Formatting your book for CreateSpace or other Print-On-Demand

Since I'm going to have to screenshot this (easier than typing it out) for a friend who's asked about this, I'm going to make a post. I am asked this question a lot by friends who are building their book for print, so I may as well help everyone. Otherwise I'll have to retype this a thousand times more.

This is for the margins. I use the 5x8 template in CreateSpace (preformatted) to do my paperbacks. So below is what I use in those templates for my margins.

I've made a tutorial for the CS template to add more chapters into the preformatted template here: http://www.arianabrowning.com/2012/02/how-do-i-add-more-chapters-in.html

Feel free to enlarge the photo by clicking on it, if you can't see it properly. I can't remember if I altered this in any way, or not. I may have because I spent time comparing and measuring all my paperbacks from people like Dean Koontz, and Stephen King, Keri Arthur, and all the others I have, so I'm pretty sure I may have altered the top and outside, then just set the others to match. So if you download the preformatted template from CS, you can double-check that.

This is the spacing that I have for my 5 x 8 size. If you're wondering why I chose that one, it's because it is the closest to trade paperback that I have found for CS. When I do my dust jacket hard covers through LuLu, I will be going with 6 x 9 because again, it's the closest to trade hard cover.

And then below I will place the 6 x 9 template (downloaded it from CS so that I could be sure. This isn't the template I will use for LuLu hard cover, but it's the CreateSpace for paperback 6 x 9 preformatted template).

Margins:

And the 6 x 9 line spacing. Same as the above, as you can see.

Now, indentation and more. Always the text in a paperback is Justified as it shows up better. This is personal preference, but I have found size 11 font is best for the particular one I use. The most used for paperbacks are: Georgia, Times New Roman, Garamond, and Baskerville Old Face. Or similar. People believe Times is boring since it's overused, but the eye is used to it, so don't worry over that too much. Been there, done that and I researched so much I got nauseous. I couldn't even stand looking at any font for a few days.

Indentation should be .2" to .5", but no more (unless you want to be really special) and the first paragraph in trade paperbacks is never indented. Not sure why that is, but if you want to look like a professional, I say follow what they do so I do that. That first line you can fancy up to your pleasure.

Few examples:

THIS IS THE first paragraph of your novel and you can capitalize a certain amount of words to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs, or the entire first sentence.

This is the first paragraph of your novel and you can bold the first letter of the first sentence to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs.

This is the first paragraph of your novel and you can bold and enlarge the first letter of the first sentence to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs.

This is the first paragraph of your novel and you can bold (or not) and enlarge the first letter of the first sentence to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs as well as changing the font.

Just an example to show you the differences. From all the research I've done.

Always first page on the right and the odd page numbers too.
No page numbers on Title Page, Contents, or anything but the first readable page. As in, page 1 is page 1, nothing else.
Don't use more than 3 different fonts in the book or subconsciously it will annoy the reader. Even better is sticking with 2. One for headings of titles, chapters, etc., the other for the main font.

Anything I've left out, just ask.

♥

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