All About Book Formatting
Formatting is what turns your Word document or Google Doc into a file you can upload to your selected publishing platform.
This is where we make it look pretty—like an actual book, not a super-long essay. Standard formatting for editing is 8.5”x11” page size, Times New Roman, double spaced, one-inch margins. But that’s not what a printed book looks like. Your editor probably told you not to worry about fancy title page fonts or drop caps or page numbers or anything else design-wise. And they were right because that stuff just gets in the way of editing. But now is the time for all that fun stuff!
During formatting, the interior of the book is designed. This means you decide on a font, font size, page number position, header style, chapter title style and spacing, spacing between lines on the page, and so many other minute details. If you have symbols to replace bullet points, designs for each chapter title, symbols next to the page number, or a design for a section break, we’ll put those in now. If you’re creating a journal or some other interactive book, we’ll put in those elements now. Quizzes, lines for journaling, word searches—whatever you want! There are no limits to how you can design your book.
Check out this fun chapter title design I did on a fantasy novel.
When Should I Have My Book Formatted?
Before or after proofreading? The age-old question.
I think everyone can agree that formatting happens after all editing is done.
After editing.
After. Editing.
If you’re not absolutely sure about your words yet, it’s not time for formatting yet. Make sure you’re confident in your book and won’t want to change any words later.
Now, people feel differently when it comes to proofreading. I think formatting should go before proofreading, and here’s why:
The proofreader’s job is to check the work of the people before. If the formatter comes before, the proofreader can check their work in addition to the editor’s. So if the formatter misses an apostrophe or a graphic is off-center or a page number is wrong, the proofreader can catch it. If proofreading is done before the book is formatted, the proofreader can’t check those things. Of course, they’ll still find typos and grammatical errors that the editor missed (yay!), but it won’t be quite as effective as it could have been if the book had been formatted as well.
That sounds like the obvious answer, so why do some people do formatting after proofreading? It’s easier.
Here’s the thing: It’s kind of a hassle to do formatting before proofreading because there’s more back and forth between formatter, proofreader, and author. The next section talks about how it works, and this will show the difference in process.
How Does It Work?
We’ll start with a fully edited manuscript (Microsoft Word or Google Docs probably). You’re very happy with it and can’t wait to publish. All that’s left is to make it look like a book and touch it up. This is my process as a formatter, but I assume most people are probably similar.
1. I send you a questionnaire to find out your design preferences. What font do you want? What size margins? How big is the actual book page? Where do you want the page numbers? What will the chapter titles look like? Do you have special designs you want anywhere in the book? All that good stuff. I’ll also find out what versions you need: ebook, softcover, hardcover.
2. I get started on formatting the book in InDesign. I’ll send you a few sample pages showing the design elements you chose so you can make tweaks and ensure it’s all to your liking.
3. I finish up formatting the book, taking into account your adjustments, and send you the files. Probably. Here’s where the path can diverge.
4. Let’s say you already had the book proofread before formatting or are skipping proofreading.
a. We’re done! When I send you the files, you’re free to upload them directly to your publishing platform.
5. Now let’s say you want a proofreader on my team to proofread your book.
a. I’ll send the formatted book to the proofreader instead of you. They’ll do all the proofreading and send it back to me.
b. Then I incorporate all those changes from the proofreader and ask you about any that need your attention. (It’s mostly correcting typos, which don’t need your approval.)
c. I send you the final files that you can upload directly to your publishing platform.
6. Final scenario: Let’s say you want some other proofreader to proofread your book.
a. I’ll send you the book to pass to your proofreader. They’ll do the proofreading and send it to you.
b. You now send the book back to me (the formatter) so I can input all those changes. Why can’t you just do it yourself like you’ve been doing with all the editing changes? The file is now in InDesign, which requires a subscription. If you want, you can get the software and do it yourself, but it’s probably easier to just send it to me real quick to input those changes.
c. I send you the final files that you can upload directly to your publishing platform.
As you can see, working with a proofreader after formatting is done requires more steps, but I still think it’s worth it to have someone checking the final final final version. (And if you work with a proofreader from my team, it’s super easy for you and doesn’t require you to take extra steps. It all happens behind the scenes.)
What Should I Expect When I Get My Book Back?
Print files are PDFs. If you’re publishing a print version of your book (softcover or hardcover), I’ll send you a PDF file. You can open this and make sure everything looks okay before you upload it to your chosen publishing platform.
If you’re publishing a softcover and a hardcover, you’ll get two separate PDFs, one for each. The size of the pages are different for the two versions, so you’ll need two different files. Sometimes people do fancy designs in the hardcover version as well that aren’t in the softcover version.
Ebook files are EPUBs. If you’re publishing an ebook, I’ll send you an EPUB file. You probably don’t have software on your computer to open it, but you can download Kindle Previewer 3 for free to open it and view it. This file can be uploaded directly to your publishing platform.
Why are ebooks EPUBs and not PDFs? A PDF of your book is like a photo of each page strung together in one long file, which is perfect for printing onto individual pages. When it comes to ebooks though, that doesn’t work. Ebook devices let you change the font size, font type, and page size, which means we need to upload files that allow that kind of personalization, where a 200-page book can be magnified to 500 pages. This can only be achieved with an EPUB—a special file that recognizes the different elements of the doc as text, headers, links, etc., and treats them accordingly.
How Long Does It Take?
For me, formatting a 50,000-word book would take about a week. A 100,000-word book would likely take two weeks.
Here are some factors that will influence how long it takes someone to format your book:
How many design elements do you have? More = slower.
How many other projects does the formatter already have scheduled?
How many hours does the formatter work per week?
How many projects does the formatter normally stack at once?
When are you ready to start, and when is the formatter available to start?
With all that said, don’t take those numbers too seriously. That’s how long it takes me, but I’m sure there are formatters who would quote for half that time and some who would quote for double that time.
Can I Just Do It Myself on Microsoft Word?
Sure! Amazon KDP has step-by-step instructions on how to format your book in Word. I think they’re a little dense, so be prepared to take some time to learn a few things. If your budget is tight and you have the time and energy to learn it, do it!
If you have some room in your budget, don’t have time to do it yourself/learn to do it yourself, have any special design elements (like graphs, photos, lines for journaling, symbols), or want to ensure a professional look for your book, I recommend hiring a professional formatter.
At the least, get a free quote! It might be worth the headache to have someone else handle formatting for you when you’re in the depths of marketing right before your book launch.
We’ve all seen a bad-looking book interior. It’s hard to read. It discredits the author. Don’t let that be you. Ensure you have a professional-looking book by hiring a book formatter and getting a pristine interior.
Contact me for book formatting!
