Inventing Reality Editing Service

Just as construction workers follow blueprints, so should you when creating your cover. If you don’t, you’ll probably build something that can’t be uploaded or that won’t pass your self-publishing company’s vetting process. You’ll then have to start all over or will end up paying someone to fix your errors.

To begin with, understand that the cover you build will be a single piece that contains the front cover, the spine and the back cover. You can’t submit three separate pieces of your cover.

Ideally, you’ll use a software or an online app that will allow you to save the document in a format so you can go back and work on it and change what you’ve created. For example, in Photoshop, you’ll save it as a .psd rather than a .jpeg or a .pdf.

Unfortunately, you can’t really determine the actual cover size until your book has been formatted. That’s because the size of the pages you choose effects your cover size while  the number of pages in the book affects the width of your spine. Whether or not you use color images in the book also affects the cover size. Once you’ve formatted your book, continue here.

Trim size
Now that you have a formatted book, begin by writing down the trim size of your book – that is, the dimensions in which the book that was formatted. If your book’s trim size was 5.5 x 8.5 inches (width always is first and height second), then that’s the size of your front cover.

It’s also the size of your back cover. You can add the width of the front and back covers so that your book size is now 11 x 8.5 inches.

You also need to add the spine’s width. To determine that, you need to know how many pages are in your book. Once you have that number, round it up to the next number that can be evenly divide by four. For example, if you have 198 pages, you need to round up to 200. Next you need to know if your book is purely black and white or if it has color in. Color pictures, illustrations and text require a thicker paper than a book printed in black and white.

The typical paper used in self-publishing for black and white books has a thickness of .002252 inches per page while a book using paper for color pictures or illustrations is .002347 inches thick.  To determine your spine’s thickness, simply multiply the page count by the thickness of the paper you’re using. So a 200-page book for a black and white book would be 200 x .002252 or .4504 inches thick. A 200-page book done in color is 200 x .002347 or .4694 inches thick.

Now add the spine’s width to your front and back covers’ width. Your black and white 200-page 5.5 x 8.5 book now has a book cover size of 11.4502 inches x 8.5 inches.

Bleed area
But that’s just the printed size of your full cover. The actual cover you need to submit to a self-publishing house needs to be slightly larger. This is because when printing, the self-publishing house’s printing press requires what is called “bleed area”; this ensures that if the printing paper is a little off when going through the press or if the printing press’ blades cut at the wrong spot, your book cover still will look good and you have a saleable book.

So you need to add the bleed area to your cover’s dimensions. To do that, add 0.5 inches to the book cover’s width. Then add 0.25 inches total to the book cover’s height. For our aforementioned 200-page book with a trim size of 5.5 x 8 inches, that means your book cover size is 11.9502 inches x 8.75 inches.

Now that you know the measurements of the cover you must upload, create a document in that size. You can do this on Photoshop or similar photo editors. Make sure that the background is the color you’ve selected in your sketch and if you have the option that it is 300 dpi. At 300 dpi, your cover will be plenty large enough to look good when shrunk onto a website.

Next, we’ll draw guidelines so you have a good idea of what is the bleed area and where the front and back panels, as well as the spine, fit on your cover.

Begin by creating a horizontal guide that is 0.125 inches from the document’s top. Create another horizontal guide that is 0.125 miles from the document’s bottom. Next, place a vertical guide that is 0.25 inches from the document’s left side and another vertical guide that is 0.25 miles from the document’s right side. The actual cover that will print is the rectangle inside this box. The “frame” around this box is the bleed area.

Next, create the space that the back cover will fill. Readjust your guides so that the “0” mark is where the guidelines marking your bleed area intersect in the upper left corner. Place a horizontal guideline however many inches wide the back cover is to the right of that intersection; for example, if the back cover panel is 5.5 inches wide, your new guideline should be 5.5 inches to the right of the guideline for the bleed area.

