7 Things to Know About Book Formatting
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- There are free and easy ways to format a book for publishing but if you want your book to look like a professionally published product, book formatting is essential. Whether you are going to get some software like Vellum or Atticus and do your own formatting, or you're hiring a professional to do the design and layout of your book, you'll need to understand some essential things about book formatting to set your book up for success. In this video, Book Launchers founder Julie Broad breaks down some of the essential things authors should understand about interior design for books.
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Well you convinced me to hire it done for sure
Really glad I hired professionals to format the interior and design the cover. You will never regret spending the money on that. Publishing invites the most intense scrutiny of your work - it has to look nice! But also, you have to oversee what they do- they wanted to put a design element at the start of each chapter, like a logo of sorts, and I said no.
At the end of the day it's your book and you do need to be the CEO of it making final decisions. So glad you hired professionals though - you're right about scrutiny!
Wow you have such positive energy! You’re so friendly, etc. A great UA-cam presenter.
Bleeds, widows, orphans, rags! It sounds so Dickensian! But I can see how these are all things that a do it your selfer wouldn't think of addressing, but are cues that the book was not professionally done.
On this channel, you get all the necessary tools for publishing,
Thank you Scullys! See you at the live stream tomorrow? 2pm PST
Happy Friday. Thank you for another inform video. The stuff you covered are things that don’t even hit my radar, I am grateful for these insights.
Great vidoe. Quality info. Always love listening to you Julie. Blessings
This sounds like a fun stage I’m looking forward to. Great content!
Preliminary remarks: Atticus software ("0:42"); Adobe InDesign ("1:02")
👉🏼 "1:49" -- "1. Know the file formats"
(a.) If an ebook, "you need an e-pub file" ("2:25").
(b.) If "...a printed book, [then] a PDF file" is required for submission to the intended publisher ("2:41").
👉🏼 "2:46" -- "2. From File Types to FORMATTING GUIDELINES"
☑ "trim size" ("3:03")
♦️ the variety of
"standard trim sizes"
("3:21")
♦️ Visit a library or
bookstore & use a
ruler to do some
measuring of book
trims if uncertain as
to what such
possibilities are & so
as to chose what is
best for personal
preference ("4:00").
👉🏼 "4:11"/"4:23" -- "3. Front Matter, Main Body and Back Matter"
👉🏼 "5:59" -- "4. Margins and bleeds"
☑ Margins: "The blank areas around the edges of your pages, well, those are margins, and they're more important than you think."
♦️ recommendation for
nonfiction books...
("6:24")
☑ Bleed:
♦️ definition of "bleed"
in the context of book
printing & publishing
("6:42")
👉🏼 "7:03" -- "5. Headers and footers"
👉🏼 "7:53" -- "6. Fonts"
👉🏼 "8:38" -- "7. Indents, spaces, and rags"
Additional remarks:
☑ "The chapter page design" ("10:34")
♦️ The basics" ("11:10")
♦️ Chapter pages typically commence on the righthand side of the book ("11:16").
♦️ Exercise some self-restraint with regard to designing as "Less is more" is generally the order of the day. Too much on a page ends up being clutter & confusing ("11:28").
♦️ "Body text should begin about half way down the chapter page with the chapter heading centered in the top half of the page" ("11:40").
♦️"Don't indent the first paragraph of a chapter. ....[An alternative if indentation of such is preferable & hard to relinquish], use a drop cap or make the first line all capitalized" ("11:46").
♦️ "Omit the headers and footers for that particular page" ("11:55").
♦️ "Including page numbers is optional" ("11:58").
♦️ "Unless the font on your front cover is too difficult to read, you might want to think about using that same font for your chapter headings. If that's a no-go, then find one that is easy to read, but not the same font as the body text" ("12:00").
Julie, Julie, Julie (@Book Launchers), exceptional information you have so graciously provided here! I want to expression my appreciation to you for it all.
You have articulated things here that have become idiosyncratic instincts for me regard to what I find appealing or, on the other hand, as a turn-off for me with regard to book formatting -- & me being an artist & one who is really inclined to realism & quite a perfectionist at heart, &, yes, this while also being a writer, yes, most definitely, these things are incredibly important to me. Also true is that you brought to light a couple or so things about particular standards of book formatting for publishing that I was not previously aware of.
For example, I definitely have noticed the style myself, for, to be honest, it really grinds on my nerves when I see it, & especially when I may not have a choice other than to deal with it for it may be in a book recommended for academic course work or in a book that, in spite of the style I do not really like, has a wealth of information for my research needs, but, yeah, I was not privy to why the style of no indentations & that of course necessitating spaces in between paragraphs. For me, the "no indentations" look gives a feeling of uninteresting, blockish plainness, & then the necessitated spaces between the paragraphs causes there to be a feeling of lack of cohesiveness; indeed, it feels like I have to try to put a puzzle together with regard to the printed paragraphs on the page rather than being able to simply follow what ought to be a sensible flow of thought from information to understanding, from the understood information to more information that shall either be made to be understandable & understood or to at least be disclosed for the sake of making the reader aware & thus facilitating pieces for further searching out of, & all this towards some ultimate reality, the main point of the book.
