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Questions from a newbie that are probably silly
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Hi Laina,Your questions are not silly at all. In fact, they are very relevant and I wish I had somebody to guide me through all these conundrums before I published my book, just to save time and buckets of frustration (and man, I feel you when you say the actual writing part is way easier. My mom did the same for me...waking up groggy-eyed at 5 AM and still find me typing furiously away on the laptop and all).
I am no expert since I am just one-book old, but I will share my own experience with you:
1) I wrote my story in Calibri which is my favourite font, and it wans't until much later that I realised Kindle doesn't support Calibri. There are only a few choices on kindle-reader which are: Amazon Ember, Futura (my current fav), Baskerville, Helvetica, Bookerly, Caecilia (both normal and condensed, Palatino and OpenDyslexic. Therefore, I switched to good old Times New Roman. I was pretty devastated because I loved the way my chapter titles looked in Vivaldi but I found out it's the readers who get to decide which font they want to see the book in.
KDP support says: 'If you used unique font styles in your Word file and want to retain them, use a HTML source file along with the font file.'
So, there you go.
As for your paperback, you can take a look at KDP support and look up the topic: Paperback Fonts (Beta).
2) To me, as a reader, Chapter titles are more attractive. But if I find the story engrossing, it doesn't really matter. So, it's not really a must-have. As an author, I view chapter titles more as a teaser than anything else, to pique the curiosity of the reader. I prefer them over bland numbers. But again, as I said, if the book is really engaging, I would hardly be bothered to read the titles.
3) I am from India. I had no difficulty in publishing my KDP book across all the marketplaces. As far as I can remember, when you upload your book, you need to choose the marketplaces you would like to publish your books in. I remember it was probably when I entered the pricing. KDP will give you the choice if you want to set up a price for your base market and KDP will automatically adjust it across all other marketplaces. Alternately, you can set up prices for individual marketplaces.
4) Your email contact list will be a good source. You need to create an eye-catchy and attractive email newsletter and send them to all your contacts. Make sure to include call-to-action words like: 'Buy this now!' or 'Check out my brand new book now available on Amazon.' Forward a link of the same to FB and Twitter. If you have a blog that has some following, post it over there too.
I hope this helps.
Also, if I am wrong or misleading in any account, I would like people to correct me.
Hello Laina:Don't let anyone tell you that any question is silly or shouldn't be asked. Questions are how we learn and what may seem self-evident to some is not to others. Always feel free to ask questions.
As far as fonts go, I read somewhere that MS reference sans serif was a good font for e-book readers and so that is what I used. I initially tried Times new roman but didn't like how that looked. Others will undoubtedly have their preferences.
As far as chapter titles or numbers, that is a matter of preference in my opinion. It can be a factor of how many chapters you may have. For example, a thriller where there might be 100 or more chapters in the book would be very cumbersome to title all of the chapters. I have read some authors where they have used their chapter titles to great advantage and others where it really didn't matter too much. Do what you feel the most comfortable with.
As mentioned by Kamalika, KDP can allow you into the american market easily. I am Canadian so I know how easy it is. You can also get an ISBN number from the Canadian government for free that you can use in the whole world. Amazon has no problems with these numbers.
As far as marketing, I am still struggling with how to best get my own books out there so others will be of more use to you in that respect.
If I can help you in any other way, feel free to message me and I will see what I can do.
Liz
Mod
Some good questions...I think well done chapter titles can be great, but if they aren't quite right for the book, then they'll be a jar that distracts the reader. For me, if I had felt I had entertaining or interesting chapter titles that fitted the style of the book and added to it in some way, then I'd use them, but otherwise I'd just use numbers.
1. Best font to use for e-publishing?E-publishing meaning eBooks, I'm guessing. Unless you're publishing a pdf file the font is totally irrelevant. eReaders such as Kindles have their own built-in fonts which readers can choose between (font and font size). The underlying document of an eBook that is not a pdf (used for heavily graphic books such as graphic novels) is an html file, and if you specify a specific font, it can actually have a detrimental effect on the reader's experience (if their reader does not support the font you've chosen). If you're converting a Word document to an eBook via Amazon or Smashwords or whatever, it's converting the .doc/.docx to html and the font of the Word doc simply doesn't matter. As referenced above there are ways of forcing a font in html ... personally I'd highly recommend NOT doing that. Leave it up to the customer's choice for the eReader they use. Reserve the font question for print versions where, again, it's pretty much up to you to pick what you like.
