THE LAST STEP: BOOK FORMATTING

/ D.L. Finn, Author

Hi SEers! Denise here to talk about one of the last steps before publishing—formatting.

Your manuscript is polished, a blurb is ready to go, the cover is eye-catching, and the blog tour is scheduled. All that is left is to get your book ready to upload to Amazon, Smashwords/Draft2Digitial, Apple, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you publish your books.

In the past, I’ve had companies do this step for me and been pleased with their work that included formatting and uploading the book—but it was pricey. So, I learned how to upload my own books but used a professional formatter. Still, this wasn’t an expense I needed, and I set out how to learn how to format a book.

The very first time out, I did okay. I used the Kindle Create app. All I had to do was upload my work. There was a learning curve along the way, like adjusting where the chapters were in the index and fixing any issues I saw. The nice thing is they do all the work on the links for the title page.

To upload my eBook outside of Amazon, I went to Smashwords. Here I had to download the free The Smashwords Style Guide to learn how to prepare the book for what they called the meatgrinder. It wasn’t a simple process for me. Smashwords is now a part of Draft2Digitial, and their formatting process appears easier to work with. I haven’t tried it yet.

Next was getting the print book ready for Amazon and Ingram Sparks. I printed out an article on formatting manually through words. It was step-by-step guide on how to set the margins and settings for chapter titles, fonts and putting them into PFD format. Let’s say it took me several days to accomplish this process. I would never go this route again.

After my first formatting attempt, I heard about a program called Vellum that did all the work. Its one-time cost was the same as I was paying for a single book to be formatted. The downside was it had to be used on a Mac computer. I didn’t have one, but quickly found a used Mac I could afford. Both the Mac and Vellum were user friendly once I understood how to set up my book. I reformatted several books that I had tidied up and released a new book. The investment paid for itself many times over. What I didn’t understand, I could research and find the answer.

If I were looking for a formatting program now, I’d probably go a different route. What I appreciate is having control over formatting. I can make any changes to published books and get new ones ready for release.

Here are a few of the formatting options available:

Free programs

Kindle Create

Reedsy

Paid Formatting Programs

Atticus runs at $147 for their software for eBook and Print. It can be used on any platform and has some nice features. It is a good value with easy access.

Vellum is the one I use right now. Since it’s paid for, I will stay here until I no longer have a Mac to use it on. It costs $249.99 for unlimited print and eBooks or $199.99 for eBooks. It is pricey but easy to use and professional looking.

Adobe Indesign plans start at $20.99 a month, and it can also be used for magazines and posters. It has a professional look and benefits those who would rather pay a monthly fee.

Scrivener comes in at $59.99 with a free month’s trial. There are other programs along with formatting.

Microsoft Word can format a book, but it can be time-consuming. It is a program many have, but if you don’t, it is $6.99 a month for 365 personal or $9.99 for 365 families and free for Words. It does allow the user to set up margins, chapters, spaces, and titles which is handy.

However, you get your book formatted, it is not a step you want to miss. It can confuse the reader if words are floating around or chapters are mixed up. And the worst part is your work may not be accepted for publication.

How about you? Have you tried any of these formatting programs or paid someone to do it?

101 thoughts on “THE LAST STEP: BOOK FORMATTING”

  1. Pingback: A Character is Made Up of More than the Physical by Traci Kenworth – Where Genres Collide Traci Kenworth YA Author

  2. Pingback: The Interior of Your Book | Story Empire

  4. HI Denise, up to December last year, the majority of my books were typeset by my publisher. My two poetry books are self published and I had assistance with those from Moyhill Publishing and WordCrafter Press. I was very happy with all my books. At the end of last year, I decided to self publish my Sir Choc books going forward as Amazon was making it difficult to publish through small press publishers and I don’t like Lulu’s book format for ebooks with pictures. I am now using Adobe Create. I had assistance from Unicorn Cats Publishing Services with the ebook for Lion Scream and was delighted with how it turned out.

