Choosing the right trim size is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when preparing a book for publication. It affects printing cost, reader expectations, layout design, and distribution options. And if you choose a trim size that isn’t supported by your printer — especially Amazon KDP or IngramSpark — you may find yourself…
If you’ve ever uploaded a book to KDP, IngramSpark, Barnes & Noble Press, or Bookvault, you’ve already encountered the infamous cover template—that colorful PDF full of boxes, lines, descriptions, and warnings. For many authors, this is the moment the publishing process stops feeling creative and starts feeling technical—and overwhelming. But cover templates aren’t meant to…
As a book formatter, I spend a lot of time inside the finished pages of a manuscript—adjusting margins, cleaning up spacing, fixing widows and orphans, and making sure the interior looks polished and professional. I’m not a cover designer, but I work closely with authors as they prepare their books for print, and one thing…
As a book formatter, most of my work involves text‑heavy adult manuscripts—fiction, nonfiction, and everything in between. Children’s picture books are a different world entirely. My experience with them is more limited, but every project teaches me something new. Recently, I helped someone troubleshoot her client’s children’s book. It looked “finished,” but it ran into…
The information below brings all your book’s essential details together in one place, helping you stay consistent across platforms and improving how readers discover your work. Every retailer requires some form of this metadata, and having it ready makes the upload process far smoother. It all starts with assigning ISBNs to each format of your…
For authors considering submitting their manuscript to a publishing house, there are a few things to consider. For instance, some publishers might only publish romance, while others only publish nonfiction history. Maybe one wants to see your entire manuscript immediately, while others prefer a synopsis and a sample chapter. Still others (vanity presses, especially) might…
Many authors envision writing a book and submitting it to one of the top publishers to let them take the reins—editing, formatting, creating the book cover, marketing, and distributing. Yet, the reality of that actually happening is what has made self-publishing and print-on-demand (such as Amazon KDP) so popular. I have worked with some authors…
You have spent days, weeks, months, and maybe even years writing a book, and now you are ready to self-publish it. There are many steps to publishing your book (see our Checklist for Self-Publishers), including title selection, cover design, copyediting, promotional text, marketing, and manuscript formatting. One aspect of self-publishing is DIY. Doing it yourself…
You are writing your first book and plan to upload it to Amazon and sell a bunch of copies. Then, you start to do a little research and fall down rabbit hole after rabbit hole and become overwhelmed. There is so much information out there, and it can get confusing. It seemed easy initially; now,…
Most authors know that when they write a book, an ISBN needs to be assigned to it. An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is the book’s unique identification number used by distributors, bookstores, other retailers, and libraries to purchase books and track their sales. You CANNOT have ONE ISBN for all the different versions of…
