One thing that I’ve learned over time is that there are some specific (though not set in stone) requirements to the formatting of a manuscript.

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How it looks and how it works do matter!

In my time as a book formatter, I’ve also learned that there are a wide variety of ways to incorrectly format a manuscript. The problems start back at the very beginning, and that’s why I think it’s important for us authors to learn how to format the most basic parts of our works in progress so that our editor doesn’t have to waste any time fixing things we could have done ourselves.

Formatting basics

• page size
• margins
• font
• indentations
• hard returns
• page breaks
• scene breaks
• chapter headers
• and page headers

When we are properly formatting these items ahead of time our editors don’t have to stop and fix them…

by Lauren Sapala

I’ve launched three different books in the past couple years and I’ve definitely noticed a pattern. Every time I go into “launch mode” I tend to also go into “marketing frenzy,” which means I’m frantically researching, emailing, posting, and overthinking about my book of the moment. My main drug of choice to support the frenzy is the internet. Because no matter what question I might have, the online world seems to have the answers.