Formatting an e-book short story collection as a 5 x 8" paperback.

(Set page size to 5.0 and 8.0)



Formatting a short story collection as a 5 x 8 POD print on demand paperback isn’t that much different than any other book.

Since I already have my collection, ‘The Paranoid Cat and other tales’ published as an e-book, I basically use the same file by copying it from a folder and pasting it on my desktop. I re-label it with ‘Paranoid Cat POD.’

A step-by-step process.

Step one is to put the cursor at the end of the front matter. Then click on page layout, click on breaks, and then go down and click on page break/section break. I’m using Word for the entire job. I make nice, simple paperbacks. I read somewhere that a good formatter can do this in about two hours.

Next, I scroll down all the way to the end, and put the cursor just after ‘The End’ and add another page/section break as before. Now we have three sections to the book.

The second step is to scroll down and put the cursor at the end of the last line of each of the stories in the collection. Simply click on page break. These are all in the same section, which is important.

Page size.

Step three is to define the page size, as my e-book .doc file is fine in an 8.5” x 11” size, but my paperback is 5 x 8. Again, this is found under the page layout tab. Click on size. Use the buttons to change from one size to another.

Margins and Gutter.

Next comes the margins. I am using 0.5” at the top, 0.6” at the bottom, 0.4” on the outside edge of the page. I’m using mirrored pages left and right, which is also located under size. The mirrored pages should only be for your text and not the front and end matter.

For my gutter, about 0.712 is the usual, and you can fiddle with that under margins, which is in the page layout section as well. The gutter increases in size with the number of pages. I’ve seen a book with zero gutter, and the text begins in the glue. It’s essentially unreadable. ‘Nuff said.

At this point, I went to Collections Canada ISBN service website and got myself an ISBN number, inserting it into the front matter. A paperback and an e-book of the same title have different ISBNs.

Headings.

Next step is to scroll through the book and make sure all the story titles—what would correspond to chapter headings in a novel, are all down the same number of spaces. I will be using six 12-point spaces with zero trailing space. The important thing is that they are all consistent.

Numbering.

Now, it’s time to put the page numbers in. Sometimes I have trouble with it, as there is more than one way to get to the edit footer or format page numbers interface, but suffice it to say that you want the first page of your text to start at number one, and you want it on a right-hand page. Obviously, no book begins on a left-hand page. You do not want page numbers in the front matter, so make sure you click on ‘link to previous section’ if it’s highlighted and make sure it is turned off.

Headers.

A similar process works for the headers, which in my PODs are very simple. I have the title, a comma, and then ‘by Louis Bertrand Shalako.’ It appears at the top of every page in the text, but not in the front or end matter at the back.

When you check your file, go to the end of the book and check for headers and page numbers. You can put the cursor in the header or footer and click, and a box will come up, ‘edit footer,’ etc. Make sure to click ‘link to previous section’ if it is highlighted in yellow, and turn it off, otherwise the page numbers will disappear in the previous section. Concerning footer style, I use the one called ‘tildes.’ And I use 10-point, usually in bold for page numbers. Cambria is nice font, which goes well with Times New Roman, which I use for text. For my headers, I usually go to a nine-point face, again in Cambria. For this I click on the format dialogue box so that I can pick a colour, and for this I use grey as opposed to black. That way the header is there, but it’s also unobtrusive.

The page numbers are far more important, and so I make them easier for the reader to see.

For a paperback, the final end matter doesn’t have to be mirrored, and you may have to turn this off, making sure not to link to previous section when you do it. Otherwise it has a tendency to stick out too much and Createspace will notify you that it’s outside the printed area of the page. The same is true for the front matter. It’s entirely a matter of taste as to whether front and end matter is centred, or justified left, or justified to both margins. A sentence with few words will stretch in an unattractive manner when justified on both margins.

For the text in your paperback, bear in mind my e-book is running a ragged right margin, so I’ll have to go through section by section and right justify everything. I do it section by section to avoid messing up the centering for the titles and scene breaks.

Inserting the proper number of blank pages.

Now, for the front matter, you put the cursor at the beginning of your copyright information and then insert three blank pages. The third one is your title page, my title is 18-point and my name is 12-point, and they are in bold Times New Roman. Next comes your copyright page, and then insert two more blank pages to separate the text. This is section one.

At the end of the book, simply insert enough pages so that your book ends, there is a blank, and then your author bio, links, next-book preview or whatever falls on the right hand page when you visualize your book in your head. This will always be an odd-numbered page, as the book started off on page one. A book will always have an even number of pages when going by the Word document page counter, that’s because every page has a back—it’s really a sheet of paper, even though we’re doing it all by computer.

Notes.

In other notes, for headers with the author name on one side, and the title on another, sources say you can do this with Word, but I have no idea. I have done it successfully, including mirrored page numbers on the corner of the page, (rather than centered) using Open Office free software.

 

(The book has three separate sections.) 



Marketing Images for Books and E-Books.

It's hard to believe that this book marketing image was originally created using pencil-crayons, typing paper cut-outs and scotch tape on black bristol board. The text was added with Paint.NET.

When I shot the picture, the flash was turned on, and it resulted in a big spot of glare, and I thought the shot was ruined. However, I stuck it into Nero Photosnap and fiddled around with lightness and contrast, as well as the different colour channels. I also probably sharpened it up, although it was some time ago.

The next in the Shalako Publishing series of PODs, (print on demand) paperbacks will be, 'The Case of the Curious Killers.' It will be another 5 x 8" book. Recalling how it felt to hold the 'On the Nature of the Gods,' paperback, with its really good cover art, I am looking forward to uploading this one on CreateSpace and seeing what it looks like.

