Formatting—The Difference Between Mediocre & Magnificent
Image courtesy of Wikimedia
Today, I have a lovely guest post from a friend of mine, Travis Simmons. He’s here to enlighten us about one of the “unseen heroes” of book success. I hear a lot of bantering about what is most important for a book to take off and sell LOTS of copies. A great story? A fantastic cover? Editing? Formatting? Thing is, they are ALL important but for very different reasons.
Who cares if we’ve written the next “Great American Novel” if the cover looks like our cousin in junior college slapped it together with a pirated copy of Photoshop? The cover can be great, but if the story (sample pages) reflect amateurish writing? Likely people won’t click to buy. Sure we all make punctuation and grammar errors. A few? Most readers (who aren’t also writers) won’t see them. But, if the prose seems as if we slept through basic high school English?
Houston, we have a problem.
Yes, we all pay great attention to our writing, our cover our editing, but one area we might not think about is formatting. But the devil is in the details and the small things are what can transition our work from mediocre to magnificent. So a BIG thanks to Travis for stopping by and demystifying the unsung hero of the book readers can’t put down….
Take it away!
Formatters….
Image from the movie “Office Space”
What Exactly IS Book Formatting?
Book formatting is one of the last steps of the publishing process. This is when your document, already edited by those awesome, sometimes ruthless people, is ready to be broken down to what is absolutely necessary for printing and e-book distribution. Formatting is when the document is developed into something that e-book readers and printers can read and kick out into a really professional looking copy.
Why is Formatting Important?
Formatting makes a huge difference having a professionally formatted book as opposed to something that was slapped together in the hopes that it will work out well. There are all kinds of hidden codes the untrained eye can’t see lurking in the depths of your document, waiting to throw a printer off and give you blocks of blank space and gaps at the beginning of paragraphs.
Professional formatting will develop your book, and take away all of those hiccups. The main thing I should stress here is that as a self-publishing author, or even as a small press, you’re contending with big competition. Your book can launch your career, or stall it. Now, this means your entire book from cover, to edit, to formatting.
Imagine for a moment your reader is entranced in a really great scene and suddenly…a HUGE blank space crops up. Your reader’s eyes are no longer flowing the way they were. The reader has to think for a moment about what the heck happened, and the fictive dream is shattered. Issues like this can spell disaster because the reader’s concentration has shifted to something else and away from the forward momentum you’ve built.
Formatting takes care of that. A professional formatter will remove those glaring errors in your book, and give you something your readers will love—a format that flows well and keeps your reader captivated.
How Do You Choose a Formatter?
Understand what you’re looking for. Do you want print formats? E-book formats? What files are you going to need to upload to your platforms? The formatter should be able to provide you with samples of their work to make sure they provide the quality you’re looking for. They should also allow for corrections. Things might get missed or not look precisely as you want them to. You want a formatter who is going to correct those things.
Pricing shouldn’t be outrageous either. Most people that are going to help you along the way with editing and covering as well as formatting are likely to be other indie authors, so they understand you don’t have a gazillion dollars to spend on services, and their prices should reflect that.
The main thing to take away from this post is that your writing isn’t the only factor reflecting your work. Give your reader the same quality or better than your NYC competitors because that’s what readers expect.
If you are giving them a product that doesn’t meet their standards, that can negatively impact future sales. Be professional and offer the best quality and your readers will love you for it. Now, that doesn’t mean they are going to say, “Wow, that book was wonderfully formatted!” But ignore proper formatting and they will definitely say, “I couldn’t finish that book because the words were all over the page and gave me a headache.”
About Wyrding Ways Press
Wyrding Ways Press offers formatting and beta reading services to self-published authors as well as indie presses. We strive for excellence in all we do, and our work with indie-publishers has helped hone our skills. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us via our website or social media outlets. Thank you so much for reading our guest post!
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Thank YOU, Travis. I was blessed to have a premium formatter and I know that it made a crucial difference. Formatters can also add in images, hyperlinks and all kinds of cool add-ons to heighten the reading experience. In my latest social book Rise of the Machines, my formatter embedded all kinds of hyperlinks to make it easy for readers to ‘travel’ beyond my book to Twitter, etc. Just this small detail made an incredible difference.
We appreciate your post! Feel free to comment or ask questions. I can only keep Travis chained in my panel van so along before someone files a Missing Person’s Report :D .
Travis’s Information is below:
Links:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/WyrdingWaysPres
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WyrdingWaysPress
Website: http://wyrdingwayspress.com/
