This section will focus on tips, tricks, and things to consider when you create the various copies of your book. This includes formatting the inside of your Paperback book, creating the book jacket, getting an ISBN, and much more.
Software: Adobe InDesign
This entire step will be done in Adobe InDesign, so if you do not have access to Adobe InDesign, you may be required to outsource this part. You can also check out YouTube on how to format your book in Microsoft Word. It is possible, but I will not be going into that because it’s not my process and I am not the best person to elaborate on using Microsoft Word, or any other program. That said, much of this should be transferable.
InDesign is a software created for doing book formatting, magazine covers, and much more. At first, it can be intimidating, but I will do my best to break things down in a simple and easy-to-follow format. but I would also highly recommend looking up specific YouTube guides. Remember, once you’ve formatted a few pages, it is essentially rinse and repeat.
When formatting your book, the first thing you need to do is choose the dimensions of your book. My dimensions are 8.5x5.5” though 6x9” is also quite common. But the choice is up to you.
Please be aware, this will be the process for a single chapter. After that, it is just rinse and repeat until you compile it into a book, which will be the last step.
STEP #1 - Choose Your Trim Size
Books come in all shapes and sizes, and I’m sure you’ve seen them all. The chart below is simply a recommendation but is generally the standard sizes for books. (All in inches)
· Fiction: 4.25 x 6.87, 5 x 8, 5.25 x 8, 5.5 x 8.5, 6 x 9
· Novella: 5 x 8
· Children’s: 7.5 x 7.5, 7 x 10, 10 x 8
· Textbooks: 6 x 9, 7 x 10, 8.5 x 11
· Non-fiction: 5.5 x 8.5, 6 x 9, 7 x 10
· Memoir: 5.25 x 8, 5.5 x 8.5
All of my books are 5.5x8.5 and I chose that because it was the same size as most other books I’ve read. So it just made sense.
STEP #2 - Folder Setup
First things first, like always, create a new folder, and call it “Paperback” Then inside create another folder and call it “InDesign Files” This will just keep things organized. I’ve found being somewhat organized and with a standard can save a lot of time on the things people don’t like doing, such as formatting, and free you up to do the things they like doing, aka writing.
Once you’ve decided what the trim size of your book will be, it is time to open up InDesign.
Note* I will do my best to keep this process simple and friendly for people, but that said, this will come with the expectation that you can 1. Google issues, and 2. Have some working knowledge of your average computer program. However, if you can use Microsoft Word, then this should be fine.
STEP #3 - File Setup
Open up InDesign, go up to FILE, NEW, and create “New Document”
When you click new document, you will see all sorts of templates, recent open files and other stuff you really don’t need to concern yourself with. We will be starting fresh, setting up the document as we see fit.
On the right-hand side panel, you will see some settings. If your units are currently something that is not inches, I recommend changing them to inches for ease of use. Insert the width and height that you have selected for your book. In this case for me, it is 5.5" by 8.5"
When it comes to the number of pages, all you need to ensure is you have an even number, but for the moment I would put 2. Do not use the page count from your Microsoft Word document, as those margins will be different than what we plan to use, and because of that the pages will not be accurate. This is okay, we will allow it to set up automatically.
Make sure you have facing pages and the primary text frame clicked on as well.
Start page numbering at 1. And for margins, if you are keeping your book the same size as me, then the settings in the screenshot should work fine. If not, you can play around with your margins, but this is what I have found works well with my book size, and gives a nice safety margin for printers. (My first book had the words go right into the spine, it sucked.) Click Create, you will open your document. Save it into your InDesign folder, and call it "Chapter 1" or however you start your book, prologue, etc. We will get to the front matter "Dedication page, copyright, etc. etc." a bit later.
STEP #4 - Change Your Workspace
At first InDesign can look rather intimidating, but 90% of what InDesign can do, will not be required. So I find it helps to get rid of some of the other intimidating clutter. Go up to your workspace, and change your workspace to book. This will change your layout to display everything you need, and get rid of most of the panels you won't. The more advanced you become, you can create your own workspace the way you like it, but for this example, I’ll be keeping things under the “Book” Workspace.
STEP #5 - Import Your Text
Time to add in your text. As you can see, there is a blue frame on your pages. This is your text frame, and it will be where your text goes. On your left hand side panel, you will see a T icon. This is your type tool. Click into your text frame, and you should see the icon flashing just like Microsoft word. Copy your text from your word doc, and paste it. Your pages should automatically populate all the pages you need.
If you have over setting text, which means text that isn’t showing because enough pages were not created, then you will see a red + button in the bottom corner of your text frame. Click it, and you will see your mouse change to this weird symbol of characters. With that, create a new page, hold shift, and click the top left corner of your text box, and it will fill your text, and also create any additional pages needed as well.
STEP #6 - Choose your Fonts
Perhaps you have already chosen your font while you were writing your book, or maybe you kept it Times New Roman default, but either way, now is the time to choose your desired font. For the body text of your book at least. Remember, readable is far more important than cool looking fonts. Nobody will care how great your book is if the font is impossible to read. That said, keep in mind, this isn’t a science, you do have lots of choices, but I highly recommend you pick some sort of Serif font if you can. They are typically more pleasant to read, and easy on the eyes, allowing readers to read more and for longer. You will find all of your text settings at the top of Indesign. Most of this might look familiar since it can be a lot like Microsoft Word.
