But how do you format a book?
I will use an example for the short story I’m working on. It’s a spinoff of a book I published in March 2022 called “New Pangaea – Utopia of Revenge: A Rigid Dystopian Society in a Post-Apocalyptic World.”
There are four primary reasons for formatting a book.
First, as stated before, you must meet your publisher’s critical requirements.
Second, before ordering the cover of a paperback or hardcover, you’ll need to establish the page count, so your cover designer will know how thick to set the spine width.
Third, each type of book has specific formatting guidelines. That is, the format for a Kindle or eBook differs from a paperback or hardcover.
Fourth, and probably one of the most important, your book format defines your signature and reputation as an author. This conveys your writing and editing style to your readers.
I use Jutoh, a digital publishing software program by Anthemion Software Ltd.
This is a fantastic publishing tool. I start with my Kindle and then proceed next, in my case, to the paperback.
I take my time, follow the stepwise process, and pay attention to details.
And then, I check the accuracy of the output for each type of book. After that, repeating and redoing is easy until you get it right.
And boom! I have my Kindle and paperback ready to send over to my publisher in just a couple of hours.
My acceptance success rate thus far has been 100% on the first submission, which is rare. And this is something that I’m pretty proud of.