2. Chapter titles or just numbers?
Totally up to you. Some authors do one, some another. Some do one on one book and another on another book. Completely subjective.
3. If anyone on here is Canadian...
Pass
4. Where, besides Goodreads obviously, should I focus my social media attention?
Everywhere you feel comfortable and have the energy to sustain. Personally ... I hate dealing with social media. My (non)sales probably reflect that fact.
Thanks all for the advice. Lots of great stuff here!1. Okay, again there seems to be limited consensus on the font. Times New Roman gets more love than others but still. I read somewhere that Verdana was developed specifically for reading on screens so I used that and then Calibri for titles. But I've changed both a few times.
What I don't want is to have some of the problems I've seen before. I do a lot of reading on the Kindle app on my Android phone. And some books look like total crap. Like no page breaks between chapters. Or no space between paragraphs. Or a fancy first letter sitting way above the actual start of the paragraph (not that I use fancy first letters). I've seen books with print so small you need a microscope and others so big it's impossible to read.
And Micah - yes, I mean e-books. Sorry about that. The lingo is another thing I'm still learning. Just text. No graphic novels. I just want something that's clear to read on any platform or screen, that scales easily without problems and that doesn't detract from the actual story.
2. Thanks for the opinions on chapter titles. I wrote some for one book and couldn't come up with something good for every chapter. I wasted days fussing with it and finally gave up. After reading the comments here I scrolled through some stuff I've read via Kindle and realized I never paid much attention to the chapter names. So I guess that settles that.
3. I'd still like to talk to someone Canadian who has been there and done that. But thanks for the info so far. I might just have to dive in and let the chips fall.
4. I hadn't even thought about Pinterest. I've only been there for recipes (mmm, food porn!) and I never thought about it for books. I've discovered Tumblr recently and I like the free-form feel of it. For me it's kind of like Twitter without the character limit. As for Facebook, I set up an account years ago to get those little extra credits in games. Then I added in a page for my writing but sometimes when I link up it hooks up to the main gaming page instead of the one I want. Adding insult to limited injury, yesterday I tried to set up an account for a friend and it blocked me for "security reasons" within 5 minutes. I guess those pictures of her cats triggered some sort of alarm. I mean, they are kind of sneaky cats but how did FB know that so quickly??
Anyway, thanks so much for the help. And for not thinking I was silly. Sometimes this process leaves me feeling like a dope. Then I write something I like and feel as if I conquered the world. It's no wonder I mainline chocolate these days!
Well, again, just use a standard font like Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier because when someone reads your eBook they'll choose the font and font size they want to use.It's technically possible to embed fonts in an eBook, but it's highly discouraged that you do this. It can cause technical issues, as well as possible legal issues (do you own the rights to distribute the font you want to use?).
The other bad formatting you're talking about comes from poor formatting, not font choice. They either converted the book from a poorly formatted Word or PDF file, or the eBook was sloppily converted from a preexisting physical book (using optical character recognition and an automated text-to-html converter), or even by using some third party text to eBook converter and then not knowing enough how to format the text or the resultant epub or mobi file.
No page breaks between chapters -- This is actually a stylistic choice. A lot of paperbacks do this as well. I like page breaks before mine, but this isn't necessarily a mistake.
No space between paragraphs -- Again, this can be stylistic. Most print books do not use them, but it's becoming more common in eBooks because it's harder on screens to notice paragraph breaks. Also, web content like blogs, news stories, etc. uses them so it's more common on digital books for spaces to be used. Personally, I don't like them. I've found that if you leave enough space between each line, there's no need for additional space between paragraphs.
A fancy first letter sitting way above the actual start of the paragraph -- This is most often a remnant of the physical book formatting. Those fancy letters are actually pictures and it's sometimes difficult to get eBooks to display them correctly because each eReader has a different screen size (and html implementation), and users can change the font size of the text, which does not resize the image.
