As I’ve stated in my last two blog posts, I’ve embarked on a mission to self-publish my next book series—The Roselle Girls.  The first two books are written and edited, covers have been designed and I’ve heard from experts in the indie industry with invaluable publishing tips. Now, it’s time to format Catching a Pixie for Kindle.

Book Formatting

Before I get to actually publishing my book, I needed to start compiling the non-manuscript pieces that make up a book, called the front and back matter. This includes the author’s bio, book blurb, dedication, copyright page and more.

I started that last month. It was fun surfing though the books of other authors, comparing the engaging dedications and bios to the more mundane ones and dissecting what made them engaging, to inspire my own blurbs and such.

Once I’d crafted these riveting masterpieces, I was ready to begin formatting.  

Atticus, my book formatting program, made it easy. I uploaded my manuscript, clicked the menu bar, and voila, basic front and back matter pages appear. Instead of using Atticus’ default text, I pasted my aforementioned riveting blurbs and bios into the app.

In addition to the standard book matter, Atticus has customizable sections. Since I’m writing a book series, I was able to include an “Also by” section at the end, so readers can see a list of the other books I’ve written and read a preview of my next book.    

Having dropped in all my text, I’ve started formatting the text. I’ve jazzed up some of the pages by adding my chapter numbers in italics at top, a pixie image below that and first few words of the first sentence are capitalized but no drop cap. Now, Catching a Pixie looks like a real book!

Once I had it looking as I wanted, I was able to save the settings as a custom theme. So, when I finish the second book in the series, I can easily apply this standardized design.

It hasn’t been easy. My pixie image kept disappearing and my dedication page is center justified which leaves an orphan word at the bottom. So, I need to dig into the tutorials to figure out how to fix that. Fortunately, Atticus has a plethora of videos explaining all the features and how to apply them.

Then, it’s on to the next step—getting ISBN numbers, so my potential readers can find my books!

I’ll save that step for my next blog post.