How to Format a Book and Save Hundreds of $$

Any author will know (or will soon find out) that publishing a book requires a LOT. Of hard work. Patience. Revisions. And, ultimately, money. Editor, formatter, the publisher—everyone needs to be paid fairly for their share of work. So when the book is finally ready, it all really comes down to calculating when the authors will break even to cover the costs they’ve incurred so far. It doesn’t have to be like that. What if there is a way to save quite a bit of money while still getting a perfect manuscript that no publisher will ever deny? Well, there is, and it involves a bit of new skills-acquiring and an eye for detail. Which I am sure any author out there already has.

Formatting sounds scary. And in all fairness, once you get started, it will look too. It is so much more than just margin sizes and page layout. The nitty gritty of formatting involves anywhere from hours to days of work to get to the version of the manuscript that not only you are happy with, but also one any publisher will be delighted to present under their name.

I would say that mastering formatting has been life-changing. Ok, I am being overly dramatic with this statement, but you get the point. It has helped me a lot in my work. Not only because I am able to format a book. No, no. I now see and approach every manuscript differently right from the get-go. Why so? Because formatting is meant to follow the story. It is meant to pause, quicken, and breathe along with the body of text. It should emphasize the important parts. Embellish the headings. Make something stand out. Formatting is all that. It is a wonderful work of giving your content the dazzle it deserves. And I don’t mean dazzle in the shinny-kind-of-trashy way. I mean it in the most wonderful, flowy, and enchanting way. So your readers can easily soak in every word and every meaning.

Now, instead of paying someone hundreds of dollars to get your book print-ready, you might want to consider giving it a try and formatting a book on your own.

While I understand there are many options out there for how you can format your book, and I also know that heaps of people use different AI programs to have it done for them (which, btw, aren’t cheap either yet full of flaws), I suggest using Microsoft Word. It is slightly more complicated than other options available, but I find Word the most rewarding in terms of manuscript length, fine control, and compatibility with publishing tools. Not to mention that many editors work in Word, and many publishers accept only docx file submissions.

You can find tutorials and guides on the web, mainly on YouTube, that will teach you how to format a book using Microsoft Word. It might take watching several videos and/or combining learning from a few different sources, but you will get there eventually. And trust me, there is no better feeling than knowing you completed the work you are so proud of, designing the book of your dreams. Oh, yes, while saving money, too (😊).