Print so small you need a microscope and others so big it's impossible to read -- If the book is actually a pdf, not an ePub or Mobi file, then this can happen. Or it might be that whoever created the eBook put code in to lock the font size to a pre-determined point size (looked good on their system so it must look good on every phone, tablet, eReader, laptop or what have you). Or it could be from converting a pdf file with each page as a picture rather than text. At any rate, this is what can happen if you don't approach formatting an eBook as it's own thing.
You have to realize that an eBook is not the same beast as a physical book, and you need to format them accordingly. The biggest formatting mistake, IMHO, in eBooks is to think of them as digital books: same as physical books only seen on a screen. They aren't. They are HTML pages and no matter what device you use to view them, you're actually viewing them on a streamlined web browser. Consequently, the simpler you keep the formatting, the less hassle you'll have getting them to look right. Lower your expectations, you're not going to make them look as pretty as an actual book. That's not their strength. Their strength is in flexibility and ease of use.
Consequently, my eBook credo is: No pictures if you can help it. No fancy fonts. No extra doodads. Keep. It. Simple.
Hi Laina,I'm Canadian. Publishing on Amazon USA is very simple and straight forward. It's kind of nice too because when it says that you've made $1, you actually made $1.25. :)
The only thing about being a new author and Amazon services is that if you use Createspace for print, there is $100 threshold before they email you a cheque. Amazon pays you no matter what. Also, ACX also allows Canadians to publish audio, if you choose to go that route as well.
For print books though, I use Ingram which is also Canadian friendly. It's nice because your books will be on Indigo.ca, and gives you the chance to be in Chapters brick and mortar stores.
Anyway, if you have any questions about being a Canadian and hitting the American market, I can probably answer most (basic) questions.
Thanks Micah. I did get some advice early on about formatting. Like not using double returns between paragraphs. I use a standard spacing built into the Word style I use for the body of books. It indents the first line and leaves a set point space between paragraphs. Apparently both Smashwords and Amazon like this. Or so I was told. Fortunately, because I used Styles in Word, it's really easy to modify if I need to.I like the KISS method. In everything. I haven't used the fancy first letters. I never much liked them, even in print in stuff I've read. But I really appreciate all your advice on all of this. I'd like to figure out one standard style/font/formatting and use it for everything. No re-thinking every time I do something.
Here's another question - I'm old school. I was taught to put 2 spaces at the end of every sentence and 2 returns at the end of every paragraph. I read a few places that the 2 spaces at the end of a sentence thing is out of style and definitely not used in e-books. Any thoughts on that?
Dylan - Hello, Canada!! Thanks for the info. I was worried about the taxation part of it more than anything. I'm only looking at e-books so the print stuff isn't an issue. Do you have to arrange withholding or anything up front?
And how do they pay? I thought I read something about PayPal being an option but at this point I'm starting to get a little fuzzy. I've read so much it's all running together. But I honestly don't want to be running to the bank to cash checks. I barely go a few times a year now. Everything is credit card or debit. I don't even use that much cash anymore.
Man, I am learning so much. I think all this new stuff just pushed out the math I learned in 7th grade but then I probably didn't need that. Right?
Laina wrote: "I was worried about the taxation part of it more than anything."They do not withhold taxes because there is a tax treaty but you need to get an ITIN with the IRS first. The phone number is 267-941-1000.
Amazon will direct deposit the money into your account. You just have to provide the banking information.
You should have all of this information setup before you are ready to publish your book, otherwise you will be all excited to get your book out there and find out that it's going to take an extra week or two because you don't have all the banking and tax information prepared.
Laina wrote: "Thanks Micah. I did get some advice early on about formatting. Like not using double returns between paragraphs. I use a standard spacing built into the Word style I use for the body of books. It i..."For formatting....do not use two spaces after a period. That isn't used unless you are doing papers for college. Use the formatting with you program (I use MS Word) You can set the page size (ie. 9x6 or 8x5) spacing between lines, justify the text, the page breaks, where the title lands on the page, the indentation, your margins and gutters, headings, footers and page numbers, etc. It isn't that hard to do once you do it a few times. I do most of my formatting prior to typing a revised draft. That way, I only need to due my corrections and it's ready to go. The Styles does great for the titles as you can set it for like 150 so it will go down on the page for the title and then if you put like 50 after the title, the body of your text will start there, keeping everything neat and the same. If you use the space or tab for heading or moving thing down on a page, it creates problems when you put in into an e-book, so avoid them. Use your styles and other formatting items in Word. (I like Scrivener but can't get the formatting correct so end up redoing it in Word to make it look like I want it too.)
