Formatting for Publication

Formatting For Publishers

Every house will have their own specific style codes, they will want you to adhere to, but some general rules of thumb include…

* 1 inch margins

*Double Spaced

*12 -12.5 font

*Use Times New Roman/Courier New/or other basic, common Font

*Write out your chapter numbers (for example, instead of writing  Chapter 1, write Chapter One.)

*Indent your first line, no extra spaces between paragraphs.

*Underline things that you want italicized. 

*Use Microsoft word if at all possible.

For E-books

*Indent (1/4 to ½ inch.) 

*12 -12.5 font

*Use Times New Roman/Courier New/or other basic, common Font

*Avoid text boxes and other graphs that won’t show up well on different sized devices

*Remove all tabs/random formatting. (A simple way to do this is to save your word document as a text (.txt) file.  Close it, and then reopen the file.  To adjust the “normal” body text (the main text for your document) Go to Home, find the Styles section on the top bar.  Side click on Normal.  Click on Modify and make adjustments from there.  If you use Heading 1 for your Title, and Heading 3 for your chapter headings, that will help the conversion sites automatically create a Table of Contents for you.)

*Give 3 hard returns (not 4 or more) and “Insert” a page break to indicate a new page. 

* Do not use larger than 16 point font for anything (Specific smashword rule)

*Place your copyright info at the beginning of the document (Specific smashword rules)

*”Insert” pictures (Don’t just copy and paste.)

*Use high resolution pictures (that also look good in black and white) where possible. (300 dpi)

Note: As we continue on our writing path, we may look for Agents and Publishers to help us distribute our work to the public.   Not every agent or traditional-style publishing house listed is reputable however. 
Some common warning signs include:
-Charging a Reading Fee.  They should be willing to look at your work for free.
-Asking you to pay for anything.  They will receive a precentage of your (agent) or your book's (publisher) earnings.
-Guaranteeing Success.  No one can make that kind of promise.  The most they can do is develop an amazing game plan and hope that it will be a blockbuster.