The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 46 – eBook Formatting Essentials

How seriously do you take formatting your ebook?

Tune in to why you should care (a lot) and some tips to make sure your ebook shines no matter what platform readers find you on.

Check out these links from the show (all non-affiliate): Vellum, D2D, Mac in the Cloud

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Hello. I am, Jesper.

Autumn (32s): And I'm Autumn.

Jesper (34s): This is episode 46 of the amwritingfantasy podcast. And today we'll be talking about formatting of ebook. So what do you need to consider about

Autumn (44s): formatting? Can you do it yourself? And what about the reading experience? So that's some of the stuff that we're going to talk about. But how's your week been autumn? Before we get into all of that, it's been kind of a crazy week here in Maine and new England where I'm at. We had a huge nor'easter sweep through which it's a big storm that am swept all the way up the coast from Pennsylvania up into where I'm at in Maine, right on the coast. And it left a swath of areas without power, which was surprising.

And we get these a lot in the winter, but this one was just rain in a 60 mile per hour winds. It tore up trees. And so where I'm at here in Maine, we, we lost power for probably a full day in intranet as well of course. So that kind of, you know, it was a perfect day for reading a book, but that's about what you get. Uh, but there are still places here on the peninsula that are without power and I mean huge old Oak trees and Pines with big white Pines that you couldn't even put your arms around that are still across power lines.

It's just amazing. And it's, it's interesting cause my inlaws actually where we're staying at the moment have a generator. So for us, and we have cell phones and we're, you know, we're used to traveling. We're used to like, okay, just get in the camper, we have battery backups to actually three solar panels. Am we use our cell phones as hotspots. The towers were fine. So we're like, Oh, it's a normal day. And it wasn't until we got out of the house and we see all these restaurants and cafes and everything is packed to the gills were like, Oh, people don't have power.

It's really funny cause I mean we've lived, um, Adam and I have lived just weave, our old house was 100% off grid, so you'd have that all the time. We'd go to, I'd go to work and people were like, Oh man, we lost power to do lose power. I'm like, Nope, there's solar panels are still working great and never had a problem. And even that, we had a old house whenever we've had a few houses in our life and marriage. And one of them was a 200 year old Chestnut timber framed Cape Cod style house.

So it was very old and historic and it was, it looked like a little Norman Rockwell painting. And it was beautiful. And even though there we didn't have solar panels or a generator, we, whenever we lost power, we had this candelabra that actually had real candles. And so we would go and light the candles and we would, you know, we'd sit there and play cards or something with each other and it, people would drive by thinking we were fine and D had power and it just never fazed us. So it's never been a big deal for us. But it was am.

It is interesting when you see how many people, especially in today's day and age and when the internet goes out and you can't charge your cell phone, how many people were kind of freaking out by day two?

Jesper (3m 39s): Yeah, I don't know. I think I would be freaking out, but I would certainly be annoyed, you know, uh, uh, w w w every summer, or not every summer, but almost every summer when, when we go to Finland, uh, for, for us to stay at summer cottages, we usually rent one. And uh, in the earlier years, like years back then, because in Finland is, it's all fenders, also a huge country. So a lot of the times the summer cottages are like out in nowhere and it's very difficult to get power lines and everything out there.

So many times you do have cottages where maybe there is no like a,

Autumn (4m 15s): yeah.

Jesper (4m 15s): You know, proper toilet. Uh, sometimes the house is powered by solar cells as well, which works fine. But, but the first couple of years when we went there and sometimes we rented those types of cottages and I always like, after like four or five days, I almost had enough. It's like I need my running water. I need my path, I need a proper toilet, I need the internet. This is driving me crazy. So, so it'd be the later years. We've only only rent like the Luxe luxury kind of days where they have everything available.

Otherwise I'm not going yet.