Also, I found that using a clean PDF and the Kindle Kid's create if great if you have icons and fancier fonts or the Kindle Create if you don't use the big letters and fancy fonts works best. I haven't had a problem with fonts so far if I convert my .docx into PDF and use the Kindle Kids for the books where I have fonts which aren't the norm.
Laina wrote: "I was taught to put 2 spaces at the end of every sentence and 2 returns at the end of every paragraph..."Two spaces after a period was never in style in the publishing industry. It was only ever standard practice when using a typewriter. Why?
Taken from the interwebs: "Back when we used typewriters, every character was given the exact same amount of space on the page. That meant the letter I was given the same amount of space as the letter m, even though it clearly didn’t need it. This is called monospaced typesetting and it’s, well, spacey. We needed that extra space between sentences to make it easier to see the beginning of new sentences
Word processors and computers and everything that is not a very old typewriter use mostly proportionally spaced fonts, which adjust spacing to the size of the letter."
Typeset books, newspapers, etc. never used it. It was hard but I broke myself of that habit back in the '90s. Once your fingers gain the "1-space after everything" muscle memory, it's second nature. But it's still a good idea to run a Find/Replace of your manuscript before you commit it to eBook.
2 carriage returns is a typewriter thing, too (I'm betting, since the term "carriage returns" comes from how typewriters work!). Totally unnecessary since that can be programmed into the paragraph style (or better yet, as you seem to be doing, with Styles in Word).
B.A. wrote: "Laina wrote: "Thanks Micah. I did get some advice early on about formatting. Like not using double returns between paragraphs. I use a standard spacing built into the Word style I use for the body ..."Oh, so many questions from this post:
First of all, no problem on the 2 spaces. Find and Replace took care of that. And Micah, you're right. I work by muscle memory. Even here I still use those 2 damn spaces. Working on it... To be honest I learned to type when I was a child by banging away on an actual old manual typewriter we had in the basement. Then there was one of those old electric ones my mother brought home from work. The thing chugged like a steam engine but to a kid that little ball spinning around as I typed was fascinating.
Switching to a keyboard was a huge relief but those old habits die hard. I still pound the keys a lot harder than I should. My surgeon says I can thank that for the carpal tunnel surgery I've already had. (Sarcastic beggar that he is.)
B.A. - Why set those page sizes? I just left it at standard 8 1/2 X 11 page size. Was that a mistake? I realize e-readers and phones are a lot smaller but they are also a multitude of sizes. Which one should I be using?
I used Center Pagefor my front titles but will admit there are a couple of returns (enters, whatever) between the title and my name. Is there a better way to do this?
I don't use tabs. I use Styles to indent the first line of every paragraph but it's done as an automatic preset half inch indent. If I change the page size perhaps I'll need to change that?
I wasn't sure what the 150 and 50 referred to. A point size? A spacing in millimeters?
About Kindle Kids? I have no idea what that is. I'm writing adult romance. In some cases, very adult. No kids allowed! But I'm not using any fancy fonts. After the earlier discussion here, I'm switching to Times Roman for the body. I haven't figured out what to do about the titles yet. I'd still like to do something a little zippier for them so they stand out. I'm also wondering if I should change their color? Is this something people do? Any advice on this would be appreciated.
So much to learn... I think my brain is starting to hurt. But keep it coming. I'm feeling smarter already!
Indeed you need an ITIN (Individual Tax Identification Number) from the IRS but it's not that simple. They require you to apply in writing on a W-7 (?) form and send your passport with it! It then takes seven weeks to get a reply - and a rejection if there are any mistakes in the application. Still waiting.
Double spaces at the end of sentences, and double returns for paragraphs were required on typewriters but not on computers.
