Format Your Own Damned Book Part II -- Free Tools For Authors

There are many free tools that every self published author should know about. There is no need to spend hundreds on software. Everything you need to format the interior of your book, create a cover, convert the MS to an e-book in all formats, etc. can be had for free.

To begin with, you'll need a good word processor. If you use a professional editor he may insist on Microsoft Word because he can modify your document and it will show your text before and after he changed it. I don't use a professional editor, so I can use Libre Office. This free office suite does everything MS Office does except for the "change tracking" feature I mentioned, and it can convert your document to a PDF ready to submit to Create Space.

Even if you use another word processor and like it, I'd strongly suggest you get Libre Office. It can import documents written with other word processors, and I'll be using it when I describe formatting your interior pages for a printed book.

Libre Office can be installed on Windows, Linux, or Macintosh.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Next you'll need a good graphics program for doing cover designs and creating illustrations for your book. The best one is a free program known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program, or The GIMP. Once you get past the unfortunate name you'll find it can do everything Adobe PhotoShop can do, for free. It also runs on Windows, Linux, and the Macintosh.

https://www.gimp.org/

You'll need an e-book editor to create books in the EPUB format used by the Nook and many other e-readers. The very best one, installable on Windows, Linux, or Macintosh, is Sigil:

https://sigil-ebook.com/

Sigil is a bit more work to install on the Macintosh than it is on Windows and Linux. You're going to have to deal with that, because Sigil is an absolutely essential program for e-book authors.

The EPUB format can be uploaded to the Kindle store as is, but if you're smart you'll get the Kindlegen utility that converts an EPUB file to .mobi format, ready to install on your Kindle.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...

Other Resources For Self Published Authors

If you're going to publish a printed book or design your own book cover you'll want a good selection of free fonts, both plain and fancy. The site I use is Font Squirrel:

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/

For book covers you'll want good quality photos and artwork. There are several sites offering to sell you royalty free artwork, but if you can make use of works created before 1923 you can get good cover art for free. The first good source for such art is the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/

A site that links to many other sites containing public domain images is Open Culture:

http://www.openculture.com/

So go download, install and bookmark all this stuff while you wait for the next installment.