The good news is that, with a few clicks of your mouse, you can convert your manuscript directly into an eBook. The most common file format for an eBook is Adobe Acrobat PDF.
You’ll be doing the actual “design” of your book in your word-processing program.
Since Word is the most commonly used word processing program (and the one in which most epublishers will expect your document), this chapter will focus on formatting in Word.
You do not need to actually own Adobe Acrobat to convert your eBook into a PDF file.
However, if you want to add more features to your PDF document (such as hotlinked URLs, forms, or pages imported from other programs), you will need to buy the program.
Designing Your eBooeBookkkk
A badly formatted eBook will alienate readers more quickly than a badly designed print book. At best, it will look amateurish; at worst, it will be difficult to read or “navigate.”
Fortunately, you can create a professional “look” with just a few simple Word commands. You’ll need to consider the following elements:
Page size –- Most books aren’t formatted to an 8.5x11-inch page. eBooks are typically between 5x7 and 6x9 (with 5.5x8.5 being a typical format).
Your first step, therefore, is to set a custom page size in Word’s “Page Setup” menu.
Margins –- Use Word’s “Format: Document” command to set margins to a minimum of three quarters of an inch on all sides.
You may wish to set top and/or bottom margins slightly larger if you plan to use a header and/or footer.
Since eBooks don’t have “left” and “right” pages, turn off the “mirror margins” option.
Headers and Footers –- Place a “running header” at the top of each page. The easiest approach is to simply include the title of your book and the page number.
You can place this information flush left, flush right, or centred or you can place the title flush left and the page number flush right.
I recommend using a slightly smaller font size for the header, and (if you like) using italic or bold. I also like to use the “border” command to draw a line between the header and the text.
Another option is to put the title in your header and the page number in your footer.
Make sure that your header doesn’t appear on the first page of each chapter by using the “Insert: Break: Section: Next Page” command (rather than a page break) to separate chapters. Then, make sure that you’ve checked “different first page” in the “Format: Document: Layout” menu.
You can also create a new header for each chapter (e.g., using the chapter title rather than the book title); to do this, turn off the “same as previous” option in the header command.
Font –- It’s best to use standard fonts such as Times, Times New Roman, Century/New Century Schoolbook, or Palatino.
Non-serif fonts such as Arial or Helvetica are good for chapter headings and subheads. Use a minimum of 11 points for your text, and 12 to 14 points for subheads. Since some fonts look better onscreen than in print, and vice versa, test your fonts both ways! (Keep in mind that the reader can increase the display size of your book when reading it onscreen.)
Illustrations –- One nice feature of an eBook is that it doesn’t cost extra to include photos, drawings, charts, etc. Illustrations do add to the total file size of your eBook, and this is an important consideration for the reader. (Keep in mind that many epublishers and POD publishers won’t accept illustrations.)
If you have a scanner, you can scan your own illustrations and convert them to .gif or .jpg files. A program like Photoshop will enable you to crop, enlarge, or reduce those images, or make other modifications.
It will also enable you to save them at a lower resolution, thus reducing file size. While Word does allow you to incorporate illustrations in your text, it’s not always easy to position them precisely where you want them.
If you plan to use a lot of illustrations, you might want to consider using a desktop publishing programme.
When laying out photos or illustrations, be sure to leave an ample margin between the image and the surrounding text, and, where appropriate, include captions. Front Matter
Your book doesn’t really start with “Chapter One, page one.” It starts with “front matter,” including:
A title page – Your title and image
A copyright pageopyright page - The easiest way to generate one of these is to check the copyright page of any
opyright page
print book and type in the same information, substituting your own name, book title, date, etc. Don’t include the “Library ” information or the numbers that indicate the “edition” of the book. Don’t bother with an ISBN unless you actually plan to offer physical copies of the book (e.g. on disk) through electronic bookstores like Amazon.com.
Acknowledgements –- if desired Table of contents –- while many print books number front matter separately from the rest of the book, this can be awkward in an eBook.
The easiest approach is to treat the first page of your book (even if it’s the title page) as “Page 1.” (you can generate this automatically in Word by using “headings” formats for your chapter titles and subheads).
Back matterBack matter - the back of your book is a good place for an index, your bio, and contact information. It’s also a good place to include advertisements for any other books that you are selling.
Keep in mind that even though your book may be formatted in one page size, you can easily include 8.5 x 11 flyers in the same book! Formatting in Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat takes your Word document and displays it “as is” in a PDF file. To generate a PDF file, use the “print” command in Word and select the “Save as File” option under the “General” pull-down menu.
Select “Acrobat PDF” as the file type and set “Destination” to “File.” Hit the “print” button and your document will be converted to a PDF file. If you actually own Acrobat, you can add other useful features to your eBook. For example, you can automatically hotlink every URL in the text (be sure to include the http:// prefix on all URLs).
I recommend underlining links or formatting them in a colour, such as blue, so that the reader will easily recognize them as hotlinks.
Don’t bother hotlinking URLs in your original Word document, as these links won’t be retained in your PDF file. You can link your table of contents directly to the text. You can also import pages or files from other programs, including charts and illustrations. If you plan to import files, leave a blank page in your original document, to be replaced by the imported page; otherwise, your pagination will be incorrect.
You can also set various protection levels for your book (including a restriction on printing, though I don’t recommend this!). Should You Zip It?
If you have a “long” eBook i.e. a large computer file you may wish to compress it. Otherwise, your eBook may take too long to download (which can cause a reader’s computer to “freeze” or even crash).
All you need to compress your eBook is a program such as DropStuff or DropZip; you can download free demo versions of these programs for Windows or Mac from Aladdin Systems.
DropStuff will create a .sit file; DropZip will create a .zip file. If you compress your eBook file, your readers must be able to open those files again, so it’s a good idea to provide a link to a site where the user can download a free version of such programs as WinZip or Stuffit Expander.
Self-publishing no longer means paying a small fortune for design and printing. With a little planning and the right software, you can create your own eBook with a few clicks of a mouse!