Friday, June 21, 2024

Formatting Manuscripts

Finally, I got some actual instructions from Draft2Digital on how to prepare a manuscript to be uploaded for publication! Their instructions are vastly simpler than what I had to do for Smashwords, but I have made some mistakes that would make the finished ebook come out wonky.

 

For instance, I placed 4 hard returns before each chapter heading, to push it down a nice distance on the page. But now I know that 4 hard returns in a row will be changed to a page break. I don’t want that, because I already put in a page break to get the new chapter to start on a new page. It would wind up with blank pages before each chapter if I don’t go through and remove 3 of those hard returns.

 

I also carefully created a Table of Contents. But their software will create one for me, so I need to yank mine out.

 

There are other places where I’ve got multiple hard returns as I tried to get the front matter somewhat symmetrical. Now I have to spend a few minutes figuring out how to place the front matter pleasingly on the page without using a bunch of hard returns. Because just 2 hard returns in a row will be converted to a section break, which I don’t want cluttering up my title page.

 

There are 60 chapters in the book I’m trying to get published. It will take me 2 or 3 days to go through and straighten those out. Another day to figure out the title page, and time to work on a couple other pages that have a picture involved. And I’m still in the middle of classes that take up far more time than I thought they would. So, it’s beginning to look like this book might not go on sale until August 1.

 

Still, I’m making progress, however slowly.

 

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