Editing Tips!

[Morgan]

Thankfully, the spaced out line is pretty simple once you know what causes it. It's just that the break is right after the last period. All you have to do is put another paragraph right before the break, and it should straighten it out.

[Shantelle]

Awesome!! That worked for me, :)

Oh! Also, do kindle versions need to be justified??

[Morgan]

It looks better that way. For that, you should definitely justify it by modifying the style. Kindle formatting is generally a lot easier than print books, thankfully. Have you downloaded the Smashwords Style Guide to help with that?

[Shantelle]

No, I was following this book, E-book Formatting 101 by Terri Main.

I'm pretty sure everything was ship-shape except for justifying. I already uploaded it for pre-order...but I'll go try to edit it. Can't you do that??

Anyway, I don't have the snipping tool on my computer... so is there something else I could send you perhaps?

[Morgan]

You can edit it. I haven't heard of that book, but if it's good formatting, then good!

It'll be harder for me to see what's going wrong without pictures, but you can try to tell me. Click on the footer in a section that doesn't have page numbers but should and open up format page numbers. It should be beneath the dotted line on the drop down menu when you click on page numbers. If you click "continue from previous section" and "OK" does it put them in?

[Shantelle]

Morgan wrote: "You can edit it. I haven't heard of that book, but if it's good formatting, then good!

It'll be harder for me to see what's going wrong without pictures, but you can try to tell me. Click on the f..."

I might have figured out how to do screen shots. I'll get back to you as soon as I can! :D

[Shantelle]

So never mind.....

When I click "continue from previous section", it just changes my Prologue number from 1 to 8, and no numbers are anywhere else.

[Morgan]

Don't change it on the prologue. The prologue needs to say "start at 1." Chapter one on need to say "continue from previous section." Sorry if I wasn't clear on that. And the footers in the sections chapter one on can say "link with previous" while prologue and before should not.

[Shantelle]

Okay, so Prologue is set at start at 1.

From there I try to manually add the rest of the numbers, and it ends up looking something like this: 1,2,3,4,5,8,9,8,9,8,9,8,9 . . . etc.

[Shantelle]

I tried to uncheck the Different Odd and Even Pages check, but then it made all my headers the same on every page. Shantelle Mary Hannu, Shantelle Mary Hannu instead of A Dream Not Imagined, Shantelle Mary Hannu.

[Morgan]

Try using the insert page number feature again in the section for chapter one, but format them to continue from the previous section. Make sure your manual numbers are all gone first.

[Morgan]

Yeah undo that. Make sure the cursor is in the footer, not the header when you make these edits.

[Shantelle]

Weeelll, I have a 1 on Prologue, and a 5 on Chapter One. But no numbers anywhere else.

[Morgan]

Erm. It might be the different first page thing. See if you can change that on the footer without changing the header.

[Shantelle]

Un-checking Different First Page makes my header go onto the Prologue page. Hmm. . .

[Morgan]

Too bad. Put the cursor in the footer in chapter one and click "link to previous." See if that does anything.

[Shantelle]

That just makes so there's a number 5 on Chapter One, and a number give on the blank page before it.

I uploaded another docx. to createspace, and it shows all the headers are right. There was a 1 on Prologue, 5 on Chapter One, and them numbers would appear in random places. 31,32,33. And farther in 98, 99, 100.

I'm so confused! O.O

[Morgan]

Ugh. I'm really not sure what's going on. Maybe you should email the document to someone who has done it before. Jaye beta read for you, right? She knows what she's doing. Or if she doesn't have time and you don't mind my having it, I could try to fix it.

[Shantelle]

If you have the time and don't mind, I would LOVE if you could look at it! ;D

At this point, I'm just kind of (REALLY) frazzled and exhausted of this process...and not sure what else to try! O.O

So if you want, I could send the document to your email, and you could try to figure out what I'm doing wrong! :p

If you don't, I can ask Jaye later. I just feel like she's probably too busy right now, with blog tour stuff or whatever.

[Morgan]

I can do it. I'm watching Classic Doctor Who right now and it's an episode I really want to see, so I probably won't do it right right away, but I'll try to figure it out before I go to bed tonight.

[Shantelle]

Of course!! :) I can send it to you whenever you have the time!