After that, create the space that the front cover will fill. Readjust the ruler so that the “0” mark is where the intersecting guide indicating your bleed area in the lower right corner. Place a horizontal guide however many inches wide the front cover is to the left of that intersection; for example, if the back cover panel is 5.5 inches wide, your new guide should be 5.5 inches to the left of the guide for the bleed area.

You now have “boxes” that mark the front cover, the spine, the back cover, and the bleed area.

Text margins
There’s one more set of guide that you probably should set – for the text margins. Generally, KindleDP doesn’t want any text you place on the page to be within a third of an inch from the bleed area. If the paper behind printed on isn’t quite set right, any lettering close to that edge might get cut off.

For text margins, I prefer to go with a half-inch. This prevents any problems with text being too close to the bleed area and keeps the title lettering from running too large or too small (more on that later).

To set the text margin guides, readjust the guides so that they are at “0” on the document’s top left where the guides marking the bleed area intersect. Drag a horizontal guide 0.5 inches below the top guide. Then drag a vertical guide that is 0.5 inches from the left guide.

Next, reset the rulers so they are at “0” where the top guide for the bleed area intersects the guide you created to mark the back cover’s right edge. Drag a vertical guideline 0.5 inches to the left of that right edge.

Then reset the rulers so they are at “0” where the top guide for the bleed area intersects the guide you created to mark the front cover’s left edge. Drag a vertical guideline 0.5 inches to the right of that left edge.

Lastly, readjust the rulers so that they are at “0” on the document’s bottom right where the guides for the bleed area intersect. Drag a horizontal guide 0.5 inches above the bottom guide. Then drag a vertical guide that is 0.5 inches from the right guide.

You’ve now marked margins for your front and back covers. When you place text on the page, they never should go outside those margin guidelines.

Barcode
There’s probably one more guide you may want to place on the cover. From the document’s bottom right, drag a horizontal line 2.5 inches above the guideline for the bleed area. This sets aside space for the barcode, which KindleDP will stamp along with a white box containing it onto your back cover. You don’t went text or important parts of your artwork to be covered by the white box and barcode, so knowing that you can’t go below that guideline is helpful.

The picture at this article’s upper right shows how this should look (White is the full cover. Gray is a guide. Black is the background the cover is sitting on and is not part of the cover).

By the way, do not place a white box for your barcode on the back cover unless you’re providing your own barcode. There’s no need to buy a barcode as KindleDP gives you a free one. KindleDP, by the way, ignores your white box and places it where it likes in your back cover’s lower left – and it almost never matches with your white box, creating a goofy looking effect on your book.

Once you’ve created the document, save it, including the words “PAPERBACK COVER” in its name. That’ll make it easier to find when searching through your files.

With the document created, you now can start placing your cover’s basic elements on it. We’ll look at how to do that during the next few sections.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

An paperback cover – perhaps wrongly – tells the reader a lot about the pages that follow. A poor cover hints at unprofessional writing.

So invest a little time working on the full cover, even though you’re a writer. After all, you’re not a fashion designer, but you still wouldn’t dress your child in rags during her first public outing!

To begin, you’ll need to know that a paperback cover consists of three parts – the front cover, the back cover, and the spine that goes between them.

Most people will only see either your front cover or your spine when in a bookstore.

The front cover is usually what potential readers see when they spot your book online or at a bookstore. It in turn consists of four parts. The artwork consists of the photograph or illustration that dominates the front cover. The title of your book usually is the largest wording on the page. The byline, or the author’s name, typically is the next largest wording. A tag line usually is four or five words of something nice someone has said about your book (For example, a tag line for this book might say: “‘The ONLY complete guide out there.’ – Kyle Janison, Editor”)

If your front cover captured the reader’s attention in a bookstore or library, they probably will turn it over and read the back cover, which is the back side of your book. The back cover typically consists of five parts. Most noticeable is the blurb, which is the same the book description on Amazon. It is your sales pitch, your movie trailer, that tells what the book is about and hopefully lands a purchase. An author’s bio may appear below the blurb. It usually is brief and often used to establish the author’s credentials for writing the book, though that is more important for nonfiction than fiction. Next to the bio might an author’s photo, which often is just a thumbnail head shot. Below that is the the name of the publisher. The name may include the city where the publisher is headquartered. Lastly is the barcode, which is used in tracking the book as it moves from printer to distributor to retailer. With the barcode may be the book’s ISBN and its price, though the latter can float around other spots on the cover.

