This article will give you recommendations on how to publish a book. Certain editors, book publishers, or publishing companies may have formatting requirements. You can always check book marketing websites for that information, and if you’re unsure, you may ask.

In the United States, the following formatting guidelines are applied to Publish a Book, whether fiction and nonfiction writings

What is the best format to publish a book?

This is what a conventional manuscript format should look like.

1.      Use Times New Roman in black, 12-point font.

Yes, Times New Roman is dull and boring to publish a book, but it’s the default font on almost every computer.

For effect, don’t choose a stylish font. Save it for after you’ve finished editing.

2.      Use the normal paper size of 8.5 x 11 inches in the United States, with 1-inch margins on all sides.

These settings are automatically present when you create a new document in word, but if you export to word from another program, double-check the output to confirm that the page size and margins are proper.

To change the page size in word, go to File>Page Setup and select Page Size from the drop-down menu.

In a word, go to format>Document to set the margins.

3.      Change the alignment to justified left.

Rough right text is another name for left-justified text. The text will align itself on the left side, leaving the right side unjustified.

Select the whole text in word, click the left justification button in the Home tab, go to format>Paragraph, and select “Left” from the Alignment drop-down box.

4.      After periods, use a single space.

Use your word processor’s ‘Find and Replace’ tool if your document has two spaces following a period. Fill in two spaces in “Find” and one space in “Replace,” then hit “Replace All” with wild abandon, typing teacher be damned.

5.      Double-spaced line spacing.

This could be the most helpful thing you can do for your editor. Give your words room to breathe on the page if you want them to see every last word.

If you’ve already written your book with different line spacing, select all of your text in word, go to format> Paragraph, and then select “Double” from the “Line spacing” drop-down box.

6.      Use a .5-inch indent for all paragraphs, and don’t use tab or space to indent.

This may be a pet peeve of every editor. The terms “setting tabs” and “pressing tab” are not interchangeable.

The first paragraph of any chapter is generally not indented after a subhead or a bulleted or numbered list.

7.      Format paragraphs in accord with genres.

Fiction authors should use indented paragraphs with no complete paragraph breaks. Nonfiction authors can use no indentation if they use a full paragraph break between paragraphs.

Look up the paragraphing conventions in a book in your genre and then copy them.

8.      Make use of page breaks

Don’t just keep pushing return until you get to a new page to start a new chapter. Instead, make use of page breaks.

put the arrow at the end of a word chapter, then go to the top menu and select “Insert > Break > Page Break.”

9.      Number your pages

Don’t start numbering your pages on the title page. Rather, start numbering on the first page of your story.

Double-click in the page’s header area where your story begins to insert page numbers in word, then select “Insert > Page Numbers” from the drop-down menu. Place your page numbers in the top left corner of the page.

10.  Submit your manuscript as a single Word document (.doc/.docx).

You don’t have to compose your masterpiece in words. And, whatever you do, never send individual chapters to your editor as separate files.

3 Most Common formats to publish a Book

When you first start in the book market and want to publish a book, it’s important to understand the differences between your many book formatting options. There are three basic book formats for creating and designing your book, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Read about the benefits of each to choose which the best option to publish a book is:

Printing Books in PDF to publish a book.

The PDF is the industry standard for printing books and documents. You must prepare your print book to standard print book sizes and give a PDF file to the printer when creating a print book.

It’s simple to make a PDF, but it’s far more difficult to make a beautiful book, which is why you need either get a book design template, learn how to use a book production program, or pay an expert.

From Word to InDesign to PowerPoint to Photoshop, every software may be converted to PDF and printed or given digitally in its original form.PDFs might be difficult to read on small devices since the text does not reflow.

EPUB.

You’ll come across the EPUB book formatting option in every attempt to publish an ebook—it’s industry standard. Except for Amazon, which created has its system called MOBI instead, everyone in the digital publishing industry agreed to use the EPUB standard.

EPUB files may be read on Apple devices, Barnes & Noble Nooks, and Adobe Digital Editions software, and they allow you access to the world’s largest ebook retailers.

Before submitting your EPUB to a publishing platform or retailer, be sure it’s valid. Otherwise, you run the risk of damaging your ebook. If you’re doing it by yourself or hiring an expert, make sure to use the free validation tools provided by the International Book Publishing Forum (IBPF).

Amazon Kindle(MOBI)

As previously stated, Amazon chose to forge its route and create its book format. MOBI-formatted ebooks could initially only be read on Amazon’s Kindle e-readers, but it didn’t take long for people to realize this and produce software that allowed MOBI files to be read on other devices. MOBI-formatted ebooks can now be accessed by simply downloading the Amazon Kindle app on any e-reading device. If you’ve already written an EPUB and want to convert it to MOBI (as is typically the case), we recommend leaving it to the experts.