Above, table of content.

Unlike my previous books, this time I used an interactive desktop publishing software to create the layout. I thought I could use some automated layout like before but I really underestimated the difficulty in order to get something satisfactory for a more complex layout. I chose Scribus, an open source tool that competes with the better known Adobe InDesign. It is pretty solid and has all the features needed to comply with the Amazon KDP layout rules. I will make a more in-depth article about the process later.