Between the front and back covers is the spine. This is the thin side of the book that readers are most likely to see in a bookstore or library. The spine includes three elements: the book’s title; the byline; and the publisher’s logo.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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 a few steps.

First, you’ll need to set up an account with KindleDP. Your Amazon and KindleDP accounts are linked, so when you sign up for the latter, you’ll be asked to enter your Amazon username and password. You can set up a KindleDP account separate from your Amazon account, but doing so requires that you use a different email address than that for your existing Amazon account; in addition, KindleDP then will create an Amazon account for you using your KindleDP sign-ins. You’ll then have two Amazon accounts. You can create a KindleDP account at kdp.amazon.com

Next, you’ll want to write your book description. Since you’ve already created a book cover for your paperback, you can use the blurb on your back cover as your description. Make sure you have a copy of this blurb saved in Microsoft Word or some other easy to access word processing program so that you can cut and paste it into the appropriate box when uploading your manuscript.

Also write an author’s bio. While this won’t be uploaded with your manuscript, you’ll later use it to create an Author Central page at Amazon. You can include your author’s bio at the end of the blurb that you upload with your manuscript as well.

You’ll also want to research the keywords you’ll use to promote your book. When uploading, you can enter up to seven words or phrases (each no longer than 25 letters) that you suggest Amazon bring up your book for when someone types one of them into a search engine. Obviously if you can guess the seven most likely words that someone who wants to read your book would use to find it, you could sell a lot of copies. This can be done by looking at books similar to yours at Amazon and seeing what words frequently appear in their titles and book descriptions.

In addition, you’ll want to finish your cover so it is ready to be uploaded. The book cover should be a single PDF in which the front cover, back cover and spine are designed as one piece. There’s a lot to know about cover design and meeting KindleDP’s standards for an acceptable cover, so you may want to check out Design Your Paperback Cover in this series.

Lastly, determine the price for your book. As you’re a new author, you’ll want to undercut your competition’s prices. Take a look at books similar to yours on Amazon for their prices. Determine an average and charge at least a penny but no more than a dollar less for your book.

Of course, you can wait until uploading your book to do all of these steps. By taking care of them in advance, though, you can upload your book in less than a half-hour, while waiting stretches out the uploading process to a whole afternoon if not a few days.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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.

Before saving the document, you’ll want to delete the first blank page that you inserted before the title page. That page was a placeholder so while formatting the page numbers you could ensure the even numbers went on the left side of the book and that the odd on the right. Once you remove the blank page, the odd numbered pages suddenly will appear on the left. Don’t worry about this, however, as KindleDP will consider the inside front cover of your book as your uploaded document’s first page and restore the page numbers to their correct order.

One problem to check for is the insertion of a blank page after every section break. You’ll recall that we used section breaks to automate page numbering. Some apps make this error when converting a Microsoft Word document to a PDF. The result is that after the section break, you’ll have an extra page so odd numbered pages will wrongly appear on the left side of the manuscript and even numbered pages on the the right side when uploaded to KindleDP. The simple solution is to delete this blank page by modifying the PDF in an advanced version of Adobe Acrobat. Of course, Adobe Acrobat requires a subscription, but usually you can get a free trial so you can take care of the extra blank page, cancel, and move on.

Once the document is saved as a PDF and the section breaks are removed, you’re ready to upload it to KindleDP.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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. Then the only challenge is making sure those headers and page numbers start on the correct page.