The 'bible' for formatting is The New Oxford Style Manual.
Hi Laina, I recommend The Book Reviewer Yellow Pages. It has great information concerning your queries regarding formatting and book design. I was surprised. That stuff was a bonus for me.
Laina wrote: "B.A. wrote: "Laina wrote: "Thanks Micah. I did get some advice early on about formatting. Like not using double returns between paragraphs. I use a standard spacing built into the Word style I use ..."I get it. I had to learn to format for printed books. I format my page for the size of book I plan on using to have it printed. The 9x6 is the larger, the 8x5 is the standard size. What that does is give me the
number of pages and how it will look in that size of book. If you are doing a print format, don't forget the gutters for putting the book together. (CreativeIndie has a decent course on formatting in MS Word)
The 150 pt (or what ever number will put you chapter heading 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down the page) is how far down you set your heading under styles so you aren't entering down. It makes each chapter heading start at the same place each time. To do that: right click on the style you are using, select modify and at the bottom of the page, format then paragraph. You will enter the 150-200 pt in the above and below you might want 25 pt. to start the body. Play around to find what you like best.
For each book, I set my headings, titles, styles, page numbers, etc when I'm doing my second draft. That way it's done and I don't have to worry about it again. It's like going to layout and setting a page break when starting a new chapter. It's a habit. It makes setting up the new section easy with a couple of clicks. It also means you have it ready when you do your last edit to send it for print or setting up mobi and epub files.
Don't bother with color in the titles. It doesn't show and isn't cost effective it you are printing it. You can use a fancy font, but my last book, I put on Digital2digital and they have some neat things to set off your title which are genre based. I loved it. If you have a clean MS word file it doesn't take long to set it up. It took my formatted print file without a problem and it looked great in all the formats and I was done in under thirty minutes. You can upload copies of your files to use for give aways.
Use the KISS principle and keep it to easy formatting, very few key things (ie tabs, extra returns, etc), while making use of what Word has to offer to make it easy. You don't want to see many of those ¶ scattered over the page. If they are, you need to get rid of as manny as possible. They should be at the end of a paragraph, chapter titles, etc. if there is a line of them, it will make some crazy things happen when you put into into mobi and epub.
As to font for the body, I usually use Garamond, Baskerville, or Bookman Old Style with whatever font I used on the front cover for the titles. If it is something off the wall, that is where I use the pdf and Kindle Kid's to upload it to keep the book. It took my Century Gothic on my last book.
I'm getting a little boggled here. Let me see if I have this right.B.A. - I should use styles. This is OK with me. I'm using styles a lot in Word. What it sounds like you're telling me is I should be using them more. That, I can do. And I'll dump what little color I have. That was just sort of for me to identify things in the beginning.
I already don't use tabs. I've hated those suckers for years! And I already put a page break in at the end of every chapter or page I want separate. That's an old habit from other writing I've done.
But there's still the font thing, which honestly is driving me nuts. I tried Garamond and found it very tiny. Baskerville looked really fussy to me. Bookman is a little better but it's very square. I resorted to Times New Roman but I'm not crazy about it.
Earlier on in this thread Kamalika said the Kindle has a limited number of font choices :Amazon Ember, Futura, Baskerville, Helvetica, Bookerly, Caecilia (both normal and condensed, Palatino and OpenDyslexic. I tried some of them (I didn't have Caecilia or Dyslexic) and liked Palatino the best. But I hesitate to use it if other platforms won't support it.
So the question then is still - Is Times New Roman the way to go?
Geez, who would have thought font choice would be such a complicated thing.
All I really care about is that is looks good as an e-book. I'm not looking to publish in print at all. If, and that's a huge if, I ever do I'll cross that very wobbly bridge when I get to it. For now, e-books are it for me. So I want a font that's easy to read, looks good and doesn't crap out when people put it on different devices.
Felix and Alex - Thanks to your info I found more about this. As a Canadian we have a treaty with the US and it should allow me to use my SIN instead of an ITIN. Apparently I just submit it and the withholding drops to zero. The one benefit of sharing such a massive amount of trade between our countries, I guess. I don't think it applies to the UK but since Brexit I have no idea how the hell all that stuff is going. Still, I haven't actually tried it yet so I'll let you know how that goes.
