186- How to Format Your Book (without losing your mind)

Formatting your book -- sounds boring, right? Turns out there are a lot of things to know when it comes to formatting your ebook and print book. This post will break down what you need to know! Formatting doesn't have to be scary, complicated, or expensive! So, let's find out what you need to know.  Formatting might sound boring. But it's super important and can be very simple. Let's dive into the whys and hows.  First of all, formatting is usually the last thing you're doing, after your book has been edited or proofread. If you're sending ARC copies to a team of reviewers, you might need to format before this stage in order to send to them in a format they can read on an ereader. (Read more on beta and ARC readers.) Formatting stresses us out, but it doesn't have to. So... what really matters? Ultimately, reader experience is king. Your main goal with formatting is to keep your readers centered in the story. The end. Readers want simple. Not distracting. Not fancy. Don't think it has to be more than simple. Our goal should be to keep our readers in the story. Weird formatting or mistakes can pull the readers out and distract them from being lost in the fictional dream. Or, in the case of nonfiction, it might pull them out and undermine your authority. Wherever you write your book (Word, Scrivener, Google Docs), you need to be able to export it into a mobi file for amazon and an epub file for the other retailers. There are lots of ways to get a finished product.  If you WANT to get fancy (for some genres, like epic fantasy, this might be more fitting), I'd recommend Bookly Style for custom images for chapter headings and more.  Read the whole show notes at http://createifwriting.com/186