To do that, let’s start with page numbers. We’ll presume you have a preface and foreword as well as an introduction, and that you want your page numbers on the bottom of the page.

Begin by placing your cursor after the last letter or number in your table of contents. Next, click “Layout” in the ribbon. Then use the pull down menu for “Breaks.” Click “Next Page.” This inserts a section break in your manuscript, though you won’t see it unless you click “Home” and the paragraph symbol in the middle of that ribbon.

After that, click “Insert” in the ribbon. Click on the pull down menu for Footer. You can choose what page number style you want to use. I recommend “Banded” as this is a simply a number that is centered.

A new ribbon pops up on your screen. Look for “Link to previous” and make sure it is off.

Click the pull down menu for “Page Number” on the ribbon’s left side and select “Page Number Format.” Change “Number format” to the Roman numerals i, ii, iii… In the same box, turn on the button for “Start at:” and make sure it says “i.” Then click OK.

Next, place the cursor at the end of your text for your preface or foreword, whichever comes before the introduction. Repeat the steps above beginning at “click ‘Layout’” in the ribbon.

When you get to the “Page Number Format” box, change “Number format” to the Arabic numbers 1, 2, 3… In the same box, turn on the button for “Start at” and make sure it says “1”. Then click OK.

You’ve just successfully numbered the pages for your manuscript.

For your book title at the top of the page, you essentially do the same except use “Header” rather than “Footer” and skip the “Page Number” box. Start the header for your book with the second page of whichever comes first, the preface or foreword.

This system does mean that even blank pages and those that start your chapter will have a header and page number on it. That’s not a big deal for your page number, but usually you don’t want the first page of a chapter or a blank page to have your header. The solution is to start new sections before and after each chapter’s first page. Each chapter’s first page will be its own section with a blank header.

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 table of contents/introduction and Chapter 1/Prologue.

Chapter Header
Next, you’ll need to decide how the chapter header will look. Will it appear a quarter way or half way down the page? Will it be centered or aligned to the left or the right? Will the chapter title (if there is on) be in a different font size or style than the chapter number? How much space will appear between the chapter number/name and the actual text of the chapter? Will there be any special symbols of illustrations that appear as decoration between the two?

There’s no right or wrong answer to any of these questions. The design mostly is about the how it reflects the book’s tone? The more flamboyant the book, then the more flamboyant the chapter title can be; the more utilitarian the book, then the more utilitarian the chapter title should be. Whichever approach you use, be sure to be consistent with it throughout the book. A chapter title that is in all caps in on p. 27 but that has only the first letter of each word capitalized on p. 46 looks sloppy and unprofessional.

As a side note, if writing an anthology of short stories or essays, each story/essay can be treated like a new chapter.

Drop caps
The first word of each chapter can have a drop cap if you like. A drop cap is when the first letter of the chapter’s first word is larger than the others and sometimes stylized. Microsoft Word has a drop cap function under its “Insert” function on the ribbon at the top of the screen. You only have a couple of style choices (traditional drop cap or in margin), but you can modify their size, font, style, color and more to suit your needs.

Alignment
Text can be centered or the margins on the page’s right side either can be ragged or set up so that the last letter of every line stops at the same spot (except in a paragraph’s last line). The option you choose is the text’s alignment. In Microsoft Word, opt for the “Justify” alignment, so that all letters end in a standard straight row.

Justification
This either can refer to the alignment selected or to where your lines end at the bottom of the page. Regarding the latter, presuming the text fills the entire page, you want the last line of every page to end at exactly where the bottom margin begins. You wouldn’t want the text to end a half-inch from the page’s edge on an even-numbered page but then 4/7 of an inch from the page’s edge on the facing odd-numbered page, as this would look amateurish.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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 often placed on a left-hand page and sometimes even in smaller type, almost as if it is being hidden away.

