It may come as a surprise to you that e-books are not like print books. I’m not talking about being able to sniff, fondle, bend and lick one and not the other. Please, get your mind out of the gutter. No, I am talking about formatting. Unlike a normal book, where everything is in its final resting place, a conventional page just does not exist in an e-book. Readers can and will manipulate the text to suit them, to make it larger, smaller, to spread apart the lines, or adjust the font. What we as authors need to realise, is that an e-book needs to be a continuous flow of story and trying to make the formatting conform to that of a printed book is going to get your knickers in a twist quicker than you can throw a computer out a window.
The two main platforms for pushing our work out into the great unknown are Amazon and Smashwords (Who distribute to Barnes and Noble, Apple, Sony, Diesel etc etc). Each have a slightly different way you must format your book before it is uploaded into their system. Formatting is about making the reader experience more enjoyable, so by the time they have finished our masterpiece they are in such a state of ecstasy that they will be screaming for your next novel. To make your formatting the best it can be Smashwords has a Style Guide available free on its website and Amazon Kindle has a help section devoted entirely to formatting.
However, I am a firm believer in being prepared, so that when I get to the nitty gritty stuff I don’t have to spend what little free time I have shouting at the computer screen. Less police interventions that way. So having waded through the various publications I have pulled out some tips to keep in mind so your trip from creativity to saleability is that much faster. Remember, not following the tips below will usually result in your file not being accepted by the Smashwords or Kindle system.
EM CRAVEN’S TWENTY TIPS FOR LESS GREY HAIRS
1: You will make it ten millions times faster for yourself if you type up your creative prose in Microsoft (MS) word from the get go. Smashwords only accepts MS word docs (they must be saved as a .doc file –‘97-2003 word docs - NOT a .docx). Otherwise you must convert your novel into an MS word file before you begin. Smashwords (SW) do take one or two other types but they say Microsoft is the way. So stop making things hard for yourself and just do it!
2: Make a copy of your document first!! Do not make changes to your original document; if something goes pear shaped you want to have your original on hand.
3: DO NOT use the space bar or tabs for indenting the beginning of your paragraphs. Use the indent function in MS (See SW style guide).
4: Don’t hit the enter (or return) key more than 4 times. This creates blank pages in the e-book and will cause an error in the conversion system when you attempt to upload your work. We want to fill our books with words, not air!
5: Choose to either indent the start of your paragraphs or use block paragraphs. It’s one or the other, not both. If you choose to neither indent or use block paragraphs, all of your paragraphs will run together. A reader only needs to take one look at that and they will be running for the hills. Kindle also specifies one or the other. Within Kindle compatible products, the paragraphs indent automatically. However, if you want to specify how far they indent you can apply the formatting language as shown on the help board.
6: Don’t use fancy, non-standard fonts (for best results use Times New Roman or Arial) and keep font sizing at no more than 16pt in size. The basic rule here is keep it simple! Keep bold and italics to a minimum in the text. Otherwise you may find you do a bit more fiddling then you bargained for.
7: Columns and tables are not supported. If you really need tables put them in as an image.
8: Wrapping text around your images is a big no-no for both Smashwords and Amazon. Have the images on their own line and centred in the middle of the pages. It is very hard to attach words to a specific image, either make the words part of the image or get ready for some serious, frustrated hair pulling…
9: Smashwords only allows you to upload a file 5 MB in size. So if you have several images it would be wise to use the compression feature in MS word to shrink the size of the document. Don’t worry; it won’t affect the quality of your images significantly.
10: If you only have a print book copy of your novel there is hope! You can get the novel scanned by various companies and be sent back to you as an MS word document. They are generally very accurate but you should still carefully proof read the document before you begin to format.
11: In Smashwords if you want a front cover to appear in all formats, you need to have it as an image on the first page of your MS document. Only certain types of formats produced by Smashwords allow you to add the cover separately.
12: For all those budding poets, you need your poetry to either be left justified or centred, otherwise who knows what order your words will be.
13: Amazon asks that you use page breaks to separate your chapters. These can be inserted in MS Word. However in most formats in Smashwords these page breaks will not be converted, so it’s best to put one or two enters (returns) above and below the page breaks if you decide to insert them.
14: When noting your copyright use the word rather than the copyright symbol, it doesn’t convert well.
15: You need an ISBN number to distribute to Apple and Sony.
16: You need to include front matter in your book. Meaning a centred title page including your carefully thought out and intriguing title and your name (or nom de plume if you prefer). It is also recommended that you put a copyright statement in. Make sure this page is your most professional! It is the reader’s first impression and unless you are a html guru, skip the fancy stuff. It’s also recommended by Smashwords (who publishes DRM – digital rights management – free files) that you give a gentle reminder to customers to refrain from piracy. There are examples of this statement in the Style Guide.
17: If you’re keen on adding a little colour to your novel, you can add a simple glyph between paragraphs to indicate a change in scene.
18: For the non-fiction authors, you can also add a linked table of contents that allows a reader to jump straight to the chapter they wish to read.
19: To upload to Kindle you need to save your file as a filtered html file in Word as per the Kindle board instructions. You then upload this into MobiPocket Creator where you will add your front cover and convert your e-book to Kindle format.
20: Once your file has been accepted and converted check your work!!! Make sure it translates well in each format and doesn’t cause the reader to cross their eyes and fall sideways off their chair.
Have fun!
TOMORROW: Test, test, test! How to optimise your synopsis, headline, title and pricing to maximise your sales and explode the size of your readership!
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Hey, thanks for that. I would certainly have made many of the errors you mentioned, particularly in respect of tabs and returns.
ReplyDeleteI thought I had followed all the style rules for my Smashwords ebooks and I still got some unexpected font (my dreaded 4 letter word) changes. I contacted Smashwords and was told that I had specified styles that used other fonts. I actually hadn't, but as the orginal MS used courier and I had picked Palatino Linotype for the print version, I ended up with multiple styles each time I saved to a new document. So, to cleanse the unwanted styles from my document to prevent the unexpected font changes, I preformed the following steps:
ReplyDelete1. define the normal style that is used in most of the document (font, line spacing, paragraph indents).
2. delete all styles that aren't "normal" where possible, especially ones that use different fonts and line spacing.
3. select the entire document (cntl+a on a PC) and apply the normal style to the entire document (interestingly, I didn't lose any italics).
4. manually go through the document and adjust those instances where the style varies from normal (font size, alignment, etc.)
Hope this helps.
the smashword guide is very good - even I could follow it!!and it's free - bit nervous of trying Kindle seems more complicated - but will have a go - have so many versions of my books now what with doc, pdf,smashword, and one for recording arghhhh! your post has given me confidence to go for kindle
ReplyDelete@ Marty, not a problem, these are definately the best ones to get you started.
ReplyDelete@Joan, Thanks very much for that Joan, MS word can do some really stupid stuff behind the scenes. When I read that particular step I didn't think that it would be a fundamental but appears I was incorrect. I will add it to my future list, thanks!
@ Alberta, After going through the Kindle formatting help myself, it is actually simpler then the Smashwords formatting and that's what several other authors have told me also. Don't be put off, go for it!
Warmly,
Em