I wanted to quit reading after she said you might have to rewrite text to make your paperback look professional. No. LOL.
Overall, I wasn't a fan. Her choices, and her assertion that a book wasn't professionally typeset if it contained either widow or orphans is demonstrably wrong.
I have many traditionally printed books on my shelf in both trade paper sizes and hardcover that have the first line of a new paragraph at the end of a page, don't have matching spreads (one line short, etc), and have one word at the end of a paragraph on a line by itself.
Good book design is about working with the text as given and making it look as good as possible, not about rewriting stuff so that it fits in some perfect layout.
Everything the author listed are conventions typesetters and book layout designers do their best to achieve, however, I have it on very good authority that they will throw convention to the wind if it makes things a bigger mess. When I did my deep dive into book design, I reached out to a well-respected typesetter/book layout designer and he advised me I could either kill all the widows and most of the orphans orphans or I could have squared bottoms, not both. I could strive to have squared bottoms and no widows and and few orphans, but it wouldn't ever happen and if it did, I needed to go out and buy a lottery ticket right away, but not during a lightning storm.
Pick my hill to die on and don't look back. So, if a book has uneven bottoms, chances are it doesn't have any widows and or orphans. If it has a rare widow and few orphans, then chances are all the bottoms are squared.
As far as rewriting goes, it does happen, but not usually in fiction unless there are strict formatting needs (words twisted into shapes for example) or if you're desperate to get rid of ladder. A designer will request a rewrite for magazines, books with lots of images and tables, or something else where the formatting is key to understanding the content. But it's not a rewrite most authors think it is. Usually it means changing two words to a contraction or a contraction to two words.
I'm pretty sure I know the resources she used to write that article and she misses the biggest point that is shouted out from the top of every building. Follow convention until convention doesn't work. If it makes it a bigger mess, don't do it. Full stop.
My biggest gripe is that it's a listicle without any real advice.
1: Justification. Yeah, she's right, books should be justified, but justified text should also use hanging punctuation if at all possible. And she also doesn't explain that justified text creates problems that need to be corrected (tracking and kerning).
2: Margins. There is literally nothing there that is of any help to a self-publisher. What she doesn't say is that the margins will inform the font size and the font size will inform the margins. Ideally lines should have 66 characters (including spaces), but anywhere from 45 to 75 characters is acceptable. The trim size doesn't matter, whether it's a 5 x 8 or 6x 9 the ideal line length is 66 characters.
3: Fonts. Choose a Serif? No sh*t. But all serifs aren't built the same. What she should have said is just stick with Garamond (even the Garamond in Word is a better option than just any Serif). I have 5 no-fail fonts I recommend: Caslon, Garamond, Baskerville, Electra (now Alumina), or Minion. Saying authors should use a Serif is like pulling up to the gas pump, and not checking to make sure you aren't putting diesel in your non-diesel car.
4: Line Alignment. Line alignment has to do with the top line of a page, and yes line spacing (leading) plays a role, but at least explain how to go about finding good line spacing (leading). At the very least she should have said never use single, double, or 1.5 spacing and to always use exact spacing (and that exact spacing is treated like pt (or font size) and 120% of your font size is a good starting place, but you can always adjust up or down to get good line spacing. Oh, and that each page should have 45 lines. (It doesn't matter what the trim size is for this one either.) She also doesn't explain how it's possible to have lines out of alignment (using different fonts or font sizes) in the same line and how you can prevent it. (Honestly, I'm not sure how to do it with Word, but I think there's a way to make all first lines align to the margin.
5: Widows and Orphans. See above.
6: Word Widows. The common term is Runt and while runts aren't desirable aesthetically, they aren't anything to get yourself worked up over. I use the 5 character rule for myself, but again, if fixing the runt makes everything worse, I let the runt hang around.
7: Formatting Special Characters. This is purely style based. CMoS uses three periods with a non-breaking space between each period for ellipses. The whole reducing special characters? Yeah, not a big deal. Regardless, it doesn't matter how you style your special characters as long as you are consistent. She also doesn't explain that an en and em dashes are punctuation and used in specific situations.
8: Paragraph Spacing and Indent. Yeah, great tip, but what she doesn't say is don't use tabs, use first line indent. She also doesn't say what's a good rule of thumb for indentation (hint: it's not .5"). Font size is a good starting place for first line indents.
9: Word Spacing. Oof. No. Word spacing should be even, but it won't be if you're using justified text. This is about hyphenation and justification. If you don't set your hyphenation and justification, you'll have a hot mess on the page. You can always use the defaults, but too many hyphens to get even word spacing can be worse than uneven word spacing (and no, word spacing has nothing to do with kerning, kerning is the space between letters, word spacing is tracking and the space between the words. Two completely different things and if you're adjusting the kerning, thinking you are making the spacing more even, you'll have a hot mess on the page.)
10: Word Stacks. What she's talking about has an actual term. Ladders. You don't want to have the same word right on top of each other, but this is usually rare and an easy fix. Adjust the tracking of the line a smidge and the ladder goes away and it usually doesn't cause any problems. Ladders are actually one of the worst typographical faults because it turns the reader's brain inside out while they flip-flop between lines. However, like I said, it's usually rare. And in this case, if I can't fix it by adjusting the tracking, then I would consider rewriting something in the paragraph (changing a contraction to two words or two words to a contraction).
Overall, this list doesn't really help anyone because it doesn't explain how to prevent these problems from happening or how to resolve them if they do.
Sorry, kinda went on a rant there, but I get annoyed when articles like this get posted. They really aren't all that helpful because they aren't answering any questions or offering suggestions on how to solve problems.
