If not knowing how to format your self-published book is holding you back, this is the blog post for you.

I hesitate to give super specific advice on programs and platforms for one simple reason: when it changes (and they always do), the information I provided could be outdated and useless. However. I also know how stressful it can be to try to make decisions about a million tedious details. Like: which font to choose, what font size is best, or which decorative ornament to use when you are formatting your self-published book.

Since I have a handful of traditional and self-published titles under my belt, today I’m going to share my secret formula (now not-so-secret) to formatting a beautiful book.

Vellum is simple to use, attractive to look at, and efficient. Since I’ve downloaded it (four years ago as of this blog), it has undergone several updates. It keeps getting better and better. It is not a free program, so you do have to pay to play, but if you’re serious about your writing profession, having reliable and easy-to-use software is so, so worth it.

Now that you’ve chosen your platform, what do you do next? Simply upload your Word document into Vellum and it automatically finds and separates your book by chapters… Sometimes.

Depending on how you formatted your Word doc, you may experience hiccups when uploading to Vellum. If this happens: DON’T PANIC! Most of those issues are small and not difficult to remedy. If you are looking at Chapter 1 (for example) and the four sections that follow are “untitled” sections before there is a Chapter 2, there is a good chance that those “untitled” sections should be combined with Chapter 1 to make a complete chapter. In that case, simply go through your book and merge those selections if this happens. See? Simple, once you know what to look for.

Other issues to look out for on Vellum:

Point of View

If you are switching points of view in your story, be sure that those are separated in a way that makes it easy for the reader to follow. In my Real Love series, Eye Candy, for example, I switched from Vince to Jacqueline’s point of view during chapters. On occasion Vince’s name would be in normal paragraph form, so I had to keep an eye out for those and separate them accordingly. I chose to do this by formatting “VINCE” with a subtitle at each POV separation, but a simple ornament or bold type would have also worked. It doesn’t matter how you do it, only that you do it consistently throughout your book.

Split Sentences

Word doesn't always mosey on over to Vellum cleanly. I have had many occasions where a sentence would be split into two paragraphs, right in the middle of a thought. This is why proofreaders exist! I recommend catching all the errors you can on your desktop or laptop and making quick fixes, and then sending a copy off to your e-reader for another proofread before you declare your book finished.

Now that you’ve ironed out the wrinkles, separated your points of view, and proofread your work, your book is ready to go LIVE. If you are publishing in ebook only, this is a bit of a simpler process. But, if you are doing both ebook and paperback (or hardback), then you have some more formatting decisions to make, such as:

• Font & Font size

• Chapter style

• Ornament style

• Headers & Footers

Vellum takes most of the guesswork out of this with presets, but there is still a lot of optionality for you to personalize your book however you like. That said, I wouldn’t go bananas and use a lot of the images, text convos, and other bells and whistles. Sparingly is a good rule of thumb. +

Keep in mind not every reader reads from a Kindle. If they are viewing on another reader that doesn’t like those little text bubbles, they might have trouble reading what your characters are trying to say to one another. Same goes for images. Is your reader on an iPad where they are full color? Or a Kindle that is black and white? For the most part, I recommend keeping it simple. I have experimented with bells and whistles. For example, text bubbles, but I used only a few (as opposed to pages and pages of them). I have also added book cover images for previews in the back matter of my book, but beware: if you update the cover, you’ll then need to go into not only that book but any books where you’ve included to update that cover as well.

This is making me think we need a “back matter” template for what to include in the back of your self-published book. What do you think?

Okay, anyway…

Here are the exact presets I used for my Real Love series in Vellum:

Since there is no number or name for the presets, I’m going to count the dots and let you know which ones I selected

• Style: METRO

• Heading: Dot 1

• Heading Background (None): Dot 1

• First Paragraph: Dot 6

• Paragraph After the Break: Dot 2

• Block Quotation: Dot 1

• Verse: Dot 3

• Text Conversation: Dot 1

• Written Note: Dot 2

• Photograph: Dot 2

• Header & Footer: Dot 3

• Body

  • Font: Iowan Old Style

  • Indicate Paragraphs with: Indentation

  • Justify text: Checked

  • Allow hyphenation: Checked

  • Hyphenate capitalized words: Checked

Remember:

There is no “one right way” to do any of this, but simply the way I did it for one series of books I self-published. I hope this helps you be less worried about what to choose! If you’d like screen shots of the choices above, feel free to download a graphic PDF below.

xo, Jessica 🍋