Oh, and clearly I'm still working on the 2 spaces after a period thing. There's a lot of years of muscle memory to overcome. I may just let it ride and use search and replace when I'm done a book because it's getting downright frustrating even on these posts!! Old dogs, new tricks - you get the idea.
Sorry if I'm driving anyone crazy with this stuff. If it's any consolation, my husband left the room after I tried about 5 different fonts mumbling something about needing a new wife who wasn't a writer.
Actually, I just switched my text point size from 11 to 12 in Times New Roman and it looks a lot better.Too big?
12pt is definitely too big in a printed book unless you are targeting the feeble sighted? I use 10.To get rid of your double spaces just use 'replace' [space space] with [space].
You're probably right Felix. The problem is I'm writing on a huge monitor but that's not where people will be reading it. I'm still working on getting my mind around that.And yeah, did the search and replace thing already since apparently I'm incapable of re-training my fingers! I've been working on setting up Styles for title pages too. I'm going to set up a standard format where I can just change the title, etc each time. Easier for my fuzzy brain.
Thanks again all for the help. You have no idea how much it's appreciated!
My post suddenly disappeared? Here it is again from a Canadian who has published several books on Kindle Direct, Kindle Paperback and CreateSpace.On the tax business: On your Kindle account there is a space at the top for the country of origin. At the bottom there is one for Tax Information. It has a link Tax Withholding explaining the process.
Here is a link to the IRS website about non-resident alien receiving an income sourced in the States. Oops no links so figure it out
https colon double slash www dot irs dot gov slash forms-pubs slash publication-515-withholding-of-tax-on-nonresident-aliens-and-foreign-entities
You can choose to have Amazon withhold 30% of your royalties for the IRS. Then you do not have to pay tax in Canada for that income but you have to declare it on your income tax return and include the IRS receipt.
Or you can obtain an ITIN number by filling in the required forms, and sending them along with an ID such as your passport. It takes weeks and weeks and the application can be rejected without explanation. Mine was rejected twice even though there were no mistake. I gave up and went with Amazon withholding the tax. It works at about the same unless it is your sole income, in which case it'd be advantageous to get an ITIN number as you'd pay less tax in Canada if that is your only income.
Hope this help.
Genevieve wrote: "My post suddenly disappeared? Here it is again from a Canadian who has published several books on Kindle Direct, Kindle Paperback and CreateSpace.On the tax business: On your Kindle account there..."
Thanks Genevieve. It does help.
But I'm even more confused now. I've read in a bunch of places, including taxation sites, that as a Canadian I fall under some treaty agreement Amazon.com has. Basically it means that my SIN acts as a SSN and puts my withholding to zero. Then I declare the income on my Canadian taxes and it gets taxed according to my total income.
Only now you're telling me I have to get an ITIN. Which a bunch of places say I don't. I've heard (on other sites) from Canadian authors who just put their SIN number in and away they went.
So which is it? I'd call CRA in Canada but it's tax season and that's like trying to get a hold of ET. Forget about it. But I might try a live chat or something if I can get through. I'll like to sort this out before I publish. Obviously I can publish on Amazon.ca without all the fuss but that's a much smaller market than .com.
Anybody know where I can clarify this?
On Kindle help: Claiming a Lower Rate of WithholdingPublishers may be eligible for a reduced rate of U.S. tax withholding if their country of permanent residence has an income tax treaty with the United States. See the IRS website for a list of countries the U.S. has tax treaties with and for a table of tax treaty rates.
To qualify for reduced withholding, you must enter an income tax identification number (TIN) in the U.S. tax information interview. If you have a U.S. TIN, you must provide this number. If you do not have a U.S. TIN, you may enter the income tax identification number issued to you by the tax authority in your country of residence. The interview will specify the U.S. withholding tax rate applicable to your payments based on your previous inputs on the W-8 form review page. Please ensure this rate is consistent with the IRS tax treaty rates if you are claiming treaty benefits. If the rate does not match, you may need to review your previous inputs.
End of Kindle help
Canada Revenue Agency:
Form for foreign income verification = T1135
They talk about property tangible and intangible.
