From manuscript to final production

It is important to start with a clean manuscript that has been set up correctly. This is important even if you are just requesting formatting and layout and line or copy editing and proofing have already been done. In addition, I may offer additional evaluation or editing services at this point, which you can choose to reject. However, the clean manuscript is a must to proceed and if there needs to be some work on it, I’ll let you know prior to proceeding. Here are the basics: 

• Use double or 1.5 line spacing.
• Use a standard font. Times Roman is fine.
• Using styles can cut formatting time. The three basics are body, heading and subhead styles. 
• Make sure to use font size 12.
• Use standard margins. 1″ all around is fine.
• Chapter breaks should be marked by page breaks (no return, return, return. 🙂
• Insert page numbers (though this will change).
• Indent paragraphs.
• Do not add extra space between paragraphs.
• ONE space after a period. One. We aren’t on a mid-century typewriter.
• Don’t overuse the ellipsis … Or, exclamation marks!!!

From editing to formatting and layout

After the editing and proofing process, if you have retained me for formatting or layout, I will take care of building your manuscript into a published ebook or print book. These include:

Styles. Hopefully, when you created the manuscript you created specific styles for these three items: The body style, heading style, and subheads if there are any. These can be all in the same font for now. If not, this will be the first thing I will need to do.

Fonts. I can then assign fonts to these styles. We’ll discuss the fonts and styles. We may want a serif for the body, sans serif for the chapters, and a smaller size for subheads. Each of these is assigned to a style and can easily be changed throughout the entire manuscript.

Indents, spacing, periods, and page breaks. I’ll check these and make sure they are set up properly.

Importing. This manuscript is then imported into my software program where we choose the final interior print size.

Chapters. From here, chapters are created. Images are placed. Design elements such as flourishes between sections are created.

Images are sized and placed. Remember, their placement is not guaranteed in an ebook since the size of the book is determined by the reader. 

Final production

Final pdfs are created for the interior of the ebook and print book to be used in uploading to self-publishing sites such as Amazon, BookBaby, IngramSpark, Lulu, and Draft2Digital (ebook). You can provide the cover art and I can add title, author, and spine information using the templates on the online sites. If you have someone creating the cover art, I will coordinate with them to make sure the art compiles with the publishing sites. These both are uploaded to templates offered by the self-publishing companies. 

Now, you’re ready to set up distribution.