Blessings and thanks so much!!! I feel so much better knowing someone else is going to look at it! :)

[Shantelle]

Ooh, another question, guys! (Sorry, I just... am a little clueless sometimes).

Do book spines always have the same font as book covers? Because another author designed my cover (and she used photoshop, which I don't have)... so now I don't have the right font for the spine. Any suggestions? Can I like purchase that font or something?

I was just going to use createspace.com's thing where you upload a a picture of your front cover, and your back cover, and then you choose a color for your spine, write in the title and your name...

So. If anyone knows stuff about that. :)

[[deleted user]]

Shantelle wrote: "@Morgan, thanks for the tips! I was doing page breaks for every page, and then section breaks between like the Title Page, Table of Content pages and the main body of the book. Is that right? Or do..."

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU6tO...

[Shantelle]

D.L. wrote: "Shantelle wrote: "@Morgan, thanks for the tips! I was doing page breaks for every page, and then section breaks between like the Title Page, Table of Content pages and the main body of the book. Is..."

Thank you!! I will definitely watch this! :)

[Shantelle]

*Exhausted author crawls back to her goodread's writer group*

Well, I was so excited late this afternoon, when I previewed my book for the last time and saw that the formatting was FINALLY right (big thanks to Morgan!! ^__^)

Then I went on to the cover. And all my happiness died a painful death. So for those of you familiar with createspace.com, I chose the Design Cover, Palm Design. When I inserted by front and back cover in, they were like way too wide (turns out my sister chopped off some of the bottom while making the cover). So my brother was able to stretch them a bit and they looked just fine. I inserted them in the Palm Design again. This time, the back cover was perfect. But as for the front cover, the bottom of my name was going into the red "off-limits" space. What to do??? I tried to adjust it, but couldn't.

So I just ended up submitting the cover and then submitting my manuscript for review. When they review it, they will warn me if it's going to cut off some of my name right?

Well, I'm out of options. Was just wondering, if it does indeed cut some of my name off, is there anything else I can do other than making up a whole new cover???

I will understand if no one replies to this, haha. It's long and confusing.

[Lena, Shot through the heart, and you're to blame]

I have zilch experience, but if your brother stretched it, can't he do that again, horizontally, to make it work?

[Shantelle]

@Lena. Well, there's like this red area all around the edges of the book cover. And my name is like too close to the bottom of the cover, so that it's going the red area. I would have to move the cover up or something, cutting of more of the top so that my name would be farther up front the bottom. But... don't know how to do that, or if you can do that!

Whew! It's confusing!! O.O

[Morgan]

I've never used the cover creator, so I don't know how it works. I looked at their templates when I did my first book and didn't like any of them. What I do is download a cover template for my page count and put together a full cover spread in Photoshop Elements. Then I upload a print ready PDF. Even Elements is expensive, though. I split the cost with my parents. It's not as expensive as full Photoshop and can still create a good cover.

[Kendra]

I've used the CreateSpace templates for some of my books, and frankly, if your name doesn't fit ... there isn't much you can do about it. Let's see ... which one was Palm ... Oh. That one. Haven't messed with that one - I started to, once, but I realized it didn't have a spine option, and didn't like that, so I used the Birch instead.

So I'm not really sure what you can do, either, beyond, say, finding someone who knows how to manipulate photoshop and uploading a PDF (And I'm not one of those someones - I have a cousin who puts together my full covers for me.)

[Shantelle]

Thanks for the replies! :) Yes, I suppose I'll just have to hire someone to redo it and put it on PDF for me or something! Because, yeah, I don't have photoshop. Oof. Oh well. I guess I'll figure it out . . . someday. :p

At least the kindle addition will release on the 28th!! :)

[Shantelle]

So my wonderful older brother has been helping me with my cover, and I think we fixed the problems. I decided to create my full cover (front, spine, and back) on gimp and then convert it to PDF to upload to createspace.

My question: what size cover template do I need to download from createspace?

I'm doing Black & White, 108 Pages, Cream Paper, and my interior template is 5 by 8 I believe. So do I mark "Trim Size" as 5 by 8... or something else?? https://www.createspace.com/Help/Book...

[Morgan]

I can't remember exactly what page it's on, but there's a place where you can have them generate a custom template. You put in the trim size you're using, the number of pages in the book and type of paper, and it generates it and gives you a zip file to download. One of the files in the zip is a JPEG. I just use it as my base layer. If you search the site for cover template, you should be able to find it.

