Formatting Templates?

[RCoots]

I have a couple questions.
1) Has anyone here gotten templates from The Book Designer site? More specifically, have you had to contact support at all? I was looking at them, but I had questions. Each time I've emailed for information, I got crickets in response.

2) Any other places I might find a good template? I have epigraphs at the start of each chapter and getting them formatted is my worry.

I'm open to one of the formatting programs (not vellum, no Mac here), but I'm less certain of my ability to do anything solid with them without taking eons.

Thanks!

[RPatton]

I have a couple questions.
1) Has anyone here gotten templates from The Book Designer site? More specifically, have you had to contact support at all? I was looking at them, but I had questions. Each time I've emailed for information, I got crickets in response.

2) Any other places I might find a good template? I have epigraphs at the start of each chapter and getting them formatted is my worry.

I'm open to one of the formatting programs (not vellum, no Mac here), but I'm less certain of my ability to do anything solid with them without taking eons.

Thanks!

For ebooks or print?

If ebooks, then I suggest learning how to hand format. My current workflow includes InDesign, my own CSS, and Sigil since Calbire likes to put it's own CSS in there.

[Tom Wood]

Scrivener makes a clean ebook once you get the hang of it. There is a learning curve, but it's not too bad. L&L has a help forum that is very helpful: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/index.php

I use InDesign for print. A steep learning curve, but worth the effort if you will be doing this a lot. Granted, I have a legacy version so I don't have to pay for it monthly. It may get costly unless you really dive in.

[sandree]

I’m with you, RCoots - just getting to the end of editing my first novel and researching how to self publish. I looked at those templates from The Book Designer and read the instructions - looks like you have to do a lot of messing around with them - so it doesn’t seem worth the money. Plus I would rather choose my own style rather than one many others have used. So I’m following along here, looking for ideas. I would like to do both ebook and print and thinking of using Draft2Digital and go wide.

See how smoothly I inserted that self pub lingo - go wide - just figured out what that means. 

[liveswithbirds]

I have a couple questions.
1) Has anyone here gotten templates from The Book Designer site? More specifically, have you had to contact support at all? I was looking at them, but I had questions. Each time I've emailed for information, I got crickets in response.

I've used two different templates from The Book Designer. I did find a bug in one of them that I had to contact support for. It was the Pulp template (5.25 x 8 trim size) and one side of the page had, like 33 lines of text and the other side had 34, I think, and they didn't seem to understand what I was getting at. I ended up fixing the issue myself by going into the footer and either adding or removing a line. Can't remember which. It was a few years ago.

Other than that, the templates themselves are pretty easy to work with. You just cut and paste your ms. in.

They work well with all the major retail platforms, too. The only issue I had was recently with Smashwords. I had to go into Styles and change the paragraph spacing or something like that in order to pass their "meatgrinder." But again, a five-minute fix.

All in all, they're a relatively low-cost, easy-to-use option.

I'm debating whether to go that route again for my next release or spend a few more bucks and have a pro do it, just because I've never done so and would love to see how it compares.

Hope this helps!

[Elizabeth Avery]

TheBookPatch has FREE templates for Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign in a variety of trim sizes. I've been doing my own formatting since the beginning with the templates I downloaded from them. There was some minor editing I had to do to get rid of extra pages I don't need for Kindle, but so far I haven't found the need for any extra special writing software.

Here's a link to the templates:

https://www.thebookpatch.com/PrintBook#templates

[Jo]

Is it okay to post another question to an existing one? If not please separate.

I'm also looking for an ebook template, the current WiP is a doc file and I'd like to format it for uploading to D2D and Amazon. Simple thing, just a working and up to date template for a no-frills book which doesn't throw double-spaced lines or other nonsense.

[RCoots]

Is it okay to post another question to an existing one? If not please separate.

I'm also looking for an ebook template, the current WiP is a doc file and I'd like to format it for uploading to D2D and Amazon. Simple thing, just a working and up to date template for a no-frills book which doesn't throw double-spaced lines or other nonsense.

If you find a good one, let me know!

[Denise]

Frankly, for print, I think you'll spend less time and hassle (and maybe money) getting someone to do it for you on Vellum. I know that some people in this forum can it, and you can also pay someone on Fiverr.

Another option is the Reedsy editor: https://blog.reedsy.com/how-to-format-a-book/  https://reedsy.com/write-a-book

Is it okay to post another question to an existing one? If not please separate.

 I'd like to format it for uploading to D2D and Amazon. Simple thing, just a working and up to date template for a no-frills book which doesn't throw double-spaced lines or other nonsense.

D2D has nice ebook templates. I'd just pick one of them.

[Jo]

D2D has nice ebook templates. I'd just pick one of them.

That's not what I mean. I want a Word template which I just need to properly fill with text and link, so that I can upload it to Amazon, Smashwords and D2D. Before any of these spew out the epub/kindle version.

[Denise]

That's not what I mean. I want a Word template which I just need to properly fill with text and link, so that I can upload it to Amazon, Smashwords and D2D. Before any of these spew out the epub/kindle version.

I don't understand what you mean. D2D takes any Word file and converts to epub. As long as chapter titles are in a bigger font or bold, it recognizes them. You don't need a template. You can then upload your D2D-generated epub on Amazon.

Smashwords is finicky if you want to use their guidelines and be available in all their formats, and that's another story, but you need to consider if it's worth it. There could be a template for Smashwords, but you didn't mention it in your original question. You could still just upload your D2D epub there.

[Jo]

D2D asks whether it should format the file or not. When I upload a pre-formatted file and don't allow it to format I will get a different file from when I do. I so far consider my own linked up files better than D2D's.

That's why I asked for a Word template, so I can tweak it and link it the way I want it done.

[Denise]

I so far consider my own linked up files better than D2D's.

That's why I asked for a Word template, so I can tweak it and link it the way I want it done.

I see. Interesting. Most authors like D2D epubs. Yeah, I don't know about Word templates for epub...

[She-la-te-da]

You can make your own Word template. Smashwords' style guide will walk you through it, though you do have to read the entire thing or skim well enough to find all the tips. Basically, set up Styles for headings and paragraph formats -- spacing, indents and so on -- and there you go. Save as something you'll remember and you can use it every time. This is what I did way back when I was using Word. I used to have a shortcut guide to doing a template, but gods know where it went, along with the template I had uploaded to some file sharing site.

[sandree]

You can make your own Word template. Smashwords' style guide will walk you through it, though you do have to read the entire thing or skim well enough to find all the tips. Basically, set up Styles for headings and paragraph formats -- spacing, indents and so on -- and there you go. Save as something you'll remember and you can use it every time. This is what I did way back when I was using Word. I used to have a shortcut guide to doing a template, but gods know where it went, along with the template I had uploaded to some file sharing site.

Just curious - now that you have moved on from the Word template, how do you format your books? How do mast prolific authors format?

[She-la-te-da]

I use Scrivener now. I don't have a Mac so no Vellum for me. I've looked a Jutoh, but I don't see any advantage over Scrivener. I like my ebooks simple, so I do a basic format (or compile) and move on. I don't have the patience to do much beyond what I'm doing, no using this that and the other programs to "tweak" anything.

As to what most prolific authors do? Hm. Likely a lot more than I do, or hire it out. :D

[SCapsuto]

I've been using The Book Designer templates for ebooks and print for a few years and am basically happy with them. For ebooks, for any given template, try doing the conversion in both Kobo's and D2D's converters, and use whichever one comes out closer to the original layout.