Autumn (4m 46s): You wouldn't have appreciated our old house. I remember when we were telling my parents that were building this, I mean we, we literally build it ourselves. We use my old Jeep Wrangler as the generator. It was so far off grid, so T.H.E. Run the souls. We were using, uh, a car engine because we had nothing else up there. And so, but when you walked in, you flipped on a switch, you use the sink. We had that thing so set up that you would not know what was under the hood was solar power and a different am. It was a special pump that was off of an RV, so it was a low drawl and wattage and I feel like we really, we could make this a, like we could sell this to people, like how to do it.

We had it so well set up and I'm still kind of proud of that. But yeah, we had a lot of people would be like, what's it like? You know, do you not have this and not have that? I'm like, I go home and we watch movies. The stove, you know, eh, did have a propane fridge and a propane stove. But that is totally like, there's actually stores here in Maine because so many people have camps and cabins where there's propane lights, propane stove. It's just like normal up here. It's so easy and it's kind of cool. Yeah, I think a lot of it is also about getting used to, but of course you'd have to, the willingness to get

Jesper (5m 58s): use to Ingrid's. I don't. So that's my problem. So how, what have you been up to this week? That's why you also far away. So you hopefully you got to see a movie. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So like we, like we talked about in last week's episode, uh, the kids were away at my mother's place for most of the week because they were off school. So, uh, the wife and I went to the movies the other day and what's the new joker movie? And, uh, it is really, really critical.

Oh, that's awesome. The reviews are like mixed. So I wasn't sure if I wanted to go see it, but you say it's good. Yes, it is. It is so good. I'm not going to spoil anything here in case for those who have, haven't watched it, but I have to say a note because one of the things I was thinking about before going to move to the movies and watching this movie, what was some, was one of the topics that we as writers so often talk about and that's about how to, you know, give the villain justification for his or her actions. And I was really thinking about before watching this movie, how are they going to do that with the joker in the way that, because in my view, if they turn the joker into like a likable character all of a sudden, then I think that would be an issue because that's not what the joker is, right?

He is a bad, bad person. And, and I was really thinking, so how are they going to turn him into a likable or not turned in into likable, likable character rather. But at the same time, Megan, the enjoyable movie, because obviously like with books, if you read a book and the main characters like really annoying and you hate the person you usually don't like to read either. And that was, that was a bit my concern here. Um, but they, they did it so incredibly well and, and like, I mean, did joker, he is crazy, but they do a very, very, very good character arc from the start of the movie to the end of the movie where you just see him going more and more and more crazy and it makes sense in what happens.

And it's, it's like, it is nothing really to do with like, you know, the whole Batman universe or whatever. There's very, very little of that. D the whole point of the movie is, is the joker character and how he sort of becomes the joker in how he goes crazy and it is so well done. Well there you have to say what queen Phoenix, the, he deserves an Oscar for that performance. It is incredible acting. So convincing. So good. I mean he's a good actor anyway. One of my favorites. So yeah, I knew it very well.

Could pull it off. It would be him. So I guess from a writing perspective, if anyone's working on characters and wants to show a villainous growth, this is a good movie, I guess you're suggesting. Go see this one. Yeah, absolutely. And especially I like how they, how they build on his getting crazy. You know, how they build one brick at a time because it's not like some, you know, some, you know, well some movies where something happens and then all of a sudden, well then the character is completely different all of a sudden.

I mean, okay. Sometimes in a movie you can sort of accept that, okay, that thing happened and that was really traumatizing or whatever. And then the person changed me. Yeah, you can make that argument. But in this movie they just build it brick by brick and it is so cool.

Autumn (9m 10s): I really liked you. I was saying, I think you've convinced me I might have to try to find time in my schedule. I'm of a very busy week I think coming up that maybe I'll have to sneak out and see this one too.

Jesper (9m 22s): Yeah, you shoot, you shoot and then avoid all the crazy people that comes out as well. You know I have to say when when we watched this movie, right, so there is a, there is a twofer in the movement and am

Autumn (9m 35s): for some weird reason there was these people in the cinema that was laughing like hysterical when something happened to that dwarf and I'm not going to spoil anything but, but, but what happens is not a good thing. You know, it's a pretty crazy, insane scene. And they were like laughing hysterical because th there was destroy often to see. And I was like my wife and I was looking at each other like, what the fuck is, isn't this 2019? I mean, why is it funny to what's a twofer anymore? I mean maybe in the 90 eighties I understand, but Jesus, I'll keep that in mind.