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  5. I agree with all you have said. I have used kindle create but it is a bit of a Pfaff. Went back to Word and you are dead right, it’s fine but it takes ages, and you must reset so many times it becomes a chore. I was in the midst of this resetting everything for my last novel when out of the blue, as if by magic, I received an e-mail on LinkedIn offering me formatting services for Kindle, Ingram spark, Kobo, paperback etc. I mailed the fellow back asking for a price, as I was so exasperated, expecting an answer in the hundreds. $30.00 was the price quoted. I received a link to FIVER and booked it (after all $30.00 is cheap) paid by PayPal and so safe. Received a perfectly formatted MS in a couple of days. I could not be happier.
    The Fellow’s name is Xee Shan and you can reach him on; https://www.fiverr.com/s2/c0b3774619
    A remarkable service at an exceptionally low cost.
    Oh, and by the way if your book is shorter than mine the cost can be as little as ten dollars.

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  7. Great share Denise. And I wasn’t aware Smashwords teamed up with D2D. Good for you to tackle the formatting. That’s just one thing I don’t want to learn. 🙂 Heck, I bought a lifetime license for Scrivener about 5 years ago and still can’t wrap my head around it. Old dinosaur habits die hard, lol. ❤

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  9. I don’t get along with Atticus, especially after it lost all my work one time.

    My favourite software is Vellum, hands down.

    MS Word starts to glitch once a book reaches a certain size, and as you say it takes time. For certain, self formatting is so much easier now than it was ten years ago!

    Great post, Denise. Thanks for sharing 💕🙂

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    • I really like using Vellum, too, Harmony:) I like hearing the comparisons between Vellum and Atticus. It is nice we have a choice and something made so easy. It is much easier to do it this way over manually and comes out nice. Thank you 🙂

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  10. Great post, Denise. Excellent tips. If the author can learn formatting, they are well ahead in the craft. It’s one of those must-know skills for those looking to publish. Thanks for sharing your learned expertise.

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  11. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with this, Denise, but if I ever find myself trying to figure it out, you’ve provided some wonderful resources. You probably saved me from banging my head against the laptop for hours, lol.

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    • Thanks, Teri 🙂 It was a bit challenging for me to learn, but I’m glad I sat down and finally did it. Glad to save you from any head banging… lol.

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  12. I have been formatting professionally for over 35 years. So many things have changed since I first started. I refuse to give any monthly subscription service my money, Office is my one exception as I use it for everything I do and they don’t offer a way to purchase their software any longer.

    I don’t mind paying for a service if I get a good result. You just need to determine what you want and if you want to do it. If not, then you find someone. For me, it’s book covers. I hate doing them and contract them out. Just not something I want to deal with.

    As a professional formatter and because I am also an author, I keep my rates affordable.

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    • Formatting is definitely a skill I appreciate, Michele. Made my books look good, especially with a lot of photos. It was the last thing I was willing to learn. Covers I’m still working on. Editing is an area I’d never venture into. Yes, we have to decide what we are willing to pay for. I like when we could own a product and not have to pay for a monthly fee. I agree WORDS is worth the cost. Affordable is necessary for all parts of the process and finding those who are skilled in whatever you need done.

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    • Thanks, John 🙂 WORDS is a good option for formatting. I just felt overwhelmed trying to learn it at first and figuring out page placement and things like that. I like using the new programs, that puts it all together in minutes for both. I am more likely to make a mistake over these programs and admire those who use WORDS exclusively to format;)

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  15. Word has worked adequately for me. Especially the last couple weeks in finally finishing a short story collection and uploading to Amazon only for Kindle Select. For reasons unimportant to mention here, it has been a struggle to finally get moving on books. My intention is to get the locomotive moving quickly down the writing and publishing track in 2024 through 2030. It might very well be helpful to use one of the other formatting options. Particularly for the benefit of being able to market not only on Amazon for eBooks and print for novels. Thanks for the review.

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    • Thanks, John 🙂 There are many ways to format and we learn which suits us to use. Print is more of a challenge but many options out there. Once I learned the basics like to make chapter title headers or the margins and indents it made it easier for me to navigate.

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    • The Smashword guide was confusing at first and then helpful in many ways. It is helpful to learn the basics no matter how you format a book. I love the new programs but find the books have to be ready to make it easy. Thank you, Yvette!

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  17. Formatting is tricky, Denise, and it’s so important. For ebooks, I use a program called Jutoh that I’ve been using for 12 years without a problem. For paperbacks, I use Word. I’ve had some giant learning curves, but have gotten pretty fast at it now. It’s worth learning to do it ourselves, I think. I’d rather spend my limited budget on covers and editing services. 🙂

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    • It can be very tricky, Diana. I shouldn’t have tried to learn it all right before the holidays, but glad I made the decision to do it. I’m glad you have a program that works so well for you, Jutoh. Yes, very big learning curves in Word at first, I found too. I like we have options and ways to save money for the important editing and covers too.

