So, you’re self-publishing your book. Sweet! As someone who’s been there before, pull up a chair and let me give give you some tips to make the process feel a little less chaotic. We’ll cover things like formatting your book, the why and how of choosing a cover artist, and some of the little things you might not have thought about. Plus, you can get your paws on a free checklist to help you stay organized and carve out a marketing plan for your book once it’s ready to launch.
But before we get into all that, let’s start with a shameless plug: I just published a new book! My short story collection, Mostly Nice Monsters (And a Few Nasties) is now available in paperback and for Kindle. It’s a mix of previously-published and never-before-published short stories set in a modern world populated by vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures just trying to live their best (un)lives, both within their own communities and alongside humans.
The collection blends humor, cozy horror, and some true shit-your-slacks terror that will have you checking under your bed and checking your drawers for stains. Best of all, you can read each story as a standalone adventure. However, if you read the collection in its entirety, you’ll see a much larger, interconnected “monster-verse.”
Why I Went the Self-Publishing Route (Again)
Not every story you write will find a home in an anthology or magazine. It doesn’t mean it sucks. It just means it’s not an editor’s cup of tea or isn’t quite right for a particular publication. But it also doesn’t mean your work has to sit in a drawer until you’re able to find it a good home.
Self-publishing gives authors a platform to share the stories they want to tell and a chance at finding adventurous readers who want to discover something new.
It also offers greater creative autonomy. In the words of His Royal Purpleness, Prince: “If you don’t own your masters, your masters own you.” When you self-publish, you own your work fully. No one can tell you to change something and you can preserve your work in the format you intended it to reach readers. Like any other creative medium, the literary world is subject to trends. It doesn’t have to fit into a neat category in order for a publisher to take a chance on an unproven author or unconventional style. Instead, you’re betting on yourself. Win or lose, it’s worth the gamble.
That said, creating a “brand” as an author is now part of the gig, whether you’re traditionally published or self-published. If you self-publish, you still have to promote your book. No one knows it’s out there if you don’t get out there and tell them. I’m an introvert myself and will fully admit that the promotional aspect can feel intimidating. But you just have to rip the band-aid off and do it in a way that feels true to who you are as a creator.
I’m Cheap, So I Decided to Format My Book Myself
Mostly Nice Monsters wasn’t my first self-publishing rodeo. My first book, Bad Taste in Men — a novel that could be classified as “chick lit for tomboys” — came out in 2013. (If you’re doing the math, that was 12 years ago. Hey! It’s still faster than the rate George R.R. Martin’s getting around to writing The Winds of Winter — and this isn’t even my full-time job. Cut me some slack!)
The last time I published a book, Amazon still had their CreateSpace self-publishing arm. For a fee, CreateSpace would professionally format your book for you. They gave you a nice selection of header and body copy styles to choose from, as well as decorative elements to give your book a polished design with personality.
Amazon phased out CreateSpace in 2018 and shifted titles to their KDP Print service. Today, you can use their Kindle Create desktop app to format your book. Transparently, I could not get it to work well for me. In theory, it seemed intuitive. But when I uploaded my book and attempted to format it, it was a big ol’ mess.
The alternative was to either shell out $500-$800 for a professional to format my 350-page book — and not know how long it would take while hoping their work would be worth the cost — or figure out how to format it myself.
I’m cheap. And I don’t have that kind of money to throw in the middle of the street. Plus, I knew it would be feasible to learn how to format my book. I’d rather keep my cash and use it to pay someone for something that I knew I couldn’t do — namely, design a great cover. Besides, I like learning to do things for myself.
I also like making things easier for other writers who are going it alone, too. If this is your first time self-publishing or if you’re coming back to it after awhile, it can be difficult and time-consuming to discern which resources are worthwhile when you’re trying to figure it out. So, strap in and I’ll walk you through the process from start to finish. I’ll even throw in a few freebies, including a combination checklist and spreadsheet to take some of the guesswork out of birthing your book.
Let’s Get Down to It! Copy Editing Your Book
This part is the biggest pain in the ass. I recommend blocking out time to review your manuscript in smaller chunks. Try editing one chapter (or if your book is a collection) or one story per day. This can ensure you’re not bleary-eyed and making mistakes.
Chances are, you’ve already given your book and/or stories a thorough edit for plot holes, pacing, and characterization. Unless you have the money to pay a professional editor who will read your book and give you meticulous notes, most writers have to learn to self-edit.
When you’re editing your book yourself, the best advice I can offer is to step away from your work for a little while. Come back to it with fresh eyes, when you’re not as emotionally attached to each sentence. This can help you finesse your story and make it more entertaining for your readers.