Make it might need to take some like rotten fruit to throw at somebody if they act out of line. But people are just weird. I think we've already established that week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast yeah, so I was actually the

Jesper (10m 28s): thinking am normally we try to pick out something that is being discussed in the Facebook group or on Patrion or something like that. But actually I was thinking today to maybe just do like a small cultural action to our listeners here. If that's cool. That sounds sure. Let's do it. Yeah, because I was thinking after watching digital movie here, um, I was thinking that maybe if people could go into to our Facebook group, uh, you know, if you, if, if you're not a member already, just search for amwritingfantasy among the groups on Facebook and then you'll find us.

But if you go in there and then let us know what you thought of the movie because I actually would like to hear other people's perspective on this and if they agree with me that it is really a beautiful way to construct the character arc or if you're having issues with it. And to be honest, I would really like to hear what people think about the last two minutes of the movies, but that might be a bit difficult to do without spoiling anything. But yeah, there is a bit there that I really would like to discuss with somebody. Maybe you will, I can discuss it once you watch the movie or

Autumn (11m 32s): that sounds good. Oh, I like that. So yes, that's a good call to action. So anyone who has seen it, I mean we, we should put like, you knows asterix at the top and say, spoiler alert in this conversation if you can see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, yeah, good idea. We'll start a thread and see what am who else has seen it and what they think because yeah, especially from the character arc point of view, how it progresses even though I haven't seen it. I like what you've said that you know, this is a good character art. Like to see what people have to say and yeah, if we warn them that there's some spoilers ahead, I think people will forgive us.

Jesper (12m 7s): Yeah, we could do that. So if you want to, you know, post something in the Facebook group to let me know what you think about the last two minutes. Just put that a spoiler ahead wanting at the top. They're like autumn suggesting and then let me know because I would really like to talk about those last two minutes there. And now for those who haven't watched it, I really curious to go in and watch the movie because they want to figure out what's what happens in those two minutes. So yeah, maybe I'll just set you up for that. Maybe that was on purpose.

And also by the way, where if while you were in the Facebook group, uh, at the point in time when you're listening to this, we are in the middle of November. Uh, of course, uh, autumn and I record these in advance, but so we instill in October right now, but we're talking to you in the future. So when you're listening it will be in the middle of November. And if you're doing NaNoWriMo, then maybe you could just go into the Facebook group as well and let us know how you're progressing in NaNoWriMo.

Autumn (13m 1s): Yeah, that's what I was actually saw that, uh, there's been so many posts recently, like, Hey, are you getting ready? Are you prepping? You know, when we're recording this, we're getting close to the end of October. And so everyone is coming together and talking about who's doing it, why are you in now? No ride Mo, you know, what do you get out of it, do you not? Do you know what was going on? So I love seeing all the people getting excited and prepping for it. And the other ones who were saying, no, this is why I can't do it, or this is why I don't, or this is what I do instead. So it's so exciting. But now you know, when you're listening to this, it'll be November and I'm sure everyone's going to be supporting everyone and doing world word count updates and celebrating as people reach their goals.

So yay, I can't wait to see that.

Jesper (13m 48s): So autumn, you should just get some weeks back that we should record an episode about formatting.

Autumn (13m 54s): So this is my legal soon here. I think formatting is so important, but I don't see many blog posts, many topics talking about formatting and why it's important. And I know, you know, it's just especially, I think when I first started out, you know, back then I was late, I like to call 2012 when I was first publishing. That was the wild West days of self-publishing because a lot of stuff could go. You could do get away with anything. In fact, Amazon's requirements, we're only a word doc doc file and they would do a crazy conversions and make it into an ebook for you.

