Support for Indie Authors discussion

I posted a question about headers last week and got some very helpful advice, but after working on it for days and practically pulling my hair out, I ended up googling 'are headers necessary in books'. The answer I got, was that they're not, that it's however you want to do it.
So here's my question...if you picked up a lovely paperback book and began to flip through the pages, would it look unprofessional to you if there were no headers? I've already uploaded it into Create Space and from the digital proof, it looked good...to me. Would it bother you???

I meant to comment on this when you posted about it last time, but, well, I got distracted. Anyway, your question about headers got me curious, so I looked at some of my paper books. For the ones that started a new chapter on a new page, they did indeed leave off the page number. However, the fact that I had to physically look to see that should tell you that it didn't make a bit of difference to me while I was reading it.

For my own book, I put page numbers on every page starting at chapter one and ending at "the end", and no one has said a word about it. I take that back, my kids complained that the page number should be at the bottom center instead of the top corner. I told them they are weird.

Bottom line: do what looks good to you and causes the least amount of headaches. Most of your readers will likely not even notice.

I agree. pane numbers aren't necessary. they look nice but most people won't notice of you leave them out

I don't mean page numbers. Those were easy to figure out. 8-) I mean your name on the top of one page, then the book name on the top of the other page. So with that understanding...did you guys have THOSE headers?? 8-)

I skip them and in most of my scifi paperbacks, they aren't there. In fact, the only book I own that has the author's name and book title as a header is On Writing by Stephen King, which leads me to believe this is more of a nonfiction requirement.

Ah, sorry! Again, I went and looked at my paperbacks for reference. Most of them did have author on one page and book title on the other. BUT there were discrepancies between them where some were centered, some left justified, and some right justified. The fact that I had to look though means I never noticed.

In my own book the only thing I used were page numbers. That's it. And no complaints.

And I have to make a comment about Christina's post! I have a lot of Stephen King novels and all the ones I checked had the author name/book title headers. But that doesn't mean I'm going to start using them!

You guys are the best! I will just do the page numbers and call it good. So...this is good! 8-) Thanks for the advice!

Well to be fair, On Writing is the only King novel I still have in physical form, so maybe headers are a Stephen King requirement. ;p

All of the trad pub books I own that I checked have the headers, while only about two third of my Indies have it. (I own a little over 30 Indies.)

Would it bother me if a book wouldn't have them? Of course not. It never did before.

Page numbers only count in physical books. In eBooks, they are irrelevant, due to the fact that page numbers vary with the size and type of the device. So my advice is to make a TOC for your printbook, and number your pages. The TOC in an eBook only assists you in jumping to the chapter when you access it.

BTW, Kindle is now deciding that if you don't have an TOC of your book in the front of the eBook book, they will start taking your book down. Also, they are going to start doing the same thing if there are too many reports from readers about poor editing.

I wouldn't leave the running headers out. If you want to look professional, they need to be there.

most books have headers either on the ends or centered. only a few fiction titles from small houses i came across on my shelves don't have headers. these are all trad published.
I don't have headers atm because I never set up my templates lolz

Okay, the Harry Potter books have headers too. But some of my books don't even start the chapters on a new page (I'm looking at you, Toni Morrison), so to say one style looks more "professional" than another is not right.

P.D. wrote: "I wouldn't leave the running headers out. If you want to look professional, they need to be there."

That's merely a matter of fashion and not "professionalism". Headers are all over the lot in the books I have. And every one of those books is "professional" in that it was published by a major house located in any one of several continents.

Nonfiction books have headers to allow readers to flip quickly to the section of interest. They have TOCs and indexes and such for the same reason. Fiction tends to lack these these things (anthologies and the like accepted) because it doesn't need them. So I wouldn't worry about them.

I wouldn't worry much about appearing "professional" either. For this reason: readers who actually care about a book looking "professional" tend not to buy books by Indie authors. To those people, we are "unprofessional" by default and they won't look inside your book to see what your headers look like in the first place.

We aren't going to convince these people we are "professional" by attempting to copy whatever the latest fashion that someone has, for this limited time, decided looks "professional". Those people are looking for a Big 5 imprimatur, and that's pretty much it.

People who tend to buy our work don't much care about things like headers. So stressing over headers is not going to make a significant difference in your sales. Your time is much better spent on other things.

I use headers, my name on the left page, the book name on the right. Took a little while to figure out, but once I accomplished it I thought it made the book look more professional. I leave the page number and header off the first page of the first chapter by formatting it as a title page and beginning the subsequent page count at 2.

Hmm, not sure why my reply, quoting P.D.'s 'professional' comment was removed... So I'll try again, and make it shorter. I realize this may be old school, and I realize that more and more reading is done digitally rather than in paper... But I can't imagine putting out a print book without page numbers and author/title headers.. And I would be hard pressed to buy one that was missing those items. Having said that, if you stick to digital, it becomes a moot point.

spent all night packing and moving books and some have author/title headers others just title headers and some not at all. all these were trad pubbed. so it's really just up to you if you want to or not

Last thing I'm gonna say on this topic. If I notice whether or not a book has author/book title headers then I'm not enjoying the narrative, and may not even finish reading it.

Owen wrote: "P.D. wrote: "I wouldn't leave the running headers out. If you want to look professional, they need to be there."

That's merely a matter of fashion and not "professionalism". Headers are all over t..."

Oooh, all excellent points! You're talking me into just doing page numbers with no book name or author name! Well done, good sir! !-)

J. Daniel wrote: "Last thing I'm gonna say on this topic. If I notice whether or not a book has author/book title headers then I'm not enjoying the narrative, and may not even finish reading it."

haha True that. If one pays more attention to headers than what one reads, there's a huge problem there and it's not the lack of headings. :P

J. Daniel wrote: "Last thing I'm gonna say on this topic. If I notice whether or not a book has author/book title headers then I'm not enjoying the narrative, and may not even finish reading it."

This is so true.

When I read this topic, I was all "what's a header?" I have never, in my entire life, noticed a header in any book I read (and I read a lot). Purely from memory, I would have argued that none of my books have them.

But hunting through my library and actively taking a look into random books on my shelves, I now realise that a lot of them DO have them. I just never noticed.

So if your readers are anything like me, they won't notice either way.

My book The Triumphant Life was published by an indie publisher Xlibris. They put headers on all pages except the first page of a new chapter: author's name on the left page and book title on the right.

I looked at my collection and found Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. It was the twelfth printing, in January 1991. There it was: author's full name centered on top of every left page and the full name of the title centered on every right page.

I think it is a personal choice. It wouldn't affect your content either way.