If you haven’t already, read through my previous post on formatting pdf and e-books, as it might highlight some things you need to do, but I’m assuming you’ve followed that and have a Word file ready and specific to the paperback. The next bit is tricky, as it will depend what size you’ve decided your paperback will be, so the numbers I’ll include will probably be different for you. I chose a book 5” by 8”.
First step, your font size might be different to mine, but I use one called Sorts Mill Goudy, and for my paperback the 12pt is the right size for me. I also want my text justified. Do this by modifying the style (see previous post) to make sure it’s consistently applied. Now go to the “layout” tab, and go to “Margins” and “Custom Margins”. The first thing I do is change the paper size (for me, at this size, it would be 12.7 cm by 20.32 cm) and apply (to “whole document” in the dropdown at the bottom, not any of the other options). When you apply, you suddenly have about 400 pages! Before you do any other fiddling, on the “Custom Margins” you need to make some changes on the “Margins” and the “Layout” tabs. It’s too much to go into every detail here, but these set up the overall layout (and crucially, as your book now has a spine, different left and right margins so it looks natural when opened). The settings I use for a book of my size are below, though they will need to change if you’re using a different book size.
Margins – Top 1.5cm Bottom 1.3 cm Left 1.6 cm Right 1.4cm Gutter 0.5 cm
Mirror margins ticked, Header 1cm, footer 1 cm
Make sure you applied again to “whole document” and add in your “contents” page. I’m going to make you delete this later and do it again, but it’s important you do it now, as we’re going to look at layout, and seeing if your contents is one or 2 pages will alter what comes next.
An obvious thing now, but easy to forget. When you read a professional looking book, there are white pages, and chapters usually begin on the right hand side (not always, but frequently, and I like the look). So, turn on that show/hide function again to see the hidden codes, and zoom to a smaller size. For me it’s 45%, and a useful trick, whatever size you pick, make sure you’re looking at an even number of pages across your screen, it will make like so much easier. Now the fun of adding more page breaks. Title page, do you want a blank page next (on the back) so that the copyright page is facing you when you flip the page? Some do, some don’t, but the same principle applies after any acknowledgements, contents, and I like to have most of these beginning on the page you see when you flip the page. If you want to do the same, add and extra page break. The reason I suggested reducing the view size to an even number of pages is that it becomes very easy to see which pages are on the left and right hand sides, as you look, pages 1,3,5,7 etc will all be on the facing page as you open a book. Add any page breaks you want to even this up. Now, without needing to read every word, look at the bottom of each page (Word tries to “help” sometimes, which means you end up with shorter and longer pages), and try to avoid ending a chapter with just a few words on a page if you can. There’s lots of tweaking and experimentation here, but one useful tip is to look at those hidden codes showing where you’ve hit “return”. You needed them for the e-book, but does a page now begin with an unneeded carriage return? Maybe delete it. Is there an odd spacing you want to get rid of? I find sometimes adding a carriage return near the bottom of a page can sometimes help. A reader will rarely notice if one particular page ends a line higher than the others, and that gives you some flexibility. Also, annoying as an author, but does one sentence now have a single word on a new line (not ideal anyway) which messes up your later formatting by pushing a paragraph onto a new page? Maybe you can bite the bullet and change a single word or phrase which solves it.
There are, of course, much more effective ways of doing all this using proper dedicated software, but they can be expensive and have a steep learning curve, so if you’re stuck with Word, this tips should help you do a decent job.
Finally (and only when everything else is complete), select and delete your contents page, and do it again, checking the font, making any tweaks, and selecting “use page numbers” rather than “hyperlinks”. This has to be the very last thing you do, as the previous steps will probably have altered the pagination. Now “save as” and choose .pdf for your print ready file to upload to Amazon. Cover creation next time!
Stay safe,
Kit