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    • Thank you, Gwen 🙂 I liked when I didn’t have to worry about that part, but as I cut corners I had to learn. It is definitely a skill and makes a huge difference in the reading experience.

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    • Thank you, Jacqui 🙂 It was a shock going from someone doing it for me, to learning it all at once. Glad I did though. Word seems to be a popular choice for formatting. I do a lot through that program to get it ready for the automated program. Always fun to read the comments and we learn so much from each other!

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  22. I’ve done some simple Kindle formatting with Scrivener and thought it worked well. I use Atticus now, as it gives me more flexibility. But for my money, Affinity Publisher (a cheaper alternative to Adobe InDesign) is the way to go. That’s where I do my print formatting, and it’s incredibly versatile.

    Great post, Denise.

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    • Thank you, Staci 🙂 I always meant to learn how to use Scrivener but haven’t gotten around to it yet 🙂 I hear a lot of good things about Atticus, and its cheaper than Vellum, which I do like. I use Affinity for covers and photos. Still learning all the tricks and saw there was a publisher option. Good to know they offer and another alternative to Adobe.

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      • I worked for many years using Pagemaker (Adobe’s predecessor to InDesign). They’re all very similar. But as I have a long-standing feud with Adobe and refuse to give them a dime, I’ve switched platforms to Affinity and am quite happy with their programs.

        Scrivener has revolutionized my writing. It’s fine for eBook formatting. I do really like Atticus, though. And it’s nice that both are for any platform. I do use a Mac, but I used to use a PC and resented companies that favored whichever I wasn’t using over the other.

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      • I was unhappy when Adobe changed how you could purchase PhotoShop. You had to own the one before it. So I stopped using it, even though I spent some time learning it and classes. The monthly was better but I liked owning the program and expected it to keep working not be phased out. So now I’m learning Affinity. Glad you mentioned it before!

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  23. For my first digital Ebooks, my literary agency loaded them all. Then I sold to Kensington, and they formatted everything. Once Kensington dropped me, my friend taught me how to use Word to load them onto Amazon, but I’ve never been brave enough to try a print copy of any of my books. She formats her own books but it takes time. I just haven’t tried it yet, so your post was wonderful for me.

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    • It’s nice if we don’t have to format, Judi. I liked paying others to do it, but as it went on I couldn’t justify the cost. It is time consuming to format in WORDS, at least it was for me as I learned. The programs they offer now are time saving and professional looking once you learn how to use them.

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    • Yes, great way to give back, Colleen 🙂 I’m curious how you compare Vellum and Atticus. I enjoy using Vellum but hearing good things about Atticus.

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      • Atticus has been a struggle. I’m on a MAC and Atticus is glitchy for me. The minute I started working with Vellum, it all fell into place. It is a superior product… however, Atticus does offer some things that Vellum doesn’t. But those things might be what makes it seem glitchy for me. The ProWritingAide extension on Atticus gave me heck. I had to contact support numerous times with Atticus. Not once with Vellum. The print book on Vellum is top-notch!!

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      • Thank you for letting me know, Colleen 🙂 Vellum has been so easily for me to work with and you are right about how the print copies come out. There hasn’t been a issue I couldn’t figure out. Xo

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  25. I love the new Kindle Create for ebook and print. Then I take their epub and upload to Draft2Digital for wide distribution. Worked great. Proofs on Draft2Digital are ridiculously priced at $30 apiece, though. I bought Scrivener a couple years ago, but haven’t found the time to learn how to format on it yet. One of these days, I will. Ideally, I’d love to switch to Vellum (I’m a Mac user), but after buying back my rights, paying for editing and covers for two new releases, it’ll have to wait till I stop hemorrhaging cash.

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    • Kindle Create had been very helpful with eBooks and I’m so glad they now make versions that can be used outside of Amazon. I will have to update mine soon. I really like Vellum and not sure how it compares to Atticus but they sound similar. I also have Scrivener and need to learn how to use. Never can find the time though. Yes, I understand the hemorrhaging cash part, Sue. It took me a while to get to the point to purchase a formatting program. Glad I finally did though 🙂

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  26. I’ve only made one attempt at formatting in my years of publishing, and it was through Calibre. The eBook turned out fine (although I never did figure out how to make the Index work), but the print book was horrible. I pay someone to do the formatting for me. I just don’t have the desire or the time it requires to learn it. Kudos to you, Denise, for figuring it out. It certainly cuts down on self-publishing costs. Great post!

