As we move down the list, excitement builds. You've finished your book, polished it, what's next? Well, now it's time to make it look like a book. You can design and format your book yourself, but easy it's not, and time-consuming it is. However, the satisfaction you gain with the finished product can be immense. Your book can hold up with the best of them and you did it yourself. If you look at it with the eye of a perfectionist, no one will know it's not been professionally typeset. Take a look at books you own. What's in the front matter, the back matter? How do the pages line up? Do the chapters start on new pages? How far down the page? You'll need to take the time for a learning curve, and as always, you can find plenty of help online.
For purposes of this article I am referring to books written using MS Word. Yes, you can typeset in Word, but as I said it's a nitpicky time-consuming job so take out your patience and polish it. There are many things to consider aside from the obvious ones such as book size. Obviously I'm talking about print books here. How do you get each page to have the same number of lines ending up level with each other? You need to learn how to use headers and footers, drop caps and the big one, eliminating too much white space in individual lines. Learn how to use Word's styles. That will save you a lot of time. Check the available online publishers like Createspace for tips and tricks. Once you master the art of typesetting you can create your own template and each successive job will become easier and faster. Of course, by then you might have reached best seller status and have no need to ever do it again. I hope so. Good luck.
For purposes of this article I am referring to books written using MS Word. Yes, you can typeset in Word, but as I said it's a nitpicky time-consuming job so take out your patience and polish it. There are many things to consider aside from the obvious ones such as book size. Obviously I'm talking about print books here. How do you get each page to have the same number of lines ending up level with each other? You need to learn how to use headers and footers, drop caps and the big one, eliminating too much white space in individual lines. Learn how to use Word's styles. That will save you a lot of time. Check the available online publishers like Createspace for tips and tricks. Once you master the art of typesetting you can create your own template and each successive job will become easier and faster. Of course, by then you might have reached best seller status and have no need to ever do it again. I hope so. Good luck.
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