Fonts. What do you use?

I like Garamond.

I use 12 times new roman because I'm THAT creative.

I dunno, figure if it ain't broke, don't fix.

I use Garamond for my print books. It's very readable, even in smaller point.

As for ebooks, I leave those in the Times New Roman that I like to write them in--the ereaders convert it to their owners' preferred fonts anyway.

horse_girl said:

I use Garamond for my print books. It's very readable, even in smaller point.

As for ebooks, I leave those in the Times New Roman that I like to write them in--the ereaders convert it to their owners' preferred fonts anyway.

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Exactly this. I use Garamond 11 for print, and TNR 12 for ebook. Just pick a standard, non-fancy font for digital. One of the nice things about digital is that the owner can change the font to whatever they prefer, so just do something plain and standard.

Kindle guidelines (and other formats) will tell you Times New Roman 12. Some will accept Arial but that's sans-serif (no footings-like this).
Print looks best in Garamond 11 even though it looks tiny on the screen. Not too large and not too small.
-- Inquiring minds want to know --

Two open-source alternatives. First up, Times look-alike Gentium (which I've used for my short-lived Sevton attempts).

And then, on my Chrome installation, OpenDyslexic. (In support of creator Abelardo Gonzales; I'm planning to use it in a special print/PDF version of Marigot Magic after it gets completed. Considering how far my own writing efforts have gone, that'll take a while!)

I've been going with Garamond 12 for print.  I purposefully don't set a font for my Kindle books (I upload in html.)  I use Garamond 12 in the Word Doc that I upload to Smashwords.

What about a print book intended for an older audience?  Would you still use Garamond 11 or would you move up to 12, or even 14?

I use Garamond 12 for print and TNR for e-books.  I went with what was used in the Harry Potter novels.  I might step down to an 11 size font if I decide to do a print omnibus edition to save on costs.  Similar to how they did with Order of the Phoenix.

Sapphire said:

What about a print book intended for an older audience? Would you still use Garamond 11 or would you move up to 12, or even 14?

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You can do whatever you want. But what I did was print out a sample page (already formatted to print standards using the Createspace template), and then compared that to paperbacks on my shelves. And I found that Garamond 11 was the closest to the traditionally-published books.

I then do a Large Print edition, using 16.5 TNR. It was twice the length (although not twice the cost). I don't sell much, but I like knowing it's available.

I use 100% sized default font for the body text of my e-books. (If you don't, people can't adjust their font preference on a lot of readers. I personally prefer to read in my preferred font on my fire. Of course the Nook is a piece of junk and screws you. You either get your formatting and no fount choice, or you get no formatting and your font choice. I don't wonder why B&N lose.)

Debating between Adobe Caslon, Adobe Garamond Pro, Adobe Garamond Premier Pro, and Adobe Janson for print currently.

The rule of thumb is: Serif for print and sans for screens.
An e reader is kind of in between though. Personally, I think Garamond 12 looks great on ereader screens. And most authors seem to go with serif fonts, so I use Garamond 12

12 point Georgia. I love Georgia, especially when italicised.

For print, I've used Palatino Linotype 11 (or 10.5) with good success.

For eBooks, as others have noted, stay with plain Times New Roman 12.

I tend to use Perpetua 12 for my print books; I like the italic. And I use TNR 12 for eBook.

The rule of thumb is that you want serif fonts for print, and sans serif fonts for anything online. I use Times New Roman for print versions, and Verdana or Calibri for anything e-book or online.

However, Kindle readers can choose to have books display in serif or san serif, so we don't really have total control over that.