Parts of the Copyright Page
There are several elements to the copyright page. They vary a little from publisher to publisher, and you may want to change the ways yours appears. Sometimes the information is centered, sometimes aligned to the left, sometimes stretched out to fill the whole page, sometimes tucked as close to the bottom of the page as it can be.

Usually, the book’s title and subtitle is the first text to appear on the copyright page. Some publishers have dispensed with the title because it was given on the title page, which usually was the page before.

Next is the copyright year and who owns the copyright, which typically is the author. For this book, the copyright line reads “Copyright Rob Bignell, 2023.”

The next part lists the rights. Always use “All Rights Reserved” for your self-published book. Of course, people can quote from your book and reference in their bibliographies and citations; that’s called fair use. Along with the rights usually is some kind of kind of passage limiting use of reproduction of the book. This solidifies that you’re serious about limiting your copying of your book to fair use.

And solidifying is about all the rights listing is good for. It actually holds no legal power and in fact is unnecessary – your book in the United States (and several other Western countries) already is protected by copyright law.

Novels and short story anthologies also often include a passage stating that characters and events are entirely fictitious. This is a good idea for legal purposes or someone might claim you’re libeling them by simply giving them a different name and claiming the book is fiction.

Nonfiction books often include a passage stating you bear no responsibility for advice (medical, financial, etc.) dispensed. Use this passage only if such advice is provided.

A variety of other such passages also appear in books, especially nonfiction. A good idea is to look at other books that cover similar topics, see what they use for disclaimers, and go with that wording if applicable to your book.

Next is the International Standard Book Number, aka an ISBN. This is a 13-digit number given to each book; no two books have the same ISBN. You can find it near the barcode on the book’s back cover and also on the title page.

ISBNs used to be 10 digits long, but since 2007, all are 13-digits long for new books.

To sell your book, you must have an ISBN. It’s primarily used so retailers can more easily track book inventory. The advantage to you as an author is that an ISBN allows book sellers or anyone doing an online search to quickly find your book.

If you a print a book that isn’t for sale – such as a gift for family members or as a free giveaway – you don’t need an ISBN. Should you later change your mind and decide you want to sell the book and have bookstores or online sites distribute it, you always can go back and get an ISBN.

In the Untied States, there are three ways to get an ISBN for your book:
• Buy one online from Bowker – Bowker is the official ISBN Agency for the United States and its territories. This option makes you the book’s publisher.
• Allow the self-publishing company to buy one for you – It’s free but then Kindle Direct Publishing then becomes the publisher, though it will list your book as “independently published.”
• Buy elsewhere – While the cost may be less expensive than Bowker, most self-publishing companies won’t accept these ISBNs, and so you end up buying from Bowker anyway or allowing the self-publishing company to be your publisher.

The least expensive option is to let the self-publishing company purchase an ISBN for you. Bowker sells them for $125 each, but you can buy as many as 10 for $250, at least as of this book’s publication.

You’ll need to include the ISBN in two spots on your book, First, it must be placed on your title page. Secondly, it needs to be next to the barcode that goes on your back cover. Usually you don’t need to worry about getting the ISBN on the barcode because the self-publishing company will take care of that for you.

As a final note, you typically don’t need to purchase a barcode for your book when buying an ISBN. Most self-publishing companies create the barcode for you at no expense.

If you plan to sell your book to libraries, you’ll need a Library of Congress Catalog Number, aka an LCCN.

You can order your own through the website of the Cataloging in Publication Division of the Library of Congress. The best news is that applying for an LCCN is free, so it makes sense to simply add an LCCN when you self-publish a book.

A book must be longer than 50 pages to qualify for an advance purchase of LCCN. Because of this, many children’s books usually don’t qualify.

Typically below the ISBN/LCCN goes the publisher’s name, as well as the city and state where the publisher is located. Mailing and website addresses might also be included here, though if the indie author has his or her own publishing company, a mailing address probably is your home so should dispensed with. 