And there were a lot of books out there that you'd be reading it and would have these weird like hanging line breaks. Something would just stop in the middle of a sentence and it'd be like two lines down. And I remember reading some of these and even if the story was good, you hit that and you're like, did I miss something? What's on why? Where is the rest of this sentence of this paragraph? Did I get deleted and throw you out of the story? And I think maybe because I came from that, that we, that it's just always been very important to have a very nice looking document.

Not just because it looks professional, but because as a reader and reading it, you don't want to get hung up going, what is this saying? Where's the rest of the story? Did they paste in somebody else's novel right here and I don't know about you. Yes. For have you had, have you read some books online and stuff that you're not just the formatting threw you off or even paperbacks? I mean, sometimes things get published and you're like, really? Did anyone check this page?

Jesper (15m 36s): Um, I might have to be honest, but, but I'm not sure I can, I cannot recall like a specific example. Uh, I think nowadays, usually most of the time the formatting is under control when you're buying eBooks and stuff. Like as though I might have come across something like that, but, but I do support your point of view in the way that am if you spend all that money on getting a good cover, you spent money on, on an editing and not ignore ignoring all the time you spend writing the novel in the first place. So it's like not taking care of formatting then you basically stumbling on the finish line.

Yeah.

Autumn (16m 13s): Right, exactly. It means so much. And there's, um, you know, while there's four matters that you can always hire a professional, but there's also a lot of do it yourself programs that make it pretty easy. I mean, Scribner will spit out a file, but to me, I don't actually like Scribner's file. I don't think it's that pretty or professional looking. But it is possible. And if you happen to be a Mac user pages actually will spit out an epoch file and Amazon now takes E pub files if you did not know that.

So you can upload directly to Amazon, a nice looking epoch file. So I think it's amazing what is available to make at least a clean looking ebook but it's also amazing how many people don't go and download it and check it before hitting publish. And I do think at least taking a few minutes of doing that as important.

Jesper (17m 5s): Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think it is also, I mean at this point in time we've gotten to a stage where it is so incredibly easy to get good formatting programs or I mean, uh, just like three, four years ago maybe, um, I was still using like a, a I P I put a file from Scrivener and then I was using this,

Autumn (17m 28s): should you sit? You'll do July. I've never used it, but I have seen it.

Jesper (17m 33s): Yeah, I was using CTO because then you could upload to Scribner file into CTO and CJ were allow you to like manipulate the hedos. Everything that's Scrivener did not do that well. And uh, and then I could go from there. But it was like there was like four steps to

Autumn (17m 51s): ebook whereas nowadays you just like click a button and vellum almost. Right. And then you're good to go. I guess that's what am. I mean I remember, I think my first one I did do, I was still on an Apple at the time, but everyone required a word doc and it was just like, well shoot. So I had to go pay for word or I think I was transferring it to my husband's Dell and the crazy manipulations I had to do to upload something. It's like no wonder it looks like crap. And sometimes it would change the formatting or the fonts and it was just a mess.

What to create anything. And nowadays I, when vellum first come at came out and I knew at that point I think I had published at least three or four books and I knew I was serious and I'm very much a do it yourself. For so I went ahead and bought vellum when it was brand new and fairly cheap. And so I've had it since the beginning and Oh my goodness. One of my favorite thing about it is that it creates a professional, really beautiful ebook end paperback now that's across platforms.

So I can take my vellum file and upload it to like drafted digital or Smashwords with the distributors or Kobo or anywhere. And I know it's going to look, it's going to have drop caps is going to have these cool centered chapters with little like ornaments or an image and it's going to look like that on every single re e-reader from a nook to an iPad. I love that. I love knowing that I'm producing something that's quality that the readers are going to be like, hopefully they're not even going to notice the formatting.

You spend all this time and effort on it and the real goal is that the readers don't even notice except for maybe saying, Oh, it's dry. It has a drop cap. It looks so beautiful. Or something like that. Yeah, I agree, but, but they will notice if it's not there. I think that's the difference. They will notice if it's crappy, but they will love notice when it looks good because then it just looks like everything else. But that's not a bad thing because you want to look like everything else. Right. Should that stand out in this way? No. I mean it's nice to have this little nuances like having, you know, you can have an image and now with vellum you can even have like the scene breaks that are within a chapter.