Once your book has been edited-edited, your final pass before publishing should just involve copy edits. Look for:
- Spelling and grammar errors
- Punctuation
- Rudimentary formatting (The Shunn Manuscript format is a good starting point, with the first sentence of a paragraph indented. Your book likely won’t use double-spaced formatting or Times New Roman fonts, but using the Shunn format can be helpful for getting your manuscript in a good spot before it’s time to format it for print or ebook.)
- Minor tightening of copy, such as editing sentences redundancies or removing any excess words that throw that flow off
If your book is 200+ pages, you’re not going to copy edit it all in one day. Break the process down into chunks. You can use the Stories/Chapters to Edit tab of my free checklist to keep track of your editing progress. You can even jot down the word count for each story or chapter. It’ll automatically tally them up at the bottom.
Side note: If you find any grammatical, punctuation, and/or formatting errors in my book — congratulations! In the grand tradition of Stan Lee, you win a No Prize! Look, I know there’s bound to be missing quotation mark, faulty indent, or some other bungle in there. As much as I’ve tried to format my book perfectly, I’m human. (I think.) I make mistakes. Chances are, when you start formatting your book, you will, too! The world isn’t going to end if your book has a typo.
Choosing Fonts for the Interior of Your Book
Before you start formatting your pages, pick a font for the interior of your book. It’s often recommended that self-published authors avoid commonly-used fonts like Times New Roman or every student’s favorite font, Courier New — beloved for its ability to suck up ample page real estate when you want to crank out a three-page essay fast. While these fonts are familiar and easy on the eyes, they’re too common. You want your book’s interior font to be both legible and give readers a sense of atmosphere that doesn’t feel like thumbing through a newspaper.
Also, the waters for licensing those fonts are a somewhat murky. Play it safe and choose an open source font that’s free for commercial use for the interior of your book. No one wants to find out they may have used a font they didn’t have the proper licensing for and get hit with a fine.
Some good spots to scout for free fonts for commercial use include:
- Google Fonts: This is your biggest and best bet for finding free-for-commercial-use fonts for your book.
- Font Squirrel: I like squirrels even more than I like free stuff. This font repository has both.
- Font Collector: All free. All for commercial use. They have some really fun fonts that could work great for a cover.
I used PT Serif at 11 pt for the interior of my book. It’s a legible serif-style font that has a slightly cozy, slightly goth feel that works for horror and fantasy genres without being difficult to read.
Make sure your cover design also uses fonts that are free for commercial use. (More on that later!)
Making the Hell of Formatting Your Book Less Hellish
Formatting your book print and/or ebook isn’t terribly hard. But it does take some time to do it right. Set aside a few hours one weekend to format your book so you don’t feel crunched for time.
Get Some Trim (We’re Talking About Your Book’s Dimensions!)
Once you’ve completed your copy edits, the first step to formatting your manuscript is determining your book’s dimensions. As the old adage goes: size matters. Amazon KDP gives you a few options for the trim size of your book.
- 5.5″ x 8.5″: Has a smaller, cozier feel.
- 6″ x 9″: This is the most popular size for books.
- 8.5″ x 11″: This is the size of a sheet of printer paper. Unless you’re doing more of a low-content type book (like a prompted journal or coloring book), this might not feel right for a work of fiction or nonfiction.
- Custom trim sizes: Amazon KDP also gives you the option to customize your trim size, as small as 4″ x 6″ or as large as 8.5″ x 11.”
Creating a Layout for Your Book’s Interior Using Microsoft Word
Use the jump link to this section if you want to skip my blathering and just watch the videos that helped me. But if you want to take the long way home, let’s go!
Your trim size will dictate how you’ll set up your interior pages’ layout. I formatted my book using Microsoft Word. I tried (and failed… miserably) at using the Kindle Create desktop app. But don’t let that stop you from trying to use it. You may have better luck!
However, if you’re a quasi-Luddite like me, here are a few tips for formatting your book in Microsoft Word:
- Set up your page size to match the dimensions of your book. For instance, if you have a book that’s 6″ x 9″, your page dimensions will also be 6″ x 9″.
- Adjust your font size and line spacing. Your font size should be legible for readers of all abilities. This involves setting your font at a decent size and ensuring the words aren’t crammed together on the page with the lines too close together. Size can depend on the particular font you use. Some fonts look too big at 12 pt, while others can look perfect at just 10 pt. For example, I set my font (PT Serif) at 11 pt and used Multiple 1.15 line spacing. (Note: Your font size can also play a role in how many pages your book has. If your font is ginormous, it’s going to bump up your page count, which means higher printing costs.)