[Shantelle]

@Morgan, yes, I found that (which is super exciting because it makes things so much easier!!)

But what I'm wondering is: What is the Trim Size?

My interior template is 5 by 8. Like when I went to start formatting my book, I set it to measure 5 by 8, and downloaded the 5 by 8 template to put my story in and work on headers and footers from there.

So would I put the Trim Size as 5 by 8??

[Morgan]

Yes, the trim size is just the technical name for the size of your book, the size you picked when you set up the book, the one you downloaded the template for. And now I know that term, I use it way too much. Like when I packed up my books, I made sure to keep ones of similar trim size in the same stack. :)

[Morgan]

And I'm sorry I didn't answer the question you were actually asking before. I guess I must have misunderstood. :P

[Shantelle]

@Morgan, that's fine!! You've answered my question in any case! :) So yay, I think I have it all figured out now!!! :D Let's hope!

Blessings, and thanks so much!! ^__^

[Shantelle]

Ugh...more questions!! So I just received the proof copy of A Dream Not Imagined and the cover looks very nice! :) However, I'm worried about some formatting stuff.

For one, some of the paragraphs are ending before the end of the page. You almost expect the chapter to end... I tried turning off the widows&orphans control in two different places. It's showing widows&orhpans is unchecked. However, I still have those gaps.

Also, some of my sentences go like this: "How are you . .
."

They separate the "dot,dot,dot", ellipsis, whatever. Which makes it look weird.

Do you guys have any suggestions of what I should do? It's not like I'm SO worried about it being absolutely perfect (it's my first book, and a novella). But I don't want to have stuff in there that will cause the reader to pause and get jerked out of the story for a moment because of bad formatting. :(

Ah, help!

Thanks!!!

[Morgan]

Try highlighting the paragraphs before and after the space and then using the arrow in the corner of the paragraph section to turn off widow/orphan control. It could be that you did extra formatting to those spots and so when you changed the way the style is defined it didn't alter it.

For the ellipses, you could condense the lines, condense the ellipses, or take out the spaces.

I definitely understand wanting it to be perfect. I always want mine perfect. :) I'm glad the cover looks good!

[Shantelle]

@Morgan, thanks so much for the tips!! I shall try that, and hope it works! :)

One more question. On my back cover, I did on of the ellipses with spaces in between them, and one not. The problem is, I'd have to go back on gimp and take the whole back cover off, redesign it, and then upload it again. My brother did all that for me... and it was kinda difficult. Do you think it will be noticeable if I just leave it??

EXAMPLE:

A Maid, a Prince, and a Duke. A Gardener, a Stepmother, and a secret[...]

Ellie Abbington, a beautiful yet unassuming young woman, quietly longs for her life to change. Too privileged to associate with the servants—too underprivileged to associate with her own family; she dreams a dream of a prince and a happily ever after.

But it could be that her own stepsisters, conniving Dezmarie and easily-influenced Adelaide, are dreaming the same dream [. . .] of the same prince.

In the end, are dreams even all they're made out to be? Especially with deep and long-hidden secrets about to be unearthed?

Thanks again! Hope I'm not bothering you guys with all my questions!! O.O

[Morgan]

It might not be too noticeable. That's really your judgment. Will it bother you if it doesn't get fixed?

[Shantelle]

Yeah... I guess I'll just ask my brother how easy it would be to fix, and then make my decision from there!

Thanks again for the help with formatting!!! I highlighted each chapter individually, and unchecked the widows&orphans box, and it finally worked! :)

[Morgan]

Yay! I hope you don't find any more issues.

[Shantelle]

Hope so too!! Hopefully I'll just have to order one more proof copy, and then be good! :)

[Lavay]

Review your book and have someone else review and edit before you publish!

I learned that the hard way, twice. I rushed into publishing The Light Horse and King of Aethon (LHDH#2). I had to remove "King of Aethon" because it wasn't ready.

As for "The Light Horse", I'll have to live with it and fight the urge to change it.

[J.C.]

Hey just wanted to say..I'm getting ready to start my next book and I think this thread is going to prove to be super helpful! Thanks for sharing tips everyone! Great idea to have an editing thread :)