Lesson 24

Writing Class 101 by Rick Kurtis
 Formatting your book. Lesson 24
 Welcome back. Did you enjoy the weather this week? I know I did. Let’s jump right into it. So you decided to publish your own book. Congratulations. You had your book edited, sent off for a copyright, bought your own ISBN and barcode, and had a professional cover made. Now you want the inside to look just as appealing in both a paperback book or on a tablet or phone.
These two layouts are completely different, and here’s why. A paperback book is paper. You turn the page and that’s what you see. You want all your words to sit inside the page, and not cut off with the trim, or buried in the center gutter, or inside margin. This becomes a problem when your book is thick, having a lot of pages.

When it is an e-book, you want it to fit onto a tablet screen and scroll from one page to the other. It uses a completely different format. A person can enlarge the print and turned their tablet, and you want all the words to fit. You also don’t want any blank spots from page to page, or word to word, chapter to chapter.
Let’s start with a printed book. You want the chapters to start sixteen lines down or eight double spaces and all chapters should start on the right hand page, even if the last chapter ended on a right-hand page. This gives you a lot of white space for the left-hand page is blank, and the chapter starts down from the top of the page.
It’s your book and you want it to look professional and appealing. So you can make the chapter headings stand out, colored, fancy font, centered in the page or on the left-hand side. The first line of the first sentence can start with a big fancy letter, or you can italic the first sentence. Beyond that, all the rest of the book should be normal twelve font, New Roman style text. It’s easy to read and pleasing to the eye.
Another thing that they say to do is put your title in the top margin of every even numbered page, and the author name on every odd numbered page. I just found out how to do this on my Word program. Hooray, me! I am still having trouble trying to get the number one, page number, starting on the seventh page, which is the first chapter. I did it once and can’t remember how I did it. Page numbers should be in the bottom margin in the center. But this isn’t a computer class, and you all probably know more about that stuff than me. If you happen to know and can explain it to a first grader, drop me a line.
Once you have completed all your fancy doodads, and double checked each page, now you can single space and change the layout to your book size. In my print program, it has ‘book fold,’ which is landscape with two pages on each side of one sheet of paper, a 5.5 by 8.5 set with a one inch gutter and half-inch margins on the outside edges, with a three-quarter margin on the top and bottom. Something like that. This keeps your words in the center of the page, away from the gutter on the inside, and away from the trim on the outside, top and bottom.
When you have it set up, go back through each page to make sure it looks great. If you have pictures or drawings inserted, they will need to be resized and reset into place. (By the way/if you are using a publisher, they will do this all for you. Just send them the manuscript in a doc, or pdf. For added pictures, you only have to type in fourteen font and in red letters “put picture here. Jpeg #??????????.” Whatever number the computer assigned to that picture. Email them all the pictures, along with the manuscript. They will replace the red letters with your pictures, formatting it with the text.)
When doing this yourself, hopefully your pics will transfer with your book when using the site that is picked to use. I have heard that if you need to resize your pic do not use the double arrow in the bottom corner, because when adding it to the format it will screw up. There is a video on how to resize by using the right click on your mouse. I am still working on this. In order to remember, I have to do it over, and over again. Let’s move on to e-book formatting.
I have heard that when pictures are added, they move around and are difficult to get them in the right places. This is also said to be the case with resizing. This too I haven’t done, and be assured that when I do, and practice with placing over fifty books online, I will write in full detail on how, the best way, and answer questions to the best of my knowledge.
A lot of people say the forms and layouts are really user-friendly, and I would expect they have a support team, because they want to make money from the sale of your book. I guess I am super ignorant when it comes to reading and pushing computer buttons. I have done a few profile pages and have tried to set up my books. They have all said, “It is so easy. You can be up and running in thirty minutes. Just follow the instructions in these eight simple steps.” Three days later, 3 to 4 hours per day, I’m still on step number five. Can’t I just talk to a person and they program it in for me? No, that would be silly.
Next week we will continue with another class. On Sunday we will be celebrating Father’s Day. This is where we honor any man who raised us to be the person that we have become. Give them the recognition that they deserve even if it is just a card or a phone call letting them know that their love was not wasted in vain. I do hope I’m not boring you. Let me know your thoughts. Please enjoy your week, enjoy the weather, and just have fun. Until next week,
 
Happy Writing from rickkurtisbooks.com
 
UPDATE: I did figure out how to place page numbers in front matter, (the pages before the first chapter page.) You go to layout and put in section break, not just a page break. Then choose previous section on or off when selecting. Make sure you also have odd and even page checked also.
Amazon’s format is super easy and I have done 14 books so far. The only problem with a paper book is my chapter pages are never the same as their layout. Easy fix by going through their pages and changing the table of contents page numbers and resubmit again before publishing.