If you’re planning on self-publishing your novel, non-fiction book or other document and need it laid out or formatted in MS Word (rather than InDesign), so that you can continue to update and edit it yourself, you’ve come to the right place!
As the former owner of IndieMosh Self Publishing, I developed processes for creating book files in MS Word which could then be exported to PDF/X-1a:2001 for publication via Ingram.
Why can’t you do your own layout?
You possibly can, and my book Format your book for print with MS Word®: For authors, editors and virtual assistants will help you along the way. It just may be all you need if you’re writing a novel and if you have a way of exporting the final file to meet the specs for your printer or distributor.
But to be honest, laying out a book ‘cleanly’ isn’t quite as easy as you’d think. As an editor friend (Adam Finlay) once said to me, ‘We don’t know what we don’t know until we know it.’ And boy, was he right!
Do you know how to use Word’s Styles function? Do you know:
- How to create an automated table of contents so that the page numbers update every time you edit the book and the pagination changes?
- How to suppress the page header from the first page of each chapter so that it doesn’t distract from the chapter title?
- How to start each section of the book on a right-hand page, instead of where it falls?
- How to ensure that the first paragraph in every sub-section in a chapter is a ‘block’ paragraph with a bit of leading space above it, while every other paragraph follows close behind and is indented?
- How to ensure your image captions are automatically numbered so that if you swap a couple of images around, the labels update?
- How to get the text to wrap around your images correctly?
- How to align/justify your text between the top and bottom of the pages, as well as left and right-hand sides so that you don’t have gaps at the bottom of some pages?
These are just some of the things readers don’t actually notice when they’re reading a book – but they’ll often notice them when they’re absent or not working properly!
The other reason for good formatting
If you plan to release your book as a reflowable ebook (i.e. as an ePub), then having it formatted in Word first will make it quicker and easier to tweak when brought into ebook software such as Jutoh.
How can I help?
I am happy to review your manuscript and quote on formatting in Word using Word’s Styles function so that you have a stable document for export to PDF and/or to HTML for ebook creation.
Feel free to reach out via my Contact form here, let me know a bit about your book (e.g. whether it’s a novel, a biography, whether there are images involved, if you’re working with other contractors such as editors etc.), and I’ll get back to you with some thoughts and an email address where you can send the latest draft for me to quote on.
All quotes are obligation-free and I don’t pick up the phone and hassle you into proceeding. The choice is always yours whether to proceed or not.
If we do agree to work together, I’ll ask for a 50% deposit before I start, with the balance payable upon completion.