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    • Thanks, Jan 🙂 It was time consuming to learn the formatting part, especially doing the print part through WORDS. Although now I know what to do to make it easy on myself in WORDS now. The programs they have now to do it, I can compare to Canva. They make it easy. It has already saved me money using the one I have, once I learned it. But paying some one to do it was certainly less stressful!

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  27. After supporting Microsoft Office as part of my job for 30 years, I’ve been using that. Amazon does a good job with the Word documents, although I usually find a few glitches. I’ve found most of those in the draft/beta process, but at least one slipped into a published book. I wish I could justify a subscription to Adobe InDesign. I used that program for years, and I love it. However, I already subscribe to PhotoShop and Lightroom, and I can’t handle the thought of giving Adobe even more money. Thanks for this post Denise. It has been helpful and I learned about some programs I might look into,

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    • Thanks, Dan 🙂 I’ve grown comfortable with WORDS too. Yes, something always slips by no matter how careful we are. Adobe is pricey, I only use their free version for PFD reading. I made the swtich from PhotoShop to Affinity, but now having to learn that program. There are many options out there now, some pricey others for free. It depends on what works best for you.

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  28. I used Atticus to format Menagerie since I self-published it. I found it easy to use. I refuse to buy a Mac, so Vellum isn’t an option for me. There’s nothing worse than a poorly formatted book. It can break an author.

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    • Vellum was the only option at the time and recommended by a couple writers I knew, so I went with it and a used Mac. I had several books to reformat, so it was well worth it for me. I still had to learn the settings in Word first though. I agree, a poorly formatted book ruins the reading experience, when you are trying to figure who is talking or why a word is floating around.

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      • I had a horrible experience just this weekend with an ARC of a book I received from Net Gally. It was so poorly formatted, I couldn’t read it. Wasn’t edited either. I do hope the publisher clears it up before the publication date. However, I fear damaged has already been done to the author if others feel like I did.

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  29. I recently used the latest version of Kindle Create, and it now has an option to export the formatted file as an EPUB to use for Amazon and Draft2Digital. It worked great. For the print version, I tried the Reedsy formatter and didn’t like it. I tried Ingram’s new formatter, which I found very, very limitting. I ended up buying Atticus, and after learning the quirks of the program, I love it. I bought Scrivener a few years back. For me, I’m finding it very good for drafting and revising a book, time-saving, in fact–but it’s waaaaaaaay too complicated to use for book formatting. I have used a company to do the formatting, but they simply couldn’t meet deadlines.

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    • Thanks, Liz 🙂 Good to know there is an updated version of Kindle Creates that offers an EPUB to use outside of Amazon. I find Ingram harder to deal with than other places, but they what they offer makes it worth it to work with them. Those who use Articus sure seem to like it. I feel the same about Vellum time saving and professional looking. I have Scrivener but haven’t taken the time to learn to use it. I ran into that issue using professional formatter who was not meeting deadlines that I needed. That part was stressful but I learned to factor that part into my time frame.

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    • I wasn’t brave enough to try to format until recently. I found out it took some skill to do it. One of my books had a lot of illustrations in it and I was worried to format that one. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be with the program I use. I wouldn’t have been able to do it through Word though. It will be a challenge to format my upcoming poetry book. Fingers crossed.

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  32. I really need to take the time to learn Atticus. I purchased it over a year ago but haven’t touched it.
    I did the formatting on all my indie releases, with the exception of the last two, which I paid a professional formatter to do. When I formatted on my own, I did everything in HTML and it was far too time-consuming, hence purchasing Atticus. Now if I could only carve out the time to figure it out. In the interim, I’ll continue to pay for what I need done.
    I love all the options you shared, Denise. Excellent post!

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    • Thanks, Mae 🙂 I found doing it through WORDS was time consuming. Of course I was learning as I was going too. The professional formatters do such a wondeful job I left formatting to be the last thing to learn along the way. If Atticus is anything like Vellum, it was pretty easy to learn. I made a few mistakes at first but could easier google any information I needed like how to combine titles in the index or how to remove their company name from title page. The one thing I love the best is how easy it is to fix any mistakes. Their are a lot of options out there, which is nice to know.

