How To Format Your eBook - BookRix Team (different ereaders TXT) 📗

Welcome

First off, welcome to BookRix! We’re a free self-publishing platform that offers eBook distribution services to independent (indie) writers. BookRix has helped thousands of indie authors release their eBooks around the world. Over the years, we have seen many of our talented writers struggle with formatting issues. Unfortunately, when incorrect formatting occurs and mistakes are made, an author’s hard work can be rejected by online shops. For this reason, we created a simplified style guide our writers can follow to get their work published and distributed to major online shops.

Not everyone is tech savvy, which is why we designed our style guide with simple, easy-to-follow steps. You don’t need technical skills or a background in computers. All we ask is that you have (A) enough patience to read through these pages, (B) some confidence in yourself (trust us, you’ve got this) and (C) the desire to succeed. Don’t be scared - writing your book was the hard part, now let us help you with the rest. It’s that simple.

 

 

 

The Bain of Our Existence: Common Formatting Mistakes

To Indent or Not To Indent: The best rule to follow here is not to indent by clicking the space bar or using the tab key. It’s best to code your paragraph layout to create a first line paragraph indent automatically. However, if you don’t have indents in your Word doc, don’t worry. Our editor will automatically indent the first line of each paragraph for you. This is required by most external shops like Amazon and iTunes so don’t be alarmed when you see it in the editor. We’re just trying to make things easier for you.

The Return of the Enter Key: Avoid over clicking the Return or Enter key. There shouldn’t be more than one or two spaces between paragraphs, or between text on a page inside your book. Over clicking the Return key will result in blank pages in many eReaders. It might look good in your Word doc, but in the end that doesn’t matter one bit.

Six Degrees of Paragraph Separation: If you are good at what you do (writing) then you understand the importance of paragraphs. You also know that each paragraph needs to be properly separated, and so do your lines of dialogue. This is a common error that causes a book to be rejected. And as a reminder, there should always be a space between each paragraph and lines of dialogue.

Fancy Schmancy Fonts: Fancy fonts and colors might be ok for a print book, but keep in mind that you are creating an eBook. Most eReaders can’t register irregular fonts and colors, so it’s a lot of work for no reward. Also, the reader can use their eReaders to manipulate fonts based on personal preferences, throwing the author’s choices to the wind. The BookRix editor limits your text to a standard font, therefore, you are limited to bold, italics and underline. Keeping it simple to save you time and effort.

Links that Lead the Way: Most authors check their epub version after they have uploaded their book to make sure everything looks perfect (a sign of a good author). But one thing always seems to get passed over and that’s double checking all the links in the book. Sometimes the http:// could be missing before the web address so make sure your links actually go somewhere.

Publication: What Ensues Thereafter

Once you have your book perfect and ready to publish, you can simply upload your file, fill out the book data, upload a cover, choose a price and click “Sell Book”. Your book will be converted to an epub file and go through a review process before getting shipped to our distributor.

After conversion, your book will be readable on multiple eReading devices, such as the Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Sony Android, The Nook, iPads, smart phones, your personal computer, and many more. From there, your book will be delivered in various formats to many online eBook retailers around the world.

Just an FYI, the first 10% of your book is automatically available as a reading sample which is required by many shops.

 

What is OK and Not OK to Publish

BookRix accepts only 100% completed books where the rights belong to the author. Your eBook must not be published with another publisher. In the case of erotica, your characters must all be over 18 years of age. We love indie publishing and are serious about what we do.

EBook vs. Print Book: The Forces of Freedom

Keep in mind that an eBook is not the same as a printed book. With printed books, you have more control of the book layout (the font size/style, colors, formatting, etc.). However, with eBooks, your reader decides how they want your book to appear. They can alter the font style, colors, sizes, layout, etc., so they can enjoy your words the way they prefer. Basically, the reader is interested in the content, not the fancy layout.

Remember that each reading device is different; therefore, the BookRix editor “forces” your words to conform to fit various devices. But in order for us to make this happen you must correctly format a file that allows us to “free” your words into a high-quality, digital style that can be read on virtually any reading device. This system also allows us to offer this conversion and publishing service at no cost to you. 

Example of the same book in two different readers:

No Nonsense Formatting: Back to Basics

One of the most important things to remember when you are formatting your eBook is to keep it as clean and simple as possible. We can’t stress this enough: Keep your paragraphs normal

- Separate your paragraphs and dialogue

- Do not create paragraph indents by using the space bar or the tab key

- Headings should ONLY be used for chapter titles

Don’t get fancy. Remember, you are creating an eBook, not a print book. We need your words as pure as possible to conform to the digital world. If you go beyond the basics, your file could result in a poorly converted ePub file that will cause your eBook to be rejected from sale.

 

Files We Support

BookRix prefers that you upload a Microsoft Word doc. file. This is the best format that is supported by our editor and will be the easiest for you to upload. Other supported formats are .docx, .odt, and .rtf.

PDFs are NOT supported!

Regarding PDFs, in the world of eBook technology, it is impossible to convert a PDF directly into an ePub. A PDF is a print format, so PDF documents are basically less-structured versions of their word-processor originals. While PDF content is made to look really good, it actually includes very little structure. And by that we mean that it doesn’t contain enough clues about the function of text elements (like bold, italics, spacing, line breaks, indentation, paragraph alignment, etc.,) or how they should be displayed in a different context (i.e. your eBook). This means that converting a PDF document to ePub first requires conversion to a more structured text format, like Microsoft Word… So now you’re back to the basics. Formatting from a PDF can’t be extracted because it just doesn’t work as an ePub. If you want nice clean formatting in your eBook, all you need is Microsoft Word (for all you Mac users out there, you can save your Pages doc as a Word doc when you “Save As”).

Rejection Prevention: The Straight and Narrow

With all the hard work you put into writing your book, you don’t want it rejected for formatting errors. Here are a few errors that you must avoid if you want your book approved.

*Avoid using different fonts and colors. The BookRix Editor will standardize your text to our default font style and font size. This is because it’s creating an epub file that will be used for various eReaders, which can alter font styles and sizes to the readers preference, regardless of the author’s choices.

If you prefer to get fancy with your text, you are limited to bold, italics and underline. Keep your font to Times New Roman, Arial or