How To Format Your Novel

 About editing and proofing: I see a lot of self published books and sometimes the formatting is so bad I can hardly read the story. Don’t let this happen to your book. Proof the book, then proof it again, then proof it again, before you publish.     

Format: you should give the reader’s eye somewhere to ‘rest’. This means you should have adequate ‘white paper’.  If margins are not tight enough and too much text is on the page, it’s exhausting.   When paragraphs are too long  they also exhaust the reader. 

 Here is a link https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1482 and a format I use exclusively. Or you can just go to:
1] page layout  in your doc
2] margins
3] custom margins and then put in the numbers.
 4] Be certain your ‘gutter’ number is 7.0 minimum
My publishing platform offers templates for whatever book size I am going to use. So I download the template and begin writing, from the very beginning, using that. It saves so much time in formatting later. Or if you have been writing a story for awhile, you cut/paste the manuscript onto the template. But you must proof it and edit it. 

 Writer IcebergEach chapter should begin on an odd numbered page.  On that page the heading should be consistent; that is, 6 or 7 or 10 spaces down, but consistent. The chapter title should be centered. Don’t be afraid of the even numbered page opposite the new chapter being blank. That’s what your reader expects to see. 
 
The header should be consistent: even-numbered page should have the author’s name and the odd numbered page, the title of the book. The pages leading up to the first chapter should NOT have headers.
 
Justification:  Your ‘alignment’ should be ‘justify’ rather than ‘left’. This  gives your document  clean crisp edges so it looks more polished. But I frequently find the program will default to ‘justified’ on a line of text that has only a few words and spreads them out inappropriately across the page.   When this happens, highlight the text and choose ‘left’ alignment.  That will clean it up. There should be NO spacing between paragraphs.
 
Your copyright ‘Notice’ page: (Always on an even numbered page.) should carry weight. Many amatures list only the year of copyright, Title, ISBN number. Your page should look like this: 

Notice (centered)

Copyright (c) 2016 Trisha Sugarek. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written
permission of the Author. Printed in the United States of America. For information contact author at www.writeratplay.com.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the soft cover edition of this book as follows: Sugarek, Trisha, Song of the Yukon, Trisha Sugarek –
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and
any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales in entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1489558206

Cover Design by David White, Illustrator

Song, ‘Swiftly I Go’ by Gary Swindell, Composer
Additional lyrics and poetry by Trisha Sugarek    (I believe you should give a credit line to each contributor on the “Notice” page.)

The author should always registering the book with the US Copyright Office  $35. Protect yourself!

Questions: I welcome them. You can reach me: click here

 
 
 
 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!   Did you miss the past few months?    January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory
March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy.  April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes.
                                                                                   
                                        
To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks! 
To Purchase  

I love to hear from my readers! Tell me what you think of the web site and the content.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.