That's no reason to rush the process, and as long as I can put out one a month or so the schedule is fine. It also leaves me open to other things, not the least of which is to get out in the fresh air after a long winter. That one should be out in the first week of May, followed by 'The Shape-Shifters' in June.

Oh, I almost forgot: here's an excerpt from, 'The Case of the Curious Killers,' a kind of space-opera.

>>>

The music had a syncopated, throbbing, thumping bass-line. A ragged cheer went up from clumps of youthful aliens here and there, and they came running out to the center, forming up in couples, trios, quads and odd-numbered formations. The biggest was a v-shaped formation, which looked like a club, due to the striped colours of their knee-length silken t-shirts.


This was merely the overture. He observed in fascination, as the bodies, including more of the alien types, began moving in a curious, shambling gait. Hartle caught the rhythm, and began to groove a little himself, conscious that he danced like a white man at the best of times. Their bizarre, long-armed, bandy-legged, ape-like shuffle was intriguing; he had to admit. As the music and the people began to speed up, he became aware that Sim was trying to grab his elbow and not having much luck.

“We must get off the dance floor.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I want to see this.”

“Watch from the side of the room!” Sim was practically shouting at him now.

He agreed a little unsteadily as they tried to make their way. What had been an empty, open space, was now covered in whirling dervishes, gymnasts, acrobats…when he felt the first hard elbow graze his rib cage it took a while to sink in.

“Excuse me, neighbours.”

The trio spun away. Then he took another hard one to the ribs just above the left kidney.

“That was a punch!” Sim was plainly frightened now.

A rock-solid, chitinous body slammed into him and he went down. He heard a shrill keening sound from the creature as he kicked upwards viciously. It scuttled right over him, putting a barbed foot-pod partly in his mouth, and suddenly his rage cracked wide open.

“Get your dirty alien mating-claspers off me, you creepy thing!” He shouted, all vestiges of courtesy and deportment gone.

Rolling and tumbling, he came up in a half crouch, hoping the thing was hurt real bad.

“Have your lost your marbles?” He bellowed at Sim. “You should have told me about the dancing.”

A quad of dancers, moving quickly in his left peripheral vision, targeted him. After a flurry of mutually exchanged blows with various members of the group, just as suddenly they broke off to engage another quad approaching. Hartle was furious, and came up again like a mongoose battling to make a cobra its dinner.

He ran at the bunch who had just attacked him, only to be grabbed and spun around, and he lost sight of them in eddies and currents of the dance. Lifting a leg and straightening it out real quick, Brendan managed to kick the boy who had grabbed him right in the face. There was a hot gush of satisfaction as the splash of blood vented. The boy’s two partners dragged him away by the legs, trailing bright yellow goo across the highly polished black tiles.

He had one brief moment of relative peace while the ebb and flow continued, and always that beat. Brendan gasped for air, with Sim beckoning from fifty metres away. Rival groups were attacking each other, and always, in time to the beat. Two big crabs came at him and he leaped on the nearest one’s head. Hartle tried to twist its antennae off by grabbing one and yanking as hard as he could. He kneed it in the side between two legs as he did so. The scream was so loud it startled him and he leaped off again with no trophy. He bared his teeth and growled and they both ran away.

Only fifty metres! In this crowd, it might as well be the other side of the Goddamned Galaxy!

“Fuck you all! Fuck all of you!” He stomped back and forth spitting mad. “Come on, you gutless fuckin’ little pukes.”

He bellowed, and then he was running at the wall of deadly dancers. Surreal in its bizarre incongruity, a spotlight followed him as he ran…

Wetness, warm and sticky, clouded his left eye. He brushed at it with a sleeve, and crashed into the line. Something in someone cracked with a brittle sound, and there came another shrill cry. His head jolted into his neck, there was greyness and stars, literally a flash of light in his head. He was pounding a fist into something’s abdomen. There was madness in him.

He lifted a knee into an obvious spot but got no response. He jabbed a thumb into its eye and it thought better of continuing the encounter. Again, someone raked his belly but it was a glancing strike and the clothing snagged and protected him. He popped it one in the kisser. Spinning, he was all arms and legs. A hole opened in the crowd, and he took a running, jumping dive, sliding to a halt right at Sim’s feet.

It was an oasis of peace and a kind of relative quiet here on the edge of the dance floor. Rolling over, he laid there, hoarse breath rasping in his throat. A semi-circular gaggle of citizens, all dressed in their Easter Bonnets and finery stared down at him.

“That was very impressive, young man.” An older female something or other with green eyes and head shaved bald stared at him through huge blue plastic pince-nez.

Four football-sized breasts heaved under her thin white blouse.

“You’re the best dancer we’ve seen tonight, at least so far.” Very upper class, you could tell by the diction, the terse elocution.

Maybe it had something to do with the long yellow bill, like a spoonbill or an egret. He got up stiffly.

“May I ask a personal question?”

She nodded, beckoning for something in a champagne-style glass. She only had four fingers, perhaps evolved from something like the tip feathers on a condor? Wow.

“What’s that thing sticking out of your ass?”

“It’s my tail, young man. We’re from Gallienus. We’re descended from avians.” She explained with a gracious nod.

“You’re very beautiful.” She simpered back at him and pecked at her stemware, filled with little multi-faceted pellets about three millimetres in diameter.

They were red and black. He had his breath back. She really was beautiful, in her own way. Her obviously male companion whispered in her ear and the pair of them giggled, nuzzling and cooing over some private joke, like mourning doves nestling together on a branch in winter.

END