- Set up margins and gutters. The number of pages your book has will determine the outer margin and inner margin (gutter) of the left and right sides your pages. KDP will be able to give you a recommended number. Because your book’s pages face each other, check the “Mirror Margins” box in your layout menu. (This video covers this topic nicely!)
- Set up top and bottom margins. Leave space at the top and bottom of your pages. This typically ranges from 0.75″ to 1″.
- Create alternating headers and footers for your pages. You know how most books have the book’s title in the top margin on every left-handed page and the author’s name on every right-hand page? That’s the easy part of setting up alternating headers. However, this can be a royal pain in the ass when you want your page numbers in the footer to follow a sequential order. It can take some tinkering to get this right. (Don’t worry. There’s a video below that showed me how to do this so you don’t have to ride the struggle bus, too!)
- Pro tip: Check that your headers and footers are using your font of choice. Often, Microsoft Word will default your headers, footers, and numbers to Times New Roman. Click on those suckas to make sure that they’re using the right font!
- Add chapter titles using header styles in Word. If your book has a table of contents, applying header styles to your chapter titles is an extremely important step for setting that up. If you’ve written a non-fiction book with chapters or a short story collection, your writers will want to bitch slap you if you don’t give them a table of contents to find what they’re looking for.
- Look for any awkward line breaks or orphaned words. Nothing looks goofier than seeing the last word of a story on its own page. One word, hanging out all by its lonesome on a single page. Whatta waste! Double check your pages and look for any odd breaks or spacing and fix it to avoid this issue.
- Create a table of contents (for both ebook and paperback): Do this last. When creating a table of contents for your ebook, Kindle automatically includes jumplinks to each chapter. (Hence, the importance of adding chapter titles with style headers). You won’t have to worry about any page numbers in your table of contents matching your book. However, you’ll need to make sure that the table of contents for your printed version matches the page numbers where they actually start in your book.
- Pro tip: If you decide to go back and make any changes to your copy or add new line breaks, be sure to update your table of contents so your page numbers are correct.
This is just a general overview of the formatting process. Yes. It’s tedious. But learning how to do it can save you some serious cash in the long run!
YouTube Videos & Formatting Resources for Visual Learners
While I’m not usually a visual learner, there are some great tutorials on YouTube that show you how to format your book. It was really helpful to see the process unfold in real-time by people who actually know what they’re doing. Especially because it can be tricky to figure out what menu or path to follow in Word.
- How to Format a Book in Microsoft Word for Amazon KDP Step-by-Step (Sean Dollwet): In under 16 minutes, you’ll learn to format your book for publication, This video walks you through things like mirror margins, applying styles to titles, and more.
- Book Formatting in Word | Page numbers and additional header formatting (T.A. Hernandez): This was extremely helpful for figuring out how to set up alternate headers and footers for pages after struggling with it for over an hour.
- Book Formatting Mistakes Indie Authors Make (Abbie Emmons): I’d stumbled on this one after I’d already formatted my book, but there is some great information and inspiration here.
Don’t Cheap Out On Your Cover
They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. While that’s certainly true, it’s also true that a shitty looking cover can turn people off to your book. Sure, you can pump money into an online ad campaign. But if you want to capture the eyes and imaginations of potential readers, the best investment you can make is in a cover that sets your work apart in the best possible light.
If you happen to be a designer and a writer, you’re in luck and just saved yourself some money! However, if you don’t have a knack for the visual arts, you’ve got a few options:
- Use Amazon’s cover creator. This built-in KDP feature lets you make a very basic cover for your book.
- Use your own photos. If you’re a talented photographer, consider using one of your own photos for your cover for a more bespoke look.
- Look to premade covers. There are a number of websites that now offer premade covers that authors can choose from. These are often “one-and-done.” Once you purchase a particular cover design, the artist “retires” the design. This can give you a sharp looking cover that’s unique to your book. However….
- Read the fine print. If your artist isn’t illustrating your cover themselves, some designers may use stock art or photos in their design. Although you might purchase a cover design, that design composition might not necessarily include licensing rights costs for graphics used to create the finished cover. Always confirm if you need to purchase any licenses for graphics used in the composition of your cover.
- Recruit a professional, independent designer. This isn’t nearly as expensive as you might think and it’s well worth the cost. Shop around for a professional cover designer on sites like Fiverr, Beyhance, or other freelance sites. There are some truly talented artists who understand what will fly for commercial use.