You can use am your own emblem or symbol, which is really cool. So like for my Celtic one, my one is a Fe novel. I have a little am Celtic knot work that I can use as my line break instead of like a, you know, regular slash and so it's nice having those little touches that can kind of, you know, keep the theme going in a story. But at the same time it doesn't have to be, it can just be, you know, a simple line and you know, it's there and it's clear. And again, the reader, hopefully it's, it reminds me of last week when we were talking about dialogue and using the word said, and Stephen King had said, you know, you said because it fades into the background.

Well, we both disagree. It's just too boring to only use said, but when it comes to formatting, you do want it to fade into the background. You want it to be. You know, the neat thing about these e-readers, uh, versus like a paperback is that you can set up your own colors and fonts, things that you kind of, or how you went to experience books. And I think that's fantastic. So there's this sort of methodology where you kind of want enough control for the reader to be like, I need a white screen or I want to cream screen, I'm using a Kindle Paperwhite and so it looks like a real page, you know, that's what I love about vellum and I'm not trying to sell vellum to anyone, but it has definitely been my favorite thing and it is, it's not as simple as a click, but it is a drag and drop and then make sure everything looks right.

So it's so, and actually Scrivener now we'll spit it out into vellum basically. So it is just, it's almost seamless and it is fantastic. Of course, you know, I always laugh at that idea that Scribner will spit out the fi file and develop. But the problem is unless your editor is using either Scribner or vellum am you still have to have the editor kind of sitting in there somewhere. So you've got to figure that one out.

Jesper (22m 1s): Yeah. And just to be clear, I mean we're not, we're not affiliates of Willem or anything, so we just mentioning it because it's a very good tool and I think I'll put a, I'll put a link to vellum in the show notes as well just in case anybody wants to check it out. But again, it's not an affiliate link or anything. So we just mentioning it because we really liked that tool and I especially liked the, because you helped me or them when I was a formatting my ebook on mapmaking because there was a lot of different images in that file of of different maps and I was really concerned initially about how is this going to scale on different e-readers because you know, my file of course has like a, a certain size of of the different maps I in in a set side size and my Scribner file.

So I was really concerned like how is this going to look across the different new readers. But then yeah, she just explained, well I'm just a auto fits it to the different, the ureter so that it's, it's amazing like that it looks

Autumn (22m 55s): good no matter where you put it. And you get these like you can do little different images or you know borders around it. It's just, it's easy. It looks pretty and there's times am it's almost, I used to format my paperbacks in word because I had control and I can have different fonts and different drop caps and I can make it look a little more fantasy where you know, the font options and vellum are not all, you know, there's like five or six different fonts and honestly they all look about a hundred percent the same to me. And I love fonts, which is kind of sad.

But it is true. There's not a huge unit. Can't really change things really badly. And I mean I probably went sometimes too far cause I would have my drop cap. So that big capital at the beginning of a chapter in a totally different font that maybe looked more fantasy or something. I thought the books were just gorgeous because if you're going to pay 1112 you know, plus dollars for a paperback, you should get a work of art. It should be beautiful and something you're going to cherish.

Because honestly, I mean, how many books do any of us have that are actually on our shelf? So if you're going to go that far, it should be just this wonderful, wonderful thing to celebrate books. And so I would go way out of town and once I switched to vellum paper back, I lost a few things that I used to do, but I have to admit, it is so easy. I know format once and I get an EPOP. I get my Moby Kindle file and I get my paper back. Boom, boom, boom.

That's why I did it. I had to give up some of my creative control. But yeah, no, they're also changing and growing and maybe eventually a little, let me add a few more fonts, but for now it's, it's not worth, um, being that creative because really at the end of the day I just want it to look good and carry across to all the readers wherever they pick it up that it is a beautiful file and plus it has to not be massive cause like we was talking about with yours and the photos, it's so easy if you're doing that in word to make that not knowing how things are going to size.

