November 7, 2022
Getting every detail of your book just right will make it look great so your readers can focus on the compelling characters you have created, the creative details that make your novel stand out, the skilled way you turn a phrase, or the gorgeous photography included in your nonfiction book.
The way your book looks, also called the book formatting, is something that should not draw your reader’s attention to it so they will focus on the book’s contents. But authors often make noticeable book formatting mistakes that readers will notice, taking attention away from the book itself. So let’s look at the 10 most common book formatting mistakes to avoid while writing your next book along with easy ways to fix each one.
While books do not have to share an identical format, there are some book formatting issues that cause readers to pause a little bit while others make the editing and revising process more challenging for the author.
Most authors would agree that they don’t want any aspect of a book’s formatting to take the spotlight off of the book itself. So tweaking the format to match reader expectations is reasonable as long as it doesn’t impact the actual contents of the book.
But writers may balk at a perceived book formatting change that might affect their own editing and revising process, because that’s what revising is for, right? Wrong. Seasoned writers, and especially self-published authors, will tell you that small adjustments you can make while you write that save time during the polishing phase of your book will be worth the effort.
Not only will they allow you to move more quickly into the publishing phase, but they will also make book revising and book formatting omuch simpler (see reason #4).
Punctuation mistakes are not something you want to slip by during the editing process, but authors who make this all-too-common writing error can quickly lose credibility with their readers. Knowing the rules about when to use this tricky punctuation will make the editing process go much more smoothly.
The paragraphs in books can be formatted one of two ways: using an indentation or space at the beginning of each paragraph or with a paragraph that begins directly at the left margin and uses a horizontal blank line as a break between paragraphs.
When to Use Blocked Paragraphs
Blocked paragraphs are typically used with nonfiction books. The thinking behind using blocked paragraphs is to provide a visual and mental space between content-heavy sentences. Since the purpose of nonfiction books is to impart information to the reader, the blocked style that necessarily includes this horizontal blank line between each paragraph provides the reader a little mental breathing room between ideas.
When to Use Indented Paragraphs
Novels and nonfiction books that are told in a narrative style, like memoirs or historical fiction, utilize indented paragraphs. An indent is simply five blank spaces placed before the first word of a paragraph. And, books using indentations do not need additional spacing of blank lines between paragraphs since the indentation is meant to simply indicate a new idea is forthcoming without interrupting the flow of the story.
An author’s creativity may extend beyond the book’s contents to the cover of the book. But the cover should follow the general guidelines for that specific genre so potential readers will know what to expect with a glance at the cover. Using a cover design expert can help authors make sure that not only their book reflects their genre and themes correctly but also that the cover includes critical elements like an ISBN number or bar code that will help retailers sell the book.
One of the common book formatting mistakes is simply when an author uses the Enter key too often in the writing process. Using this keyboard staple will move the cursor to the next line on the page, but when it is used to create blank lines when you want a new page, you will be creating a bigger headache for yourself later.
Using the Enter key repeatedly will place blank spaces on that page that will remain when you are editing your manuscript. These spaces can be problematic when you are adding or subtracting content or pages or creating chapter elements.
What To Do Instead: Use the Page Break function to end a page and begin at the start of a new page.
Some authors attempt to quickly format titles and subtitles for their novels or nonfiction books by simply switching to a larger or smaller font or font size for the additional words. But this strategy results in difficulty in finding those chapter title pages when the book’s contents swell to 20,000 or more words.
What To Do Instead: Use the Styles feature of your word processing program to create the title as a header1 or header2 for subtitles and then highlight them to assist in quickly finding them later. Putting the chapter titles and subtitles into header format also allows you to gather them quickly into a file of chapter names for a Table of Contents page.
Another punctuation misstep that authors often make is with the hyphen. Writers sometimes mistakenly use an unnecessary hyphen to join two words that together have a distinct meaning. For example, toothpaste does not require a hyphen. The rules regarding when to use a hyphen are easier to remember.
While many writers choose to use their own impactful writing style, books that overuse quotation marks can make an author appear immature or worse, their use may confuse the reader. Common expressions do not need quotes. As an option, some authors may choose to place a word or phrase in italics instead. Use quotation marks when:
Using this built-in function creates too-large paragraph indentations that throw off the overall book formatting and can needlessly add extra lines and pages to your book. Instead, use the Paragraphs setting on your page format on both Windows and Mac by going to Home/Layout >Indents and Spacing>First Line. Choose a size of the indent for your page by experimenting with sizes or even copying the look of a book you like.
Fixing an Already-Tabbed Format in Windows and Mac:
Modern typesetting only uses one space after a period. Remove the double space after a period in the same way that you removed tabbed formatting.
New authors don’t have to go it alone! You can use free or paid book formatting software to help you avoid these common book formatting mistakes to save you stress and editing time later on.
When you have beautiful book formatting, it’s time to partner with a trusted printing professional like Publishing Xpress. Authors who print their books with Publishing Xpress can use their design experts to craft the perfect cover so their book will be ready to sell as soon as your books arrive. Because becoming a self-published author is not just about telling your story, it’s also about making sure you get the books into the right reader’s hands.
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