While you might be tempted to slap together a cover design in Canva, read their usage terms carefully to be sure what you create can be used for commercial and print-on-demand purposes. Even if you have a Canva Pro account and pay for monthly access to templates and graphics, you might not be able to use them for commercial purposes, especially if you plan to sell your book in the Amazon KDP marketplace. Plus, rules can change over time. Always read the fine print.
Tips for Recruiting a Professional Cover Designer for Your Book
Your best and safest bet is to recruit an artist. They’ll work with you to create something unique, especially if they illustrate covers by hand and show you a sketch. You can ensure they use open source fonts appropriate for commercial use and you’ll have a design that’s exclusive to your book. Hiring a designer gives you greater creative control and increases the likelihood that your book cover won’t land you in hot water with the distribution gods.
A good cover can cost you anywhere from $100 to even $500 or more. There are some fantastic designers that are worth their weight in gold on Fiverr and other online marketplaces. Some are graphic artists who do digital drawings. Others are old school illustrators who create by hand. And yes, some use AI to assist with their work. (Often, Fiverr artists will disclose that and/or have a disclaimer that gives you the option to tell them you don’t want AI involved in any part of your process.)
Ultimately, it’s up to you, your budget, and what you are comfortable with to stand as a representation of your book. Here are a few tips for choosing a cover artist.
- Browse artist portfolios. See what you like. I recommend looking for artists who have great examples of covers, illustrations, and designs that sit within your particular genre — whether that’s horror, romance, or children’s books. Chances are, if their style vibes with yours, you’ll both enjoy the collaboration process and increase the odds of coming up with something really cool.
- Pro tip: Your book will need to have a title and jacket copy for the back of your book. So, look for an artist who is knowledgeable about open source fonts can be used for commercial purposes without messy licensing issues.
- Make a shortlist of artists. Narrow the field to a few designers whose work you enjoy. Use the “Book Covers” tab on the free checklist to keep track of URLs of their portfolios and contact info. This can help you weigh your options before you decide to contact an artist.
- Share a Pinterest inspiration board. Designers and illustrators are talented. But they’re not mind-readers! When it’s time to reach out to an artist and fill out a creative brief, give them some visual examples of styles and themes that you’d like to see incorporated into your cover design. This makes their job easier and gives you common ground to start from. (Need some ideas? This was the Pinterest inspiration board I put together and shared with my designer. Yes, there’s definitely a very specific aesthetic here!)
- Share dimensions for your cover and any specifications you’ll need with your artist. When you upload your manuscript to KDP, they’ll give you dimensions for your book cover, including bleed area and the size of the spine. The “bleed area” makes sure that your text and graphics don’t get cut off or appear all cattywampus when the cover is printed. Download or screenshot the dimensions template that Amazon KDP shares with you and pass that along to your designer.
- Your paperback cover will need to be a single PDF file containing the front, back, and spine as one image. It should be designed to have a bleed with a 300 DPI minimum resolution. Ask your designer for a “print-ready PDF file.” They’ll know what you mean! That also ensures any fonts used are embedded in the PDF and appear properly.
- Your ebook cover specs are a little different. Ebooks don’t require a back cover or spine, so they’ll typically just be a standard 6″ x 9″ (or whatever your dimensions are). Your ebook cover will need to be either a high-resolution JPEG or TIFF file.
- Confirm that your cover artist is using fonts that are free for commercial use. Unless your artist is hand-lettering your cover, any fonts used in your design should be free for commercial use. Confirm which fonts they’re using to make sure you’re in the clear. In most cases, your artist will be happy to share the Zip file with you.
Extra Bells and Whistles For Self-Publishing
Well, damn! That was a giant info dump! I hope these tips give you a solid springboard to start formatting your next book and get it all prettied up for self-publishing.
If you want some added tips, make a copy of my Free Checklist and you’ll find info on:
- Marketing your book on social media
- Purchasing ISBN numbers
- Getting a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). (It makes you feel oh-so-legit!)
- Copyrighting your work
- Creating a copyright page that includes your ISBN and LCCN numbers, cover artist credit, and mentioning where any of the contents of your book were previously published
- Keeping track of all of the moving parts involved with self-publishing your book
If you’re going the self-publishing route, I wish you good luck on your journey. The world needs more unique stories that buck trends and spark imagination. If you have any questions about the process, found this post helpful, or have any other tips you want to share, I’d love to hear from ya in the comments below! (And please share the name of your book and where I can check it out, too!)
In any case, here’s to doing it yourself and getting your work out there!
- Header photo of typewriter and desk by Min An.
- Cover art for Mostly Nice Monsters by Jorge Iracheta.
- Gratuitous squirrel photo by Lana Cooper (Author’s own.)