Physical Book Status: Almost There!

[x-posted at GoodReads]

The physical book version of A Division of Souls is coming along, and let me tell you, formatting the text for physical consumption is a LOT different from ebook formatting.

Put it this way: With e-books, the text is a little more elastic. The book can be X number of pages long, but when the reader looks at it on their own hardware, that may change depending on a few things such as font style and size. While flipping pages, you may see “Page 3 of 500” three or four times before it finally ticks over to “Page 4.”

Physical books are different, and here’s why, especially if you plan on doing it DIY through something like CreateSpace: WYSIWYG. The text you format is the text you’re going to see on the printed page. It might be simplistic, in Times New Roman double-spaced and left-aligned with the page number in the top right corner, when you save the file, and that’s what will show up on the printed page.

Which is kinda not what you want in a print book.

You want the following:
–Page numbers on the outside of each page (left side for the left pages, right side for the right pages, natch), and starting at the right time
–Interesting and readable font and line spacing (I chose Garamond 12pt, 1.05-spaced and justified)
–Any text tweaking (size, shape, justification, etc) done correctly
–Any hyperlinks in the ebook taken out for the print version

…and so many more little fiddly things that can easily get forgotten.

This is why it’s taken me longer to get the physical book out. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve uploaded the file to the CreateSpace platform, only to find yet another formatting error that needs fixing.

So where am I now? Well, I’m currently awaiting a UPS box that should contain a few galley copies of the novel. Having that in my hands, aside from the excitement of it being MY FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK OMG, I’ll be red-penning it for any last minute fixes that I’ll need to make, if any. And only then will I finally hit that “Publish” button and it’ll be available to everyone.

So yeah, I’m getting there. Slowly but surely. 🙂