TeenageTells- Publishing (2)

I’m back to talking about publishing! As I approach my own publishing date (29th of May), I’m going to focus on the variety of aspects.

This week, we’re talking about formatting.

First and foremost, I want to tell you this is annoying and I wish it wasn't necessary, or that it'd magically happen on its own. Unfortunately, I haven't found that magic yet.

And secondly, there are a few things which are helpful to decide before you write your book, so you don't have to go through and change them.

For example, text. Industry standard text is usually sizes 12-14 (12 is best, from my experience!) and either Garamond, Baskerville, Serif, Caslon, Jenson, Minion, or Palatino. Fonts which don't work as well are very curly (but that is fine for short excerpts of letters or anything handwritten) or Times New Roman, because they're hard to read. Times New Roman was designed to be thinner and smaller so that newspapers could print more on each page. Not good for books.

And make sure you check exactly which you are using. For example, Eb Garamond is different to Garamond. As a general rule, don't use bold or underlining, use italics sparingly (and not in 'handwritten' parts to emphasise parts. This would be a time for underlining. People don't write with italics!).

Next, decide on your indentation, and write justified. Indentation is how far a line starts inwards (look at any book: it's there). I recommend using the 'tab' button each time. What I did was I made the 'tab's it gave me 0.3 instead of 0.5, so that it'd look more like a book. The first paragraph of each chapter (this isn't optional) isn't indented. I have no clue why it's that way.

Justification is when your lines touch both edges. It's not something one notices, but if it's not there in a book, it tends to look 'off'. It's simple to find in Word.

Now we move onto things not that hard to change later on.

On that note, chapter headings are centred. You can decide if you have a chapter title, a number, or a perspective. In modern books, publishing has moved towards using extravagant titles, which aren't the same font as the main book. You can have the same one (if you like it like that), but make sure it's bigger. The size of a chapter heading depends on the font, but it's usually somewhere around 20. This is the place to use curly-wurly fonts and add little images. I have an hourglass above each chapter (and for my chapter breaks, but that's the next point), but I've seen books where the first page of each chapter has a gentle grey design behind the whole text. It's cool, but I find this is where I draw the line in terms of formatting difficulty.

In books, chapter titles or the first paragraph often start part-way down the page. You can decide if you want to do this, and how far, by adjusting 'paragraph settings' (can be found in Word with the .... in the layout section) and looking at points before. I recommend keeping it between 0 and 70 for chapter headings. You can then look at the paragraphs and do the same thing.

Chapter breaks are when a setting, time or persepctive changes mid-chapter. Some books just skip a line. I prefer, personally, to have a little symbol in what would usually be an empty line. It can be a squiggle or the same thing you used in your chapter headings. It can change throughout the book, too, or be dependent on the perspective (same with the headings). These should be centred, too, and are going to be smaller than chapter heading designs.

Page sizes depend on the format. A paperback is almost always 5.06 x 7.81 inches (for the rest of the world, this is 12.85 x 19.84 cm). Hardbacks will often be 6 x 9 inches (15.24 x 22.86cm). Margin sizes is when it gets hard.

I use 0.6" on the top 0" on the bottom and 0.4" on each side (I'm going to stick with just inches. I'm pretty sure both Word and Docs use it). But, the best way is when you have inside and outside. I have found this is on the old Word files, but not new, which is infuriating. My tip, is to check how it all looks on your proof copy. You need to strike a balance between being able to see the innermost letters, and not having a massive space on the outside.

To create page numbers, you have to create a header or footer in your document, and based on where you want to put your numbers, click there. You should be able to type. There will be an option for "page numbers". (If it doesn't work, type <#> into the box.)

There are probably ten or more things I can talk about, but these are the basics for you. My general tips is breathe and stay calm. Just joking. Look at published books (this is a great tip for almost all parts of publishing), and when you get this proof copy, you're going to want to check all the things I've talked about. Make sure it doesn't look weird or anything.

The best way to learn about formatting is to do it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this week’s post. It’s now your turn: write, read, publish and get inspired. Your dreams are just a little hard work away. Remember to like, comment, etc, so that other writers can find TeenageTales. See you next week!