Author Journey: Book Formatting

Welcome back! Today I'm going to be sharing some resources for those who wish to learn more about book formatting. It's something I've always wanted to do, but something that also overwhelms me with its complexity. I'm not that tech savvy, though some might disagree. I don't know much about coding, but I have some mad skills when it comes to copy and paste. XD Read on to check out the stuff I've found...

Formatting Resource From an AuthorTuber

If you're not following Bethany Atazadeh on YouTube, you should. She's great about sharing what she learns over time in her own writing journey and is always trying to help other authors. She's an indie (like me) and knows how difficult it can be to have to jump right in without knowing much. Trial by fire isn't the most pleasant way of learning, but unfortunately, it was the only option for indies for a long time. 

If you want to check out more of Bethany's work, but you don't want to hang out at YouTube, you can visit her website. The final book in The Stolen Kingdom series is releasing soon (and may have already!) If you love fairytale retellings, you can get the first book in the series, The Stolen Kingdom, free  -- as of the time I'm writing this...which may change -- and I highly recommend it. I've read only one book by Bethany so far and I was extremely impressed. I can't wait to dig into The Stolen Kingdom!

Bethany has put together a series of videos all about formatting your novel from scratch. I'd like to share that with you here. For the whole playlist, click here. To see what the series is about, you can watch the video I've shared below.

Formatting Resource From One Who Has Formatted Books for Others

Derek Murphy has been working with authors for several years, sharing what he's learned about the publishing process over time, mostly about how to market your work and how to determine which books have a better chance of earning revenue. I found his site several years ago, but since he was mostly focusing on marketing and boosting sales at that time, which I'm less interested in, I hadn't checked out what he'd been doing since then. 

When Bethany shared his DIY Book Formats site, I was pleasantly surprised. Here was something I could use to expand my knowledge in an area I was highly interested in. 

One thing I will say about Derek is that he speaks quickly. I sometimes have to replay a section to be sure I caught everything he was saying. It is definitely worth the time and effort for me to do that. His offerings are quite valuable. 

He offers a web course in formatting. It's not too pricey and looks fairly comprehensive. Plus he shares a few extra formatting templates. Those templates make formatting much easier since you wouldn't have to build it all from scratch. That was the clincher for me! (Re: what I said in the begining of this post...) I signed up for the e-course.

If you're interested in learning more about Derek's formatting course or in getting the free templates he shares, you can find that here: DIYBookFormats.com. If you want to know more about what Derek does and what kinds of help he offers, you can check out his YouTube channel. The course costs, but in the introductory video on the website, Derek mentions that he's shared all the info in past videos. The course simply puts the videos in a more logical order and all in one place where you can easily access them. I'm sharing his introductory formatting video below so you can see if that's something which might be helpful to you. 

Book Formatting Programs

There are several ways you can format a book. I use Draft2Digital and they offer free formatting. But their templates are limited, so I'd eventually like to format The Children of Y'Dahnndrya series with unique chapter headers and section dividers. I'd also love to add drop caps at the beginning of each chapter in print copies. Since there's a lot to learn in the formatting process, as least where I'm concerned, it will be some time before I'm able to implement that plan. 

One program you can use to format books is Microsoft Word (which I do not have and dislike using anyway). Another is Adobe InDesign. I don't have this one, either. If you've purchased Scrivener, you can use it to format, but I've heard it's difficult to get an accurate format completed in that program. 

One of the most well-known paid programs for Mac users is Vellum. I have a Linux system, so that's another 'no' for me. I'm not linking to any of the well-known programs because they're pretty easy to find if you pop them into a web search. 

If you run a quick web search on free book formatting programs, you can find a lot of tools for the different operating systems.  One I'm checking out today is Writer2ePub which is an extension for OpenOffice or LibreOffice. It allows you to format within those programs. I was using OpenOffice on my last laptop. I'm now using LibreOffice. Of the two, OpenOffice is my favorite, but the fact that both are open source software gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart. 

One of the free, open source formatting programs I'm excited to learn about is Sigil. I downloaded it a few weeks ago and hunted up some tutorials on YouTube. When I have a second or two to breathe, I'll dive in. One of the things which appeals to me is that there's a dark theme which is easy on my eyes. Another awesome feature is that you can see what your book is looking like in a smaller window within the program as you make coding changes. 

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you found something helpful, useful, and/or interesting within the post. Come back Wednesday to check out some new book reviews!

*****No one paid me to share this information. I'm simply sharing what I've found on my own author journey. I'm not an affiliate with any of the programs, people, companies, or products I've shared in today's post. *****