Category Archives: Uncategorized

After formatting the paperback, you’re ready to upload it to Kindle Direct Publishing. Uploading means providing KindleDP with a manuscript that it can use to print your book and with information that Amazon can use to create a web page to sell your book.  Before uploading, you can make sure you’re ready to by taking aContinue reading “Is your formatted manuscript ready to upload?”

When you’re all done formatting to your manuscript to be uploaded at Kindle Direct Publishing, save the document as a PDF. As a PDF essentially is a series of “pictures” of how the designed pages look, this marks the best way to ensure that KindleDP doesn’t mess up your formatting as processing what you’ve uploaded. BeforeContinue reading “Save Your Self-Published Manuscript as PDF”

For authors self-publishing their books, among the biggest challenges is placing the page numbers, especially if formatting in Microsoft Word. The easiest approach is to simply create a header in which the book’s title is centered at the top and a footer in which the page number is centered at the bottom of every page. ThenContinue reading “How to number your book’s pages in MS Word”

After the foreword, preface and introduction comes the bulk of your book – the main text. This is when Chapter 1 (or an prologue if you have one in your novel) begins. Generally, each new chapter begins on the right (or odd numbered page). You may need to leave the left-side page blank between the tableContinue reading “How to Format Your Self-Published Book’s Text”

When self-publishing your book, you’ll need a copyright page. The copyright page lists important information about your book for libraries, academicians and book distributors. For a lot of readers, it’s an dull page, checked at most for the book’s copyright date (hence the name) to see when the book was released. Because of this, it’s oftenContinue reading “What goes on your book’s copyright page”

Sometimes after the title page and before the copyright page, authors will place excerpts from a number of positive reviews about their book. The idea is to give readers thinking about your book another sales pitch to help them make a decision. A headline on the first page of reviews will help readers understand what’s goingContinue reading “Add glowing reviews to your book’s front matter”

When formatting your paperback for self-publishing, you’ll start with the title page. Let’s start, though, with a quick tip: When formatting, looking at it like it is a book you’re holding in your hands helps make the process easier to visualize, so adjust the view to just show two pages. You can do that by clickingContinue reading “How to Format Your Paperback’s Title Page”

When formatting your paperback to be self-published, you need to determine your paragraph style. This is a major decision to make, as the style you choose signals readers that a new paragraph has begun. You really have only two options: 1) Indent the first line of your paragraph; or 2) Place one empty line of spaceContinue reading “When Formatting, Establish a Paragraph Style”

When formatting your paperback to self-publish on Kindle Direct Publishing, you’ll first need to create a document on which you will format your manuscript. Presumably, you’ve already determined your book’s trim size. This article also assumes you’re using Microsoft Word for your formatting. Begin by making a copy of the manuscript you’ve been working on. Use theContinue reading “Create a Document for Your Book Formatting”

Formatting when writing to a small degree makes some sense. Many authors want to get a feel for what their book will look like in print. Or perhaps to get a “head start” while waiting for a proofreading to be completed, they start formatting. Almost invariably, though, this actually creates more work. Before formatting, you wantContinue reading “Should You Format Your Book While Writing It?”