And there's some coding techniques where it's a flowable texts so it's not going to, you know, where the page break is going to be for the next chapter if you have one. But basically things don't get hung up on one page versus the next page. There's some really cool things that go into coding for e-readers if you, if you get into coding things. So you know, knowing all that's in there to create that in word is cumbersome. And if you have some hidden formatting things like a space or if you're using tabs.

Oh my goodness, don't I remember, I think the first time I wrote anything, I use tabs instead of an automatic indebt at a paragraph or that horrible, I can't even remember what Amazon might've done to it. It was just like, Nope, start over. Uh, those are things that it's really nice when you use a software program, it'll fix that for you. But I definitely, I learned very quickly to set up my typing document am correctly so that you hit enter and it gives you an indent and never, ever, ever touched tab while you're writing something.

Jesper (26m 23s): No. And I think at least at the point of disregarding, uh, Mac or vellum is only available for Mac.

Autumn (26m 30s): I think you're right, but

Jesper (26m 33s): there is, there should be a work around, uh, actually I'll try to find a link on how to do that work around and then put that into shore. Not as well, if anybody's interested. But what you could do is you can basically like a Mac

Autumn (26m 44s): in the cloud. So that means that you basically have a Mac machine, but it sits in the cloud. And then you can do use developed from there. And then even though you have a PC, you can, you can get the files out of vellum that way. But I'll see if I can find the link to how to get access to Mac in a cloud somewhere. I'm not, I'm not sure. I've never done it myself, but I'll try to find the link and put it in the show notes. But maybe we should also mention apart from vellum, um, if you go to draft two digital, I'll also put a link to that in the show notes, but if you go there, they actually offer free formatting for years.

So they're not going to charge you anything. And you do not have to publish with draft two digital either to use the formatting tool. Anybody can use it for absolutely free without any commitments or publishing anything with draft two digital. So those guys are just cool like that. Yeah. So that's another option. Yes. And it's a pretty powerful editor and formatted or format her as well. And it'll create something. I don't think it's quite as pretty as vellum but it probably all the breaks where you need it. Um, it talks, you know, they even step you through what you need for your front matter and your back matter.

So if you're just into publishing, maybe this is your first book and you suddenly you have to consider what do I put at the beginning, you know, where do I add Jeff to digital actually will step you through that and kind of give you some ideas of like, Hey, do you have this, do you have your links here? Do you have this about your bio? So they are really good guys that way and it is, you know, is a decent file and it'll carry across very well. And I also want to mention, I am not good with this one, but Calibri is a free formatting software that's available online.

And I do have that. Yeah, I use it to look at things and it actually converts file types very well. So for if you had for some reason something you wanted to convert an epoch back to a doc file, you can actually do that with Calibri. And that's why I have it because I can, I can change the format around. But yeah, you mess up in Calibri and you get, Oh, you get spaces. It's, yeah, I it blows up whenever I use it, but I do, I've, I know people who have used it and they create amazing books.

And I do think there's a way of using it for videos, which, um, is a nonfiction book. Like if you're doing like a web tutorial and you actually want the video embedded in your book, I'm not sure vellum does that yet, but I think you can do it with Calibri if you happen to be a coding wizard as much as I play with code and stuff like that, that is way beyond me. Yeah. But another nice trick that I could also mention is that if you get, I mean, of course you software, so we're talking about now like vellum or drafted digital that they'll like spit up the format files you need.

But, but just a very neat trick as well is if you have the Kindle previewer

Jesper (29m 43s): so that you can download that from Amazon. It's just like a free piece of software you can download. So not, not the Kindle for PC, but the Kindle previewer. If you download that and basically you can then use that preview or to open an IPAP file and then the preview will recognize that this is not my correct file format and then it'll automatically converted into a mobi. But that's pretty, uh, that's a pretty neat trick.