Title chapters are basically free game. You can sort of do what you want. I keep my chapter headings and subheadings to the same style as my book cover font, but that’s just me. You can do what you think looks best.
Also, another important part to adjust is your leading. This is the space between lines, and if you make the space too tiny, it will be impossible to read. Somewhere between 14&15 generally works, but again like everything, it’s a matter of opinion. I’m just trying to give general info. Experiment if you so choose, and see what you think works.
Finally, make sure all your text is set to left justify and set your paragraph indent to 0.125in. This option is on the far right side of your top panel.
My personal uses:
Font: Book Antiqua – 11px.
Leading - 15,
Text left justified . Paragraph indent 0.125in.
For titles, I typically do font size 24 and then for subheadings, I do 14.
STEP #7 - Creating Styles
This next step is a bit more advanced and is not required, but it will speed things up, and be nice to have. And it’s not too confusing. Within InDesign, there is a thing called styles. This allows you to quickly format text to a pre-saved style with one click. Assuming you have imported your chapter, select your chapter title, and give it the font and size you would like. Next, highlight that text, and on the right-hand side, choose the panel called styles. In your Styles panel, click the plus button, for new styles. Name it, Chapter heading and hit okay. It automatically remembers whatever text style you had when you selected the plus button, but for good measure, you can read it in the style settings box just below.
Do this for your subheading, and then do a third for your body copy. So you should have three styles.
STEP #8 - Master Pages
You will notice in your pages’ panel, that there is this little thing at the top that says A - Parent. These are your master pages. You can have as many as you want, but for now, we are only going to need the A – Parent that is already created. Double click your master pages and you will see two blank pages open up. Whatever you do on these pages, you will be able to apply to all the pages you want.
The way I set up my pages are book title on the left, and the chapter title on the right, but really it's up to you.
Choose your text tool, and create a rectangular box about three-quarters the length of your text frame. Then in the leftover space, make another box of the same height.
In the smaller rectangle, instead of typing your page number on every page, go up to Type-insert special character-current page number- and you will see a letter A appears. Weird I know, but it will be a number on your real pages.
In the other box, you should create a running header, and choose your chapter sub-text style. Doing so will make that text variable match the chapter subheading.
For the pages you don't want a page number on, simply go back to where you see the master pages’ panel, and above your A – Parent pages, you will see one that says none. Click and drag that onto any page you wish to remove the master page format from. Things like beginning of chapter pages don't usually have page numbers, so apply none pages to the start of every chapter, and any potential blank pages you may have. (If you make chapters start on the right page every time, this will be important.)
You can tell what has a master page applied to things based on the letter on the page in your page’s panel.
STEP #9 - Front Matter
To start, I would do this in a different document, the same as each chapter being in its own document. This is all the stuff you see at the front of books, usually Title, copyright, dedication etc. etc. I would follow the typical standard of books, which is Title of book + Author on the first page. Page 2 will have copyright information, which I would highly recommend cracking open a book, and using something similar to what you see there, since chances are you won’t have a publisher, some of the stuff won’t be needed but use your discretion. On page 3 you can put some sort of dedication if you would like.
STEP #10 - Widows & Orphans
Although a bit of a cruel name, if you want your book to look professional then this will be key.
A widow is a short line (one or two words) ending a paragraph at the top of a page. Widows should be avoided.
An orphan is the first line of a paragraph ending a page.
You will want to comb through your entire book, and make sure to remove all widows, while also doing your best to remove all orphans, though sometimes it really is just easier to leave them. Especially when fixing them adds new widows.
You can adjust this by fixing the kerning – the spacing between letters – of certain lines and paragraphs. But be warned, to keep things from looking out of place compared to the rest of the book, you should only ever increase or decrease the kerning by MAX +20 to -20. Going over those limits, you will notice the spacing in your paragraphs beginning to look strange and off-putting.
STEP #11 - Book Compiling
Let’s say you’ve gone through, and done all your formatting. You have things looking top notch and professional. Now you are ready to take those chapters and compile them into a book. Doing this is just a simple way of getting all your chapters into one PDF, and has some other benefits too when it comes to styles master pages, and page numbers, but that’s a little more advanced, and I’m not getting into that.
Regardless, instead of creating a new document, choose Create new book, and save it into your InDesign folder. Now, instead of being brought to a document, you will be brought into a doc with a new window that is empty. But it will also say your book title on the top of that box. This is where you want to insert all of your chapters. You can do this by hitting the plus button and selecting your chapters. Once you’ve done that, make sure they are in order from top to bottom. This will also show you the page numbers for each chapter as well. If you double click on the chapter, it will also open it up, if you need to check something.
The final step is to select all of your chapters and click the little 3 vertical dashes on the right-hand side of that box. Then choose export document to PDF. When you do this, you will be asked about all these settings. I like to just choose the present “PDF/X-1A-2001” And hit okay. And there you have it. Your book has been exported, and you now have an official PDF. Congrats, and now we move on to the next part.
STEP #12 - Other Things to Consider
Chapters usually start on the right-hand side of the book, which means you might have to add a blank page at the end of certain chapters to achieve this. Designing a book yourself takes practice, especially if you are not familiar with the software. Don’t be afraid to find visual step-by-step tutorials for help.
This video will mostly cover everything I just wrote about, so if you want to learn by following along step by step this way, here you go! It’s certainly helped me in the past.
