Formatting

[Whiskers]

I've not self-pubbed before. All the stories outside of my publishing company have been done via the M/M distribution group for the M/M Goodreads group, who provided Editing, formatting etc for free. So long as the stories I wrote were for free too.

If possible, I'd like to offer these two novellas for free on Amazon too. I've seen other authors do this, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about it.

With the formatting, even if it's for free, I think I'd rather pay to get it formatted. I don't suppose anyone's got any idea what the going rate is for formatting?

[daes13]

I'm not sure about the formatting, but I know about the free on Amazon. You have to have it free on another site and do a price match.

[brianpatrick]

Originally Posted by Whiskers

I've not self-pubbed before. All the stories outside of my publishing company have been done via the M/M distribution group for the M/M Goodreads group, who provided Editing, formatting etc for free. So long as the stories I wrote were for free too.

If possible, I'd like to offer these two novellas for free on Amazon too. I've seen other authors do this, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about it.

With the formatting, even if it's for free, I think I'd rather pay to get it formatted. I don't suppose anyone's got any idea what the going rate is for formatting?

Pretty sure Non Servium can help with this. Don't know the rate, but I've been told it's worth the price.

[Non Serviam]

Hi Whiskers

I'll be able to help you. I need to see your documents (as .txt files in UTF-8 encoding, please) in order to assess the rate.

All the best

NS

[Whiskers]

Thanks, everyone. Looks like I'll have to get it on B&N first. Non S, I'll pm if it's okay.

[Non Serviam]

Sure.

[FutureFootball]

Publish it free on Apple, Barnes and Kobo first.

Then Amazon.

Leave it for a few days.

Them email amazon, asking them if your book can be made free since it is free on different channels (give them links)

Works all the time for me.

[DavidGil]

You seem to be sorted, Whiskers.

But honestly, while I hope NS doesn't want to kill me for this, the formatting can be done in a jiffy in MS Word. I did my own myself. So, I don't see the need to pay anyone.

Just a matter of highlighting the text, setting the different options like indent and line-spacing. Hyperlinks for your table of contents is a bit more tricky, but still quite easy.

[Seedy M.]

I write in basic formatting with WordPerfect. The formatting is in A5 size- I have a virtually finished product when I finish the book and do the editing thing. I get it exactly the way I want it to appear in the printed edition and save it to PDF.
For the ebook I format the page to legal minimum margins and take out the introduction page, making the title/copyright page the first, then the blurbs or whatever then the contents, then about the author. Remove all spaces except for 1. Remove all extra spacer bar spaces. Insert bookmarks and hyperlinks, and save it to MSWord. It's ready.
If you have a MS that needs formatting, you follow the advice of DG.
It's only difficult the first time.
Best of luck! Hope your new year starts with a big sale!

[Non Serviam]

Sure, you can do it yourself (in Microsoft Word, or rather more easily in LibreOffice). This does a mediocre job.

You can also learn proper layout software, which gives much better results.

[jimmymc]

Serif Page Plus- reasonably priced and does a good job... also Atlantis may be something to look at.

[Whiskers]

Thanks, everyone! Great advice.

Future: does Smashword's Megagrinder distribute to the likes of B&N etc once you post through Smashwords?

DavidG: thank you! I've been looking through the Smashword Style guide for Microsoft Office uploads. I can get so far, then it starts to get complicated. I think I've been too used to direct formatting(?). Every piece of work I've had pubished has either been done by the publishing company or via the formatters on Goodreads or by another author under anthologies. I think it's one of those things where I hold my hands up and wimp out under defeat. I've even looked at Calibre etc.

[DavidGil]

(All of these paragraph options can be found by clicking on the paragraph button, under the page layout or home tabs up top.)

Looking at one of the ones I published (used a word doc), I chose Times New Roman. Size 12. Indent, special, first line, 0.5. Line spacing is 1.5 (other options for line spacing at 0). Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style.

For the ToC, heading 1 works fine for each item you want in your ToC. Then it's just a matter of creating a ToC and telling it to auto-update.

So really, it's just a matter of highlighting the text and using those settings for the paragraphs. Usually, the first line of new sections can give a bit of trouble though. But in that case, you could just highlight the first paragraph of each new section after a scene/chapter break and remove the indent. However, if you look at the preview on Kindle before publishing, I think you'll see that the first line indent is automatically inserted. It's no biggie anyway in my view, though really, I should see if I can solve that.

[Whiskers]

Oh... I thought highlighting was direct formatting! The Smashword guide took me via a back route I've not seen before.The thing is, the ones I want doing are already available in Epub, Mobi, Pdf, etc, they're just not availble through smashwords and Amazon.

I read the Smashword style guide on the Amazon indent. I think it said something about using a .1" indent? Or something like that. *winces*

I need to go back and see, to be honest. Ughh, so much to do, so little bloommin' time to get it done...

Thank you.

[DavidGil]

No idea about that as I've not read any guides. Just know what I used.

Anyhow, feel free to ask anything. Could even give your word doc a look at if you want. It's not time consuming, so I don't mind. And you can see it's worked out fine for me, with the exception of the indent for new scenes/chapters.

I can't help with anything else other than Amazon though. It's the only place I've published stories at. And I've only ever worked with MS Word.

[FutureFootball]

I would use Draft2Digital. It distributes to Kobo, Barnes, apple, and 2 other platforms. And the interface is much easier.

The books I put on smashwords is just for the smashwords platform.

[Seedy M.]

Smashwords puts your work on all the better sites. I find B&N and Apple to be where I get most sales. If you already have it in ePub, you can submit it in that format and they put it in all the others to meet the requirements of each site. The problem is in promoting your work. It's a lot easier most places, but I'm living in the jungle in Panamá and can't spend the time to promote. I do get enough sales to make it worthwhile. Get friends to rate your work when it's on B&N. I didn't have many people who would, but three or four people I met and talked to here rated the work (much to my pleased surprise!) and sales went up. A four and a half or five star rating really helps!

[perrigo.michael]

Originally Posted by Non Serviam

Sure, you can do it yourself (in Microsoft Word, or rather more easily in LibreOffice). This does a mediocre job.

You can also learn proper layout software, which gives much better results.

Why Is LibreOffice easier?