Book Publishing Preparation Guide

The term "formatting" refers to the physical appearance and organization of a book, magazine, or newspaper. This can include elements such as the size and shape of the book, the typeface and binding, the quality of the paper, and the margins. Formatting can also refer to the overall plan or style of a publication, such as the structure of a television show or the organization of a website. In general, formatting is an important aspect of publishing that helps to create a professional and cohesive final product. 

Book Sizes
We offer four standard book sizes: 4¼" x 7"; 5½" x 8½ "; 6" x 9"; and 8 ½" x 11". We have marked the page size on templates for each book size, which you can print out and use to ensure that your content will fit within the shaded area. Cover templates are also available for each type of binding. After selecting the book size you want to publish, it is recommended that you print a copy of the template and verify that your content fits within the shaded area. We will adjust the positioning of the pages as needed to accommodate the binding edge margin.

Book Setup

When formatting your book for printing, it's important to keep in mind that black ink line art and black and white images within the text will be printed at no additional cost. The printing quality is 600 dots-per-inch (DPI), which is suitable for most line art and photographs. If you're unsure about the quality, you can print a copy of your document using a Hewlett Packard LaserJet or compatible printer and view it to see if the quality is acceptable.

For a black and white cover book, you'll need to add four cover pages to your inside pages. These typically include the front cover, the inside of the front cover (which is usually left blank unless you want to include additional content), the inside of the back cover (which is also usually left blank), and the back cover.

If your book has a color cover, you'll only need to set up the inside pages since the cover will be set up separately. This applies to both Griot Publishing House stock full color covers, customer-supplied full color covers, and Griot Publishing House custom designed full color covers.

Manuscript Template
If you want your self-published book to look professional and be easy to read, it's important to pay attention to formatting. Griot  Publishing House offers a free guide, Self-Publishing Guide For Aspiring And Inspiring Authors, which covers a range of topics, including:

• Professional formatting and self-formatting options
• Recommended font sizes
• How to format a title page and table of contents
• Margin and spacing requirements
• Common formatting issues, such as widows and orphans
• Page numbering
• eBook formatting

We also provide free Book Templates that will make formatting a breeze. If you need additional assistance, our Book Midwives are available to help.    

To ensure that your document meets our printing and binding requirements, we highly recommend that you use one of the provided Microsoft Word or PDF templates, you can download them by clicking on the file name. These templates are set to the minimum margin requirements and can be used as a guide.
 

Page Numbering
Numbering pages in a book can be a challenging task for authors. For example, they may want to skip numbering the first 10 pages, start each chapter on a new page numbered 1, or use different headers and footers for odd and even pages. To help with this, we will use Microsoft Word to demonstrate how the page numbering system works.

To begin, open your document in Microsoft Word and navigate to the "Insert" tab. From there, click on the "Page Number" drop-down menu and select the position and alignment of the page numbers in your document. For example, you can choose to display the page numbers in the header or footer of the document, or to have them centered or aligned to the left or right.

Once you have chosen the position and alignment of the page numbers, you can customize their appearance and formatting. To do this, click on the "Page Number" drop-down menu again and select "Format Page Numbers." From the "Page Number Format" dialog box, you can choose the numbering style, starting number, and any additional formatting options, such as font, size, and color.

If you want to skip numbering certain pages, such as the first 10 pages of your document, you can do so by inserting a section break before the page you want to start numbering. To insert a section break, go to the "Page Layout" tab and click on "Breaks" in the "Page Setup" group. From the drop-down menu, select the type of section break you want to insert and the page numbering will restart from the first page of the new section.