Royalties are intangible property. Writing is an active self-employed business. If you claim tax treaty (and yes you can provide your Social Security number) and don't pay US tax, you include that income on your Canadian Income Tax Return. You can also enter expenses incurred for writing/publishing.
Laina: Kindle or CreateSpace are US Amazon companies. Amazon.ca doesn't have a separate publishing company. Sorry, all the fuss remains :>)
Genevieve wrote: "On Kindle help: Claiming a Lower Rate of WithholdingPublishers may be eligible for a reduced rate of U.S. tax withholding if their country of permanent residence has an income tax treaty with the ..." Thanks for this! It helps. It's convoluted, but it helps. I'm not sure why they make it so complicated but then the vast volume of things I don't understand boggles the mind. I've just added this to the list.
I appreciate the help. Seriously. Thanks.
A month gone by. Still waiting to get my passport back from the ITIN Office in Austin.
No good, Felix. What if you needed your passport in the meantime? They shouldn't obliged people to do that. At one time in the past you could request a certified copy from the passport issuer, i.e. where you go to get your passport renewed, and use that. I don't know if they still do.
Laina wrote: Geez, who would have thought font choice would be such a complicated thing.All I really care about is that is looks good as an e-book...>
Don't get hung up on it. It's really not that hard for eBooks.
Given that Kindle Fires only support these fonts:
Arial
Baskerville
Caecilia
Courier
Georgia
Helvetica
Lucida Sans Unicode
Palatino
Just pick the one you like best. I've seen at least professional recommend Georgia, Baskerville, and Palatino (in that order), as well as recommend NOT using Times because it's not great for books and is never really used. Their recommendation was to use a serif rather than sans serif font.
But, as I've said before, it really doesn't matter which you choose because users can choose their preferred font an font size. So I wouldn't get too fixated on it.
The most important is too choose a True font that will be recognized by any device and will remain intact after upload and conversion.
Micah - I chose Georgia. And I like it a lot better than Times Roman. So Thank You for that advice.Genevieve - I agree. Although that whole concept turned out to be more complicated than I ever expected.
Oh, that it could all be as easy as the original writing. Sigh...
Ready for one more question?I've set my book body style to do an indent at the beginning of each paragraph. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Next question? How big an indent? (Wait, that just sounded a little dirty. Sorry about that!)
What I meant was, it defaulted to 0.5"
The problem is sometimes that looks like too much. Or not enough. (And again, it sounded dirty. Or maybe that's just where my mind is after editing sex scenes for the last hour...)
Anyway, anyone know the best choice for this?
Thanks all!!
Take a look at a bunch of eBooks. The standard practice is actually to do NO indent on the first paragraph of a section (first paragraph in a chapter or after a line with "***" or just some line breaks), and then to indent on every other paragraph.When I've done indents by inches, I've put mine at 0.3" rather than the default 0.5" which to me just looks too big. However, IIRC, in my eBooks--since I format them directly in HTML--I use an indent not by inches but by point size, so the indent is proportional to the font/font size the reader uses.
How Amazon converts indents to HTML, I have no clue. They may well change it to a proportional by-point-size.
Laina, that did not sound dirty, but maybe that's just my dirtier mind telling me it didn't. Thank you for asking this question. I was just typing and thought of this. Thank you, Micah, for your feedback as well. Very helpful.
...So in Word I have a style called something like BodyTextFirst with no indent, and then a BodyText with the indent.But in my HTML files I'll have a CSS style sheet with two paragraph formats something like (bold text shows where the indent is set):
p.first {text-indent: 0em; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;}
p {text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;}
... But that's probably TMI for most people.
Correct book formatting, and ebooks look do benefit from it, is: - no indent on the first paragraph of a chapter
- a small indent 0.25 in for all other paragraphs, including paragraphs after a line or asterisk, as those should only separate scenes, not chapters.
Anything bigger than 0.25 in can, on some ereaders, look like half a line.
And since we talk about formatting, never make a fancy first letter on the first line of the first paragraph of a chapter, and never write that first line in capital letters. It throws the spacing out. This is fine on traditionally typeset books, not on digital or POD.