Next might come credits. Often other people contribute creatively to your book. If a children’s author, you probably have an illustrator who you collaborated with. Perhaps someone designed your cover. Maybe a photographer took the front and back cover photos. Possibly you had a super book formatter who made your book look even better than you thought it could. Almost certainly you had a great editor who helped you get the book to read as well as it does. If so, you would list those people here. This isn’t an acknowledgements section but a list of the who contributed and their role.

The last bit of information that goes on the copyright page is where the book was printed. As KindleDP uses multiple printing plants based on the buyer’s region (to save on shipping costs), you won’t know this but could simply state “Manufactured in the United States of America.” Usually with this is a line about which edition or print run the book comes from. This line doesn’t really apply to self-published books, but you can add “First printing (Month) (Year)” with the month and the year when it first went up for sale on Amazon.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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 going on in the section. Keep it simple and place it in all caps or boldface. Something as simple as PRAISE FOR “(YOUR BOOK’S TITLE)” will work.

How the rest of the review appears is up to you. One general rule is to keep the blurbs short; any more than four to six sentences is pushing it. Another is to not place it in italics; many readers find long stretches of italicized type difficult to get through. Lastly, always tell who said the blurb and give some credentials, such as Alan Watson, New York Today book critic.

If you don’t have any blurbs for a review section, solicit them in advance. You can send advance reader copies of your book to potential reviewers or perhaps send out formatted copies of the book that you’re still editing. The blurbs, however, ought to come from readers with credentials to make such statements, such a book critics, experts in the field you’re writing about, established authors, and so on. Blurbs from your mother, best friend, and a beta reader no one has ever heard of won’t help your cause.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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 clicking “View” at the ribbon atop your screen. Next, click “Multiple Pages” in the center of the ribbon. You’ll then have to zoom in on the screen so that just two pages show. I find 90% on the zoom slide bar works best as you still can read the text on your screen.

The first page you need to make in your paperback manuscript is a blank page that appears on the left side. This page is merely a placeholder to help ensure that what’s on the screen resembles a paperback. It’ll prove helpful when you place page numbers and chapter titles. You’ll later have to take it out, but for now let’s put it in.

The second page – or the page on the right side of the screen – is the title page. It’s also known as the “bastard title.”

You’ll want to place these three elements on the title page:

• Title – The title of your book should appear in a large font on your page.
• Byline – Below it should be the author’s name is a font size that is a third to a half of that used by for the title.
• Publisher – The publisher’s name as well as the city and state where the publisher is headquartered should appear in a font size that is a third to a half of that used for the byline.

If you’re self-publishing, you may not have a “publisher.” Whoever owns the book’s ISBN is the publisher. Many self-published authors didn’t create a company to purchase the ISBN, however, but just bought it in their name. Using your name as the publisher when it already appears in the byline will look strange to most readers. If that’s your situation, dispense with listing the publisher.

The title page is a holdover from the 1800s. Back then, unbound books were delivered from the printer to a bookbinder, usually in a separate building, so the printer typically added a blank page on top of the book to protect the copyright page; later, printers began to print just the title on that blank page so the bookbinder could more easily identify the unbound book. Though unnecessary with today’s printing technology, most books retain the title page because the copyright page is full of lots of dull but legally necessary information and so is a bit unsightly as the first page of a book that a reader would open to.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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 space between paragraphs and do not indent the first line.

Generally, paperbacks use the first method – indent the first line. The second approach, which mirrors the block style of a business letter style, is common in ebooks.

An indent of two/eighths to four/eighths of an inch usually is sufficient for the first line, though this varies depending on the typeface. This is how it would look in a paperback:

  My jaw dropped. “How much?”
“About $5000. It’s a particularly nasty accusation your husband has made.”
“It’s not true, though.”
My divorce attorney, Alan Wagner, leaned forward, his broad shoulders stretching wide beneath his shirt. “We can win, I assure you. His strategy, though, appears to be to run your bank account dry so that you have no choice but to give in.”

For an example of block style, look at this article.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.