So, yeah, that type of thing of book formatting is to me what this silly thing in videography of a presenter looking off in another direction than at me the viewer is to me -- an annoyance & a turn-off. But, of course, you don't have your videos shot like that, because you are more conscious of your viewer & are intending for your words & message to be focused on rather than you & your profile, as if you are acting & the video is about you rather than your intended message. 😉👍🏼 Good job!
Well, thanks again, Julie!
I think I enjoyed this part of the process more than most folks. I made a lot of trips to the bookstore to get ideas.
Thank you for all you do.
You're welcome!!
Very nice video 🌎 Thanks
You're fun to listen to! I loved your presentation!
Thank you!
Very helpful trim size
Another helpful video. I had some rags, widows, and orphans on my poetry book between formats (kindle to paperback to hardcover). Format editing can take a while. I was trying to upload my KDP book to IngramSpark but kept getting the color pdf error. So, I created a 6x9 Word File, emulated my KDP format, and began transferring each chapter. I ran out of time before the promo code expired. TAKE AWAY: I updated my KDP manuscript format using your recommendation to have a hook in each chapter heading. So, it was not wasted effort. Thanks 👍
I used a professional Formatter for my 1st book, using Word as my creation tool. Everything was uploaded the first time on Amazon and Ingram Spark. This is a terrific video that will be a great help for those in the process. Nicely done, Julie!
Thanks Bill!
This was so true and sent me on a road of discovery. Although MSWord really has a lot of presets in its program already. I just had to understand it to use it. Thanks for doing such a great job! I always love your videos.
Thanks for sharing! :)
Thanks for this
You're welcome!
fabulous full service marketing oriented
I'm most familiar with the PDF format. I'm looking forward to gaining a broader knowledge base about book formatting beyond that, though. Thank you!
PDF is a useful tool but for design you'll want to use a different format ... Adobe Indesign is the most common software used to design books but there are many choices now!
Always love your videos ❤️♥️.
Some of the fonts suggested are free fonts, some must be paid for to use. But Times New Roman is a MS Word font and not sure if it can be used. MicroSft is very strict about the use of their fonts in book publications.
However, I did learn something new about the line spacing. Thank you!
Thank you!! Clearly you know your fonts, designs, and printer information! What's your background.
@@BookLaunchers life long student
My chapter headings are bold and slightly bigger, should they be a different font too?! So much information, and I love your energy. I plan on watching all your videos this weekend before I start to publish.
That is great!! And yes we usually do our chapter titles in a different font.
I used Adobe Indesign when I worked as a journalist in a newsroom, but now that I publish my own puzzle books, I use Affinity Publisher. It's nice that I don't have to pay a monthly fee for a program.
Oh that's good to know. I like Atticus as well but maybe not good for a puzzle book!
fonts: serif or non; serif is the better choice. Size? 12 not 11 or 10.
Frontmatter is very important because its the first thing they will see if they bother to look inside. backmatter is comparatively unimportant.
omg yes your chapters MUST start on the RIGHT page. It's a-ok to have a blank left and then the chapter start ON THE RIGHT.
page one is also on the right hand side.
Sorry to ask at this late date, but how do we make a page appear the same on different devices? Kobo reader vs. Kindle readers vs. iPad vs Android phones - they all can have different sizes beside the print format. How do we keep it consistent? Thanks.
When your file is formatted for digital devices by a professional it creates a flowable file that adapts to the device.
Readers love riddles: WHY does booklaunchers logo have 2 lines on one page but three on the other? What does it mean?
Why isn’t Ariel font used?
It's tiresome to read long texts with arial, partly because it's sans serif, also because it's a font designed to create readable signposts, brief important messages rather than long streams of text. Serifs help readbility greatly for long texts and I would NEVER use a sans serif for anything longer than a page at the very most. Even a paragraph is tiresome to read with sans serif fonts.
Helvetica is BEAUTIFUL but only good for SHORT messages! Arial is basically a derived from Helvetica if I'm not mistaken. Anyway both are sans serif. UGH.
I have a question I've been asking a few people and that is is it okay for me to write a novel without paragraphs.... They call it a stream of conscious ....I call it uninterrupted... I really don't want paragraphs in my book... Please let me know thank you
I'm not an expert in novels and it sounds highly creative. You could try. I don't think I would enjoy reading something that has no breaks but there could be an audience for that.
formatting is very important, but most people 1 don't know that 2) don't know how to format. a) you should for amazon print books submit as a PDF. It's a horrible uneditable format, so you should ALSO submit the same interior as KDP html, even if you don't plan to sell via KDP /as eBook so you have an Editable backup.
Formatting ...it is beyond me...
I hire great people who can do it :)
There are free formating online classes available through local colleges, Older Adult Programs...senior centers and libraries.