Autumn (30m 7s): That is a good one. And I do know, I think ebook funnel, if you have to be using ebook funnel, they will now do some conversions for you as well. I think they'll take an E pub and make it to a mobi. Um, it's a new announcement and I don't know if I read the whole thing, but I think that's something that they're doing. So if you're an author and you want to, I mean, why is this important? Because you can actually upload an epoch file to Amazon and they accepted and it's fine. And even I use Smashwords as my distributor and instead of doing a dot doc file like they require and having it go through the meat grinder and not feeling competent at all about what's going to come out the other end, I actually just upload my vellum E pub and they're fine with that as well now, which is exciting.

When they switched to that, I could have just hugged everyone at Smashwords because that was a dream come true for me that I never have to do the meat grinder again. It's fantastic, but the reason you might want these files if you are trying to send out to beta readers or arc readers and you need to get the file out before it's available for sale, you kind of need all of these files, so that's why we're like telling you how to go ahead and get them and create them for yourself. Not necessarily so that you uploading them, which is it's great to have them for uploading, but if you need to get them to readers so that they can read it for you and look at things and test out your formatting.

This is how you can do it.

Jesper (31m 31s): Yeah, I would say that, you know, even for uploading when you're publishing, I mean, I would really advise against uploading a word file. I mean, yes, it's possible, but it's going to be crap. And the formatting like we just talked about here, it's important that the reader gets a good experience. So in most cases nowadays, because of these, uh, both the free tools, uh, that we've been mentioning or vellum or whatever you want to do, um, it is not too complicated to do, but, but even if you do feel is too complicated paying somebody to do a conversion for you.

I mean, you can even ask autumn and we'll do it. I mean, it's, it's not, it's not that expensive to get somebody to do it because it's a such a fairly simple job nowadays that you can get somebody to do it fairly cheaply, I would say.

Autumn (32m 19s): I agree. I mean there's definitely, there's some higher end ones, but always be conscious to the fact that if you don't do it yourself or you hire someone, you know, make sure they keep the file or give you access to the file. Because if you, what are your readers finds a misspelling and you want it fixed, you don't want to have to pay for the formatting all over again. So that's why I think I like being in charge of it myself. I don't think it's just that I'm like a control freak, but whatever. I have to tell myself at the end of the day.

Right.

Jesper (32m 52s): That's true.

Autumn (32m 56s): But it is, I would say, yeah, just sort of final note formatting I think one of the things we really haven't talked about and was one of the first things with formatting that surprised me was so important and will actually decrease, um, Amazon's acceptance of your book is if you do not have that clickable table of contents in the beginning. So often if you're uploading a word file, unless you've gone through and done the bookmarks, even in pages, there's a whole bunch of processing and coding you have to do on yourself and it's not too difficult.

It just takes time and consistency and double-checking herself, but making that so you have an act of table of contents in the beginning that you click on chapter 11 and actually go to chapter 11 if you don't have that, Amazon will actually ping that against you. So make sure that is there. And if you're a new author and you don't know how to do that, it's part of your formatting get someone to do it for you or vellum or there's pages in word. There's a few ways of doing it and there's a wrong way of doing it as well, that it creates something that's not actually going to upload to Amazon.

So double check that. But that's one of the biggest things that you want to make sure you have because it's actually important to the places you're uploading. If they don't see that clickable table of contents, they're like, yeah, you don't know what you're doing and this is not going to work for us.

Jesper (34m 18s): Yup. Okay. So I hope you got a lot a lot out of that and learned a bit about formatting and some things to think about a, it's certainly one of the things you don't want to skimp on a at the end and, and stumble on that finish line that there was no reason to do so. And if you find all the techie stuff a bit complicated, you know, uh, yeah, you can, yeah. You can commission order to, to do it for work for you. For I'm am and for a very fair price. You, she will do that. But that's up to you. Whatever you want to do a, I'll put some, I'll put some links in the show notes as I've been mentioning here.

And uh, and then, uh, next Monday I'm aiming to have an interview lined up for you, but I'll see how that goes. And if for some reason that doesn't work out, autumn and I will be back.

Narrator (35m 7s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.