This article was originally posted for Smashwords’ “How-To” post, located here. The original article I wrote has long since been erased to the world, so I decided to re-write it! EDIT: I found a copy of the original article!
For some people, one of the main things holding them back from writing a novel is the fear of “What do I do with it once I’ve written it?” Thankfully, in today’s web-enabled world, it’s no longer necessary to hawk yourself to publisher after publisher in hopes of making that elusive book deal. Also, for the first time ever, eBook sales have eclipsed print copies. This puts us in an interesting place! One of the largest independent e-book publishers is Smashwords, and once you’ve decided to publish a book, this is the perfect place to start. Smashwords is essentially a tool for distributing your e-book, and helping you get it accessible in as many formats as possible. Smashwords is NOT an editing service, a sales service, nor a sleazy print-on-demand retailer. I recommend them because I use them myself.
Of course, you have to have actually written a book first. (This should go without saying.) You will also need to be able to have the book edited, either by yourself, or preferably by someone else who knows how to do quality editing. Once the actual story is finished, you’re ready for formatting.
When publishing an e-book, formatting is the most critical part. When you take away the actual paper, formatting is all you have left! Without good formatting, a good book can be rendered nearly unreadable. Thankfully, Smashwords thought ahead on this, and offer several helpful documents on how to do it justice. First, you will want to download and read the Smashwords Style Guide and read it more than once. Yes, formatting is boring, but if you want the widest distribution and the best looking end result, you need to read it carefully! If you get stuck, check the FAQ and go back and read it again. Still, it’s a daunting task, but there’s plenty of info that may help you along. You will also want to read the e-book terminology guide, the Book Marketing Guide, and possibly check out the Smashwords Facebook group.
Once the actual content is in a usable state, you can then create a free account at Smashwords, and get started. The process is fairly straightforward. You upload your document, and it gets processed by the word grinder, which converts it into all the common e-book formats. Make sure all the output formats came out okay. I didn’t have any problems with it, but if you use any graphics, odd fonts, or whatever, you will want to check it.
Tips to good e-book formatting:
- Read the Smashwords Style Guide.
- Strip all existing page/paragraph formatting from your document, but not character formatting (otherwise all italics and bold text will revert to default)
- Use either blank lines between paragraphs, or indents, but not both!
- Minimize empty carriage returns. Anything more than two or three blank lines in a row will fail when you put it through the Meatgrinder. In print copies it’s necessary to get the page to look right, but in e-books it’s not needed.
- Save a fresh copy of your story with all formatting removed!! (The style guide explains how to do this.)
- Read other stories similar to yours. You can learn a lot about what not to do by reading other examples!
- Make sure to read through the entire finished formatted copy before you submit it.
- Check for missing italics, misplaced page breaks, anything that doesn’t look right.
- Try to stick with regular fonts. Many e-readers don’t work well with non-standard fonts.
- Make sure your front matter and end pages are formatted per the style guide, otherwise you will end up doing it over.
- If you have a cover graphic, make sure it gets included, and is the right DPI
- If you are okay with listing Smashwords as the publisher, you can get your ISBN# assigned for free. If not, you will need to buy one.
- If this copy of the book differs from any other versions (print too) then it needs a separate ISBN.
- Preview the book in all formats to make sure there’s nothing wrong with the formatting! Even if you’ve done it before, it’s easy to miss something, and sometimes you just can’t see it unless you preview it in that format.
- When in doubt, simpler is better. Your adoring fans will appreciate your hard work in making the book readable, but if the formatting is unusable, it doesn’t matter how good the writing is.
- You don’t have to publish it right away. Make sure it’s right, and that you’re happy with the finished product.
Hopefully this will get you far enough along that you can start selling your very own e-book. These are just the ones I could think of, but they will keep you from making simple mistakes (some of which I made myself). It will take some time to format the book, so find a comfortable place to work, clear your desk and your mind, and do it in chunks of 30 minutes. I found that was about as long as I could concentrate without taking a break, but you may be able to knock it out in one sitting! Remember, you’re not trying to re-edit the book, you’re trying to make it look right.
Not to shamelessly plug my work, but if you want to see what a formatted book looks like, you can go to Smashwords and download any of their free offerings. If the book meets the highest standards of formatting, then it will be included in the Premium Catalog. Why do you want your book in the Premium Catalog? More online sellers to distribute it! More exposure and more sales, not to mention you’ll have a great-looking e-book. It took 2 attempts to get my book in there, but they were simple mistakes I overlooked by not paying enough attention to the style guide.
That’s it! Just take your time, and you too can be an online self-published author!