Ah Formatting one's own novel.
For those who are doing this for the first time you feel my absolute frustration at all the requirements and learning something new. For those who have already done such formatting before and know what needs to be done, and in what order, you know the feeling of that extra work that simply needs to be done.
While Last Job is my second book (and Buck's first published), it is the first book I've had to format myself; and it's been a rollercoaster of stress, and then joy of completion, only to find there are more steps. I've gone through these emotions thrice, and from all that I've learned the below:
One
Fully research all the formatting requirements and suggestions before starting to format your novel.
- There is more formatting than whatever the printing service is requesting (though they are definitely a good place to start and find out if you need any specific software/file setup).
- The best start is to look at all the recent books you've enjoyed reading that are in your genre. The fact is, there is an Industry Standard, and each genre of novel has its own standard or at least expectations (especially for the front book material and back book material).
-- If you don't have a lot of books on hand (as I didn't), then libraries are your friend.
- Once you think you have all the formatting requirements written down, go to YouTube and look up formatting videos, there will be at least one thing you missed (I missed several).
-- Please note that when looking up help/references for these steps, you will only receive specific answers from specific questions (anything vague like "novel formatting" will net you multiple different videos all talking on different points of formatting).
- Note: The book cover requirements differ from e-book to paperback to hardcover and if you bought your own ISBN to use, that website wants its own version of the book cover too.
-- I highly suggest signing into whatever book printing service you're going to use, and create a "dry-run" of your publishing (just don't hit the last "publish" button) and from here you'll see all the formatting requirements for everything.
Two
Follow the formatting requirements using their step-by-step instructions (YouTube is the easiest source for this). I say this as my original formatted novel for Last Job was gone over thrice before I realized that the Header and Footer should be blank on each new chapter page. And when I went to hide both, only the Header became blank, the page number remained.
I still don't know how that happened. I do know that I had to start the novel formatting again from scratch with a new word document.
Three
Realize that even if you pay for formatting services, there's a solid chance that your novel will not be formatted correctly.
- I paid for formatting for my first book Sem'se, and if I had paid more attention to the end result instead of being so excited about becoming a "legit" author, then I would have noticed some things didn't seem right.
-- Definitely suggest you take a day, and then go over your "Final Draft" before sending your novel to be published.
Four
The overall steps I used (for myself for later on in Book 3):
1) Font Type & Size
Times New Roman is easier for me to read than Garamond
(I've used 12 for Sem'se, will see how 11 will work for Last Job)
2) Book Size
Most Industry standard is 5x8 for paperback and hard cover
(I've still used 6x9 which is usually for self-published. I'm thinking of changing to 5x8 after Last Job, will see how it feels in my hands)
3) Margins
B&N and Amazon have different margin requests, so can either have 2 separate copies saved, or go with the bigger margin requirement and use for both.
- don't forget to mirror the margins
-- this also goes for the book cover margins (which was wild seeing the differences)
4) Paragraph Spacing
Line Spacing - Exactly 15pt
(I might increase to 25pt, depending on how Last Job reads after printing)
Indentation - First Line 0.25"
(I might increase to 0.30" - multiple YouTube suggest, but I've mostly seen 0.25" in books)
Rest are at 0" and 0pt
5) Section Breaks
Layout - Breaks - Section Break - Next Page
(I used these between each chapter and each page of the front book matter and back book matter - makes a huge difference)
NOTE: Page Breaks do not work for later formatting
6) Header & Footer
- no need to do this for the e-book
- Different Odd & Even Pages box ticked:
(odd page I use for name of book - even for name of author)
- make sure the Header & Footer are at opposite sides of the page between odd & even pages
(so they are at the end of the printed page instead of at the spine)
- Different First Page box ticked
(to hide the Header & Footer on first page of chapter - which is possible with Section Breaks)
7) Chapter Header Design
- in e-book use "Styles" (Heading1 or Heading2) so you can format the Table of Contents as e-books don't use page numbers
-- can also do this for paperback and hardcover so that any changes with formatting later can easily update the Table of Contents
8) Justification
ctrl-J
- it's also in the Paragraph section of tools
- after doing this for the novel, the Chapter Heading formatting can get confused (will have to redo them)
9) Hyphenation
NOTE: Amazon's e-book software automatically does this for us, no need to do the extra work
(but if you're also using B&N you'll have to do it for them - so have 2 copies of the e-book saved)
Five
Dry-Run printing the book (i.e. print out what you believe is correct), and then compare what you actually receive with what you wanted to have.
-READ THROUGH THE NOVEL
-- you’ll be surprised what can happened (somehow several apostrophes went missing)
-Also, compare what you have with what other authors have in your industry.
NOTE: give yourself 3-4 months for this process as it takes time to find out what went wrong and then do a reprint (good chance it’ll take 2-3 printings to have what you).
Now to conclude my formatting rant, I shall simply say to my future self as he formats the second book of the Sem'se series: Zach, Shift Break is your friend.