How to format your book

  

Think Format before you Think Book

 

I have spent more hours formatting my books than I ever have writing them

If I knew now what I now know I would have formatted a document and made it my master copy before I began to write a word. I would then have written straight into it. Others may say this is the wrong way to go about things, but it works for me.

If you must self-publish, learn to format. Do this even if you then use a paid editor for your final draft and someone else does the final formatting. It will help you visualise the finished book and if you do run out of money, you can still publish a reasonable book.

Self formatting

Doing your own formatting does not mean having a perfectly formed book and you will still have had to do a lot of work, but I would have saved some of my valuable time when writing my first books which were self-published. I would have altered things as I went along, and then altered them again at the end.

Do the formatting as you go along

Create your format by writing your book. Don't just make a template and think that your book will fit it. Once you have chapter one written it means you then have the format for the headings and pages in the rest of your book. Please don't just write, find out how a book should 'look' and work to that.

Find books by well known authors that are not self published, but a similar type to your own and look at how they are laid out.

When one thing changes in self formatting others do too

You need to remember that whenever you change something in a book draft, then the whole of your formatting will change. I think it is just easier to keep on top as I go along. Others may differ, but that is my particular working style.

When it like a book you think you are getting somewhere

I also feel I have something that looks like a book, which encourages me. I know how many chapters, can find them easily without resorting to complicated software and can cut and paste and alter to my heart's content.

Don't pay for book templates

If I knew what I know now, I would never have wasted time using or money paying for book templates. These are generally pretty useless as you are still going to have to alter things to fit your idea of what your book should look like and also as I already said, changes in formatting may affect other things in your book. If you must use these, at least get a free one.

Get to know your word processing program well or other softwar

Plenty of writers use a word processing program in order to write. Others use software that is designed for printing. My recommendation is that before you do anything at all you work out how to put in page numbers, headers and footers, right and left pages, and chapter headings with whatever program you are used to. 

For the first book I wrote, 'Not a Victim,' I did the first publication using Microsoft Word. That was not ideal, but it did produce a reasonable first attempt. I have most of the free programs on my computer, but always end up back with Libre Office. I got used to working with it and it suits my style of working.

A professional can tell but the average 'Joe Blogs' will not have a clue what you wrote your book with.

Any person from a reputable publishing company will be able to pick up a book and tell it is self published. Don't delude yourself into thinking they can't. That is fair enough. Every industry has standards and practices it needs to uphold. However, the average person in the street will not have a clue. As long as you are very careful to follow established conventions for book writing, edit well (preferably not by self editing,) and have a decent cover then most people will not even think about it. 

Self publishing companies will not do the work for you 

When self-publishing, it seems to me that you need to be sure to publish a book that looks like it was published by a reputable publishing company. What you see is what you get when you upload a book to a self publishing company. There are expensive places where they may offer to do all sorts of things to your self published book, but not all of these do a great job anyway. If you do use a company, make sure you have talked to other authors and seen some of the books they have published in print.

Your book will not be finished on publishing your proof copy even if you could technically sell it from that time

Never ever write a book, self edit, upload it and put it up for sale. This is a sure recipe for disaster. It will will look like a self edited book that has been uploaded and put up for sale and be full of mistakes. Your first copy of your self published book should never be for publication. With this you are looking at all the ways your book needs improving. This will include the formatting and the cover as well as what you have written. Take it from me, you will find mistakes.

Find a place that works for you to publish your book on then get to know that place

It amazes me how many people upload a book to a place like lulu.com and then complain that things do not work. Inevitably they have not taken the time to read how to do things and made sure they understand before they excitedly upload a book. Make sure you know what you are doing first. You can even write a very short book and 'publish' it to yourself. That will give you a practice run and also help you see what sort of standard the self publishing site is working to.

I found lulu.com http://www.lulu.com early in my writing career. I like it because I can upload a book for free and buy a single copy to see what it looks like. If, like me, you are, and this is NOT the best option, self-editing, then you may need to do this more than once. Be prepared to pay out for a fair few copies before you are fully satisfied with your book.

TIP

Tip:The cover and the way you format will be what sells your book! (Sorry, but that is true.)