Getting Your Book Formatted for Self-Publishing

Everything you need to know

If you’re planning to self-publish your book yourself on Amazon, you might feel a bit overwhelmed about how to format it. Today I’m sharing my own insights as well as those of the book formatter I work with.

What Amazon Does and Doesn’t Do

A lot of people mistakenly think that Amazon KDP (the section of Amazon where you upload your book) will format it for you.

Amazon will convert your files into a PDF that can be used for printing and ebook formats, but they don’t actually DO anything to the book other than change the file type.

If you want your book to look like a professional book, you need a formatter!

Amazon does not insert breaks between chapters, format the size of your headers, embed images, make sure the fonts are all the same, etc. It does nothing to your manuscript. It won’t come out looking like a pretty, organized REAL book.

Hybrid Publishers

If you decide to work with a hybrid publisher or a company that says they will “self-publish” your book for you, they handle the formatting.

Hybrid publishing usually means you pay them money up front to get the book out, and then you get royalties. Often, the up-front cost is pretty big.

If you hire a company to “self-publish” for you, they are simply formatting the book and uploading it to Amazon for you. Most people are able to do the uploading themselves since the KDP platform is very user-friendly. But they’re stumped by the formatting process.

What a Formatter Does

A book designer or formatter does hands-on work to style your book with fonts, headers, and layout. They make sure you don’t end a chapter with one lonely word on a separate page. They will hyphenate words to give you a linear layout if needed. They make the book look like a book, not a file. It sounds like a subtle difference, but it actually makes a huge difference on your reader’s experience.

Meet My Formatter

Yes, you can find someone to do formatting on Upwork, but I have rarely been satisfied with the work I’ve received through Upwork. Instead, a friend recommended a formatter in India whom I have now used many times. I recently sent him some email questions so that he could explain the process. Please note this is not an ad. He’s not paying me to appear here. This is a professional I work with, and I wanted to share his perspective.

Here’s what he wanted to share.