Looking for formatting help.

[Riley, Viking Extraordinaire]

Here's a good place to start: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52

There's lots of guides on the internet that will help you format your manuscript to perfection, but admittedly, that's probably my weakest point in my books. #ISuckAtFormatting

[Heidi]

Jeff,

I emailed you.

[[deleted user]]

The thing with smashwords that I don't like is that it puts your hard-earned work out there in several unprotected formats. A good start is to load Calibre, a software program which is free to download and use, and is not harmful to your pc. An editor can do it for you, if you don't want to mess with it. I strongly recommend taking control of your eBook formatting. Check out Guido Henkle's book, "The Zen of Ebook Formatting."

[G.G.]

Morris wrote: "The thing with smashwords that I don't like is that it puts your hard-earned work out there in several unprotected formats. A good start is to load Calibre, a software program which is free to down..."

Hmm There are a few things wrong with your statement Morris.

1- Using Smashwords' manual to format your book doesn't put it at risk. It just shows you how to have a clean manuscript, which in the long run will help you do your own formatting. Kindle has one too. I just think it is less helpful because it's not explained as well and they accept different formatting. (They are not as strict.)

2- DRM doesn't really protect your work either. Any respectable hacker could get rid of it if they wished. Many regular people who don't actually pirate books can do it too so...

3- Calibre may work for some, but the quality of the formatting is often flawed. Many books I've received for beta reading turned out awful with Calibre (And yes, I always ask the author first if I can use Calibre to turn their work into an eBook for I find it easier to note things in iBook than in Kindle. )

So this brings me back to the guide Riley has linked. The best way to do it is to start clean.

[Justin]

I get annoyed sometimes with formatting. I'm told I'm not good at it so I have someone format my work for me but then sometimes if I convert it to Amazon Kindle or Calibre I end up going to html and re-formatting it myself anyways because they change and botch it up so much.

[[deleted user]]

I always save my MS as HTML, run it through Calibre, run that through the Kindle Previewer, and upload the resulting, converted doc to Amazon. Never have any problems.

[[deleted user]]

G.G. wrote: "Morris wrote: "The thing with smashwords that I don't like is that it puts your hard-earned work out there in several unprotected formats. A good start is to load Calibre, a software program which ..."

I'm not talking about their manual. I'm talking about their meatgrinder service that puts your book in multiple unprotected formats, like html. DOC, PDF and so forth, which can lead to piracy.

[[deleted user]]

And awful books done in Calibre are not Calibre's fault. If you put a well formatted html into Calibre, your product will reflect that.

[Riley, Viking Extraordinaire]

Chill pill guys, we're here to help, not squabble as we offer to help. Everyone finds their own way to the perfect manuscript.

[G.G.]

Morris, Riley had put the link to their manual. It was easy for me to make the assumption. As for swashwords, they are a respectable company. They don't do things to hurt indies. Indies are their bread bringer. You may feel strongly about the DRM, and it's your right, but not everyone does:I don't and my books are on Amazon sans DRM.

As for Calibre's fault, no, it's not. You're right. That brings me back to the need of a good formatting (hense the book). Referring the OP to Calibre is useless by your own words since it needs good formatting first.

[Angela]

As I publish with Amazon, Smashwords, and All Romance eBooks, I use the formatting for Smashwords for all my manuscripts. For kindle I change just a few things (license statement, etc) and upload as a doc. For All Romance eBooks I use Calibre to convert to different formats. But my basic formatting is exactly the same for all, and it's the way I do the Smashwords formatting. I've never had a problem so far!

[Angela]

G.G. wrote: "Morris, Riley had put the link to their manual. It was easy for me to make the assumption. As for swashwords, they are a respectable company. They don't do things to hurt indies. They are their bre..."

All you have to do is Google DRM stripping and all the software is there to easily download and strip the DRM off your ebook. Having a book through Amazon doesn't stop it.

[DENNIS]

Jeff wrote: "Hey guys,

Just finished my first ebook novel and have no clue how to go about formatting. Is there anyone willing to help me ; you can email me at

Craanbery@yahoo.com"

[DENNIS]

The smashwords site will walk you through it. I tried to skip ahead and it cost me time when I thought I had a better table of contents. If you know your way around word you can complete it in a couple of hours. Good luck.

[R.S.]

Jeff wrote: "Hey guys,

Just finished my first ebook novel and have no clue how to go about formatting. Is there anyone willing to help me ; you can email me at

Craanbery@yahoo.com"

Hi Jeff,

I'm not sure if you managed to resolve this. But I just published my book and I was in your position a few weeks ago. Here are a few links I found useful while formatting for Createspace:

https://kathytemean.wordpress.com/201...

http://www.brandonmdennis.com/creates...

https://forums.createspace.com/en/com...

http://litworldinterviews.com/2015/08...

[Lisette]

Joe wrote: "Jeff wrote: "Hey guys,

Just finished my first ebook novel and have no clue how to go about formatting. Is there anyone willing to help me ; you can email me at

Craanbery@yahoo.com""

Jeff,

If you are going to self publish on Kindle. Amazon offers a free download called, Building Your Book for Kindle. It walks you through it step by step. I'm no technical person and found it easy to follow. I had no formatting issues at all.

Lisette

[R.]

I found this site very useful for formatting. They go through everything, step by step. Best of all - its completely free.

http://wayward-press.com/convert-word...

[Gerry]

Thanks for the tip. I will check it out. I found I have trouble with my kids' chapter books being converted from the printed book because of the illustrations. But haven't used their kindle formatting. Maybe it will make a difference.

[Gerry]

Morris wrote: "The thing with smashwords that I don't like is that it puts your hard-earned work out there in several unprotected formats. A good start is to load Calibre, a software program which is free to down..."

I use Calibre and also find it works well.

[Gerry]

Joe wrote: "The smashwords site will walk you through it. I tried to skip ahead and it cost me time when I thought I had a better table of contents. If you know your way around word you can complete it in a co..."

Angela wrote: "As I publish with Amazon, Smashwords, and All Romance eBooks, I use the formatting for Smashwords for all my manuscripts. For kindle I change just a few things (license statement, etc) and upload a..."

I have yet to try Smashwords. I have a MAC and don't know it if it will work with them. I do have a very old copy of Word on my computer. Is that the only format to use with Smashwords?

[Christi]

Gerry wrote: "Joe wrote: "The smashwords site will walk you through it. I tried to skip ahead and it cost me time when I thought I had a better table of contents. If you know your way around word you can complet..."

You can upload an Epub as well. But the Epub needs to be checked for formatting errors of course but you can find the info here https://www.smashwords.com/swdirect

[[deleted user]]

Gerry wrote: "I have yet to try Smashwords. I have a MAC and don't know it if it will work with them. I do have a very old copy of Word on my computer. Is that the only format to use with Smashwords?..."

As I recall, you can upload other formats than Word, but you can only get the wider distribution with the Word format. I use LibreOffice, and convert it Word when uploading to Smashwords. I use the bookmark recommendation to build my table of contents, and with Word I always have to delete the extraneous error bookmarks it introduces before uploading the completed doc.

[Kelly]

Hi,

Not sure if any more comments are superfluous but I got a professional to do the e-book and paperback formatting for me-and they did a brilliant job (it didn't cost a lot either). I just wouldn't have been comfortable doing it myself. I think I know my skills and they don't run in that direction to ensure a really good job!