Well, J.R., I guess then I'll just have to work harder to make it sound dirty. ;-)Micah - Thanks but I'm not working in HTML. I know absolutely nothing about it and I'm already in over my head.
Genevieve - This last post made sense to me. I wasn't planning on fancy formatting. I'm not a fan of it personally. But I didn't know about the no indent on the first paragraph of a chapter. It's weird. I've read hundreds of e-books and never once bothered to think about that. It's only when the printing gets messed up and I can't read it that I even give a crap about formatting. I guess I should assume other readers feel the same.
But you're specifications seem the most reasonable so I'll change my Book Body style to make the indent smaller and add an additional one for first paragraphs.
Thanks so much to all who have contributed here. I'm learning so much!!!
I've set my book body style to do an indent at the beginning of each paragraph. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?A bad thing.
Laina wrote: "Ready for one more question?I've set my book body style to do an indent at the beginning of each paragraph. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Next question? How big an indent? (Wait, that just ..."
Paragraph indents and no spaces between paragraphs (outside of section breaks) is standard, so good thing. But like others have said, your indent is too big at 0.5. I do 0.2 as a personal preference, which is slight, but looks uniform across larger devices and my phone.
As Micah pointed out,some folks don't indent the first paragraph of a chapter. This is a stylistic choice and usually accompanies a drop cap or some other decorative typography. I skip all that on ebooks,opting for the cleanest look, but get a little more creative with my physical copies since there is no chance that the formatting would break thanks to reflowing or e-reader settings.
Christina wrote: "As Micah pointed out, some folks don't indent the first paragraph of a chapter. This is a stylistic choice..."As with most formatting, yeah, it's a stylistic choice. I was wrong about doing the same after none-chapter breaks. Those probably should be indented as well. Or at least from looking at professionally formatted eBooks from big name authors.
It's pretty much industry standard, though, to indent paragraphs for works of fiction and on narrative forms of non-fiction (such as memoirs, historical non-fiction, thesis, and some others).
It's used when you want the content to flow from one paragraph to the next and facilitate a fast, linear reading experience.
Non-fiction works nowadays tend to use no indent and add a space between paragraphs. This is known as block paragraphs. It's used mainly on websites, in technical writing, business letters and management publications. Block paragraphs are good when each paragraph is somewhat self-contained and you don't need a constant flow of narrative between them. It's like a series of statements.
I try to emulate the formatting of works in my genre so that readers don't even notice the formatting. Make it as easy for the reader to just pick up and start reading without distraction.
I have to say I'm finding all the choices about format and style really interesting. I'm writing exclusively fiction (specifically romance/erotica/chick lit type stuff) and I've read a bunch. But seeing it and knowing exactly how they got there are two different things. All the info offered here has been helpful. Very helpful.I think my problem is that I was raised on an old-school business style of formatting and it just doesn't work for the e-book business anymore. It's a bit of a transition for me and perhaps why I'm struggling with it more than I thought I would.
But I appreciate all the help and my manuscripts already look better because of it. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I work my way through this process.
Thanks everyone for all the help!!!
It's our pleasure, Laina. Hey, every self-published author goes through this learning curve (unless they've got an unusual amount of capital to pay others to do it), and we all asked similar questions. Welcome to the club.:D
1. What is the best font to use for e-publishing? I've written several romance/erotica shorter length novels and I can't seem to find consensus about what font to use so it can be easily read on all platforms.
2. Chapter titles or just numbers? Is this a preference thing or is there really a better choice?
3. If anyone on here is Canadian, how do you go about publishing on the US Amazon? Just a place to look for info on this would help a lot.
4. Where, besides Goodreads obviously, should I focus my social media attention? Is Facebook the place? Or Twitter? Or someplace I've never heard of yet?
Profound apologies if this is the wrong place to post all this.
Quite honestly I've found that the writing part of this process is the easiest part. I can't seem to make the muse go away. (Sorry, that sounded like a humble brag but it's not. Ask my husband. He has to drag me away from the keyboard at 4 AM.) But where I'm struggling is all the stuff that goes along with self-publishing, including basic stuff like proper formatting and submitting for publication.
Again, thanks in advance to anyone who can help.