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  33. This has been such a practical and useful series, Denise. My husband does the formatting for me and every time I have a new book, it seems that a new hurdle has been stuck in along the route! We (he) use the KDP stuff and always check through the physical pages it puts up at the end. I think most books I read now have at least one formatting blip, but that’s fine – it’s when a book is riddled with them that it takes away from the reading pleasure. I’m going to bookmark this one! 🙂

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    • Thank you, Alex 🙂 How nice your husband helps out. KDP is pretty easy to use. I found that I usually have to make a couple changes in index and title page but most of it comes out right. Some issues don’t show up until preview on KDP. It takes me a few times to get it right. I agree one minor issue isn’t a distraction but a whole book of it sure is.

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    • Thank you, Alex. I have two novels in the mill but have had a few distractions slowing me up. I have written a tentative first chapter for a sequel to Killing Time in Cambridge too. I have started reading your, Someone Close To Home, it is a fascinating story I will review it on my blog when I have finished reading it.

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      • Delighted to hear that Detective Chief Inspector ‘Arnold’ Lane is to feature again. I didn’t realise that Cathy was part of the Whittlesey set! Good luck with your projects, and many thanks for reading Someone Close to Home – please let me know what you think (good or bad!) when you’ve finished it. 🙂

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  34. I found Draft2Digital easy to use for two published books. Printing author copies ahead of “wide retail distribution” for gifts and beta readers was also easy and inexpensive. For those who want a step-by-step process that with zero upfront expense, Draft2Digital does the job and has excellent formatting. BTW: If you want to format your novel (e.g., include a black-and-white image in the text’s body), you can upload a PDF of the book.

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    • Thanks, Grant 🙂 As I moved over from Smashwords and read through the information, I noticed it seemed so much easier to work with. Good tips for working with Draft2Digital! Author copies at cost are a great bonus and helpful for gifts or promotion.

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  35. When I formatted our writing group’s first anthology for print I used CreateSpace’s template and MS Word. I had already used the Smashwords Guide for my own ‘practice novel’ (which has yet to see the light of day) but formatting for print is a whole new learning curve (especially a TOC where each story has a different author to be included in the contents).
    For the second anthology I trusted the KDP template more instead of trying to tweak my own styles. I found headers and footers fell into place more easily. Now I don’t try to be too clever and mostly go with the template, just changing the fonts and styles to our own preference. (Until I get to the TOC issue…)
    The Whittlesey Wordsmiths (shameless plug) now have five anthologies in print (mostly read by our friends-and-relations and sold at our u3a meetings).

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    • Hi, Cathy! I thought The Whittlesey Wordsmiths sounded familiar. I read Philip Cumberland’s excellent novel Killing Time in Cambridge a few years ago and check every so often to see if he’s written aother one. Now I need to investigate your anthologies.

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    • I can see how formatting an anthology would offer a new set of issues, especially with the print copy. KDP does pretty good with the eBook verison, especially if I already made the chapter titles and book tile in WORD. But they make it do you can do it in their program too. Templates are very helpful and a good way to set up the book in the beginning. Smashword was the biggest challenge for me. Thank you for sharing your experience, Cathy 🙂

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  36. Pingback: THE LAST STEP: BOOK FORMATTING | Legends of Windemere

  40. Thanks for the informative article. I’ve always done my. Own formatting. I still prefer MS Word. It’s cheaper and to me, it’s easy. I guess it’s because I’ve been using it in a day job and in writing since the early 90s. Lately, I’ve created a template and write into it rather than write the book, and format it after. I’ve tried some of those other programs but always navigate back to Word.

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  42. I’ve always done my own formatting, both for ebooks and print. Print formatting can be challenging. I’ve never used a template, just started from scratch for each book. My impression is that Amazon relies on automated checks now, with no human who can exercise judgment and override minor issues picked up by the programs. Despite the frustrations, I’m happy with my formatting efforts.

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    • I admire that you have always done your formatting, Audrey 🙂 I found out what a skill it took to do it from scratch. Yes, most things seem to be done with programs over human interaction, but there are only some things the human eye can decide what is right or wrong

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