Self-Publishing Format

[Danielle]

Those of you that self-publish, is there a certain way you should be formatting your manuscript to make it a smoother transition into self-publishing format?
Any input or advice welcome!
Thanks

[Bryant]

I just did this for both ebook and paperback. Yes, there are a lot of formatting adjustments you are likely going to have to make, and electronic and paper versions are different. I am rushing off to a meeting right now but when I return I will try to provide some links, if someone hasn't done it by then.

[Danielle]

Bryant wrote: "I just did this for both ebook and paperback. Yes, there are a lot of formatting adjustments you are likely going to have to make, and electronic and paper versions are different. I am rushing off ..."

Awesome. Thanks, Bryant.

[GR]

Create Space (Amazon) has formats for both print and ebooks.

[Barbara]

for ebooks, just download the free guide at Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52 - it looks daunting, but if you start smply writing like that (with indents and not tabs, the right spacing and font), adding ToC is easy. And
most retailers accept word.doc and they turn them into epub and mobi.
For Createspace or Lulu you can download their template and then work on that one... some people swear that InDesign is the best for paper books, but I can't bring myself to spend money, so I still do it with OpenOffice and save as PDF! ;)
And don't send the CreateSpace version to Kindle, upload a different document!! :D

[Danielle]

Great, thanks for the advice!

[Bryant]

I had a great tutorial on formatting for ebooks and now I can't find it. Just a lot of links to ebook formatting services. Harumph. Will have another look in the morning. Main thing, though, don't use headers, footers, or page numbers. Also, don't use 'Tab' to indent paragraphs. Set the margins to indent paragraphs automatically. Look up a tutorial on how to create a Table of Contents as well. This will let readers tap the title of each chapter in your Table of Contents and go directly to the page. You'll need to use page breaks/section breaks between chapters for this to work cleanly (ie. don't just hit 'Enter' when typing in Word until you get to the next blank page.)

Found a tutorial on formatting for print books: https://forums.createspace.com/en/com...
My only difference is I used Section Breaks instead of Page Breaks. This let me set up my book so I could have the chapter headings at the top of every other page in the chapter, and gave me better control over page numbers (so I could start the story as Page 1, instead of the computer counting from the title page).

[Danielle]

Bryant wrote: "I had a great tutorial on formatting for ebooks and now I can't find it. Just a lot of links to ebook formatting services. Harumph. Will have another look in the morning. Main thing, though, don't ..."

Thanks, Bryant. This will help a lot.