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smashwords formatting
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I've actually used my kindle .doc (word 97) files for Smashwords as well and had no problem.If you have minimal formatting, it doesn't seem to be a big issue.
And their guide, though intensive, is very easy to get through.
It's easier than what it looks like - especially if you use Open Office instead of Word (Word tends to leave nasty things on your doc)! ;-)Just remember: NO Tabs (which is something I pre-set on all my word.docs), 1,5 spacing, TNR12. If you must add a ToC (Table of Contents) it might be a little more tricky, but for novels I never add one.
And I usually turn the Smashwords doc into an HTML file to upload on Kindle... so, really, it looks worse than it actually is! :-)
Thanks for the info - it's a bit overwhelming when you get to the smashwords site and they have a 90 page guide for how to do it! lol. Luckily I still have some time to figure it out.
It's intimidating when you begin but if you just go step-by-step as you read the guide, it's really easy. I used Word it worked fine.
I agree. The Smashwords guide seems daunting at first, but, if you use the Nuclear Method like they suggest (copying your Word document into Notepad to remove all the old formatting and then re-formatting it back in a new Word document), it works really well.Re-formatting can be tedious if you have a lot of different font styles or italics, etc., but it's worth it in the end.
Agree with the others: it's daunting if you look at the entire guide, but it's not too bad if you treat it like an overlong recipe and just follow everything step-by-step. Because their formatting is so fiddly, my Smashwords file is the foundation for other formats (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, print-on-demand.) That takes some of the pain out of changes.If you use "Styles" in your document to set up the look for interior text and chapter headers, then you're probably in good shape. Stripping tabs can be done with a find/replace which you should do anyway (styles can set the indent for you.)
As others have said, don't let the Smashword guide scare you off. It's really not as complicated as they make it seem.If you're doing just a straight fiction story, formatting is relatively simple. Michael nailed it with his suggestion. Best thing to do is create the Smashwords file and use that as the basis for your other formats.
The other tip that will come in handy is to do EVERYTHING with styles. For whatever reason, every different type of format (Amazon, B&N, Smash), interprets Word's code differently. So if you use tabs for example, or the center button for text, many formats won't respect it.
If you do everything through custom styles though, pretty much every format will respect the formatting of the style.
Muah! you guys are so great - it is encouraging to read these comments; it makes the undertaking less daunting to follow others who have gone before.
Sorry to be joining the thread a little late. As stated in the previous posts, "styles" will become your new best friend when you move your manuscript to Smashwords.
As you may have read in the style guide, blank lines are not welcome in the body of your manuscript. Thus, in my documents, except for a few blank lines on the title page, everything including all spacing is done with the use of styles. The Smashwords Meatgrinder will ultimately decide what you can or can't do, as you transition from Amazon.
So a few quick tips. During the conversion of your manuscript the Meatgrinder will automatically build a Table of Contents for you, so help it out by making your Chapter headings an H1 style, and use page brake before, to get you to the top of the page without using blank lines.
Use a maximum font size of 18 Points (for your Title). I use 16 for headings and 14 for sub headings. And after all that being said, don't be surprised if the Meatgrinder changes the font size of your headings anyway as it builds the ToC.
For scene brakes I have a style that I call "asterisk" that I use on ***** to center them with spacing of a few pts before and after, built into the style. Again no blank lines to get you flagged.
The last tip is on transition of paragraph styles from Amazon to Smashwords. Because Amazon uses a block paragraph style and adds the first line indent during the ebook conversion, you may have built into your block paragraph style some spacing to separate the paragraphs. On Smashwords you can't separate paragraphs that way and because Smashwords suggests you use a first line indent style, you get a visual separation anyway.
Getting to the point, if you do wish to periodically separate two paragraphs slightly for effect, but don't want to use the scene break method, I mentioned above, you can build a style to give you the separation you need. I call my style, First Line Indent 6pt after, to get the subtle spacing I need for an individual paragraph without getting flagged by the Meatgrinder. I hope all this has been helpful.
It's really not that bad. Though the style guide is 70+ pages, it has lots of pictures and reiterations. Once you start going through the steps, you'll find it's really not that bad.- J.M. Moris
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“My Indian Queen: A Novella” is now on Kindle and Smashwords!
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/My-Indian-Queen...
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
I did manage to get my book uploaded - still waiting for the review process to see if it can go into the premium catalog. There were no flags so that is good. The problem I encountered was the issue of it needing to be .doc instead of .docx (easy fix) and then uploading it - I had to install a new browser because smashwords did not like firefox. So, all of my stress about formatting it properly was wasted on a problem I did not foresee - isn't that the way it goes? Thanks for the helpful tips and encouragement - I hope others are finding the information as useful as I have!!
I cannot get Smashwords to accept my file. I followed their guide. I did everything step by step and my file is a word document, but Smashwords insists it is the wrong format. What do I have to do to get them to accept my file?
Janet wrote: "I cannot get Smashwords to accept my file. I followed their guide. I did everything step by step and my file is a word document, but Smashwords insists it is the wrong format. What do I have to d..."According to the poster above you, you may need to save it as a .doc instead of .docx - try "save as" Word 2003-2007 compatible.
I uploaded mine with Firefox without issue. A.C. and J.D. are probably correct about the .doc. I work in WordPerfect, and the guide is very clear about the dangers of switching to Word format, but I use the nuclear method to rip out the formatting and then do a final format in Word (output as .doc) and upload. Take your time, you'll get it.
Amy Michelle wrote: "I did a test in OpenOffice and uploaded to preview. I followed the Smashwords guide about formatting paragraphs (trailing) and still it doesn't work in preview. How does one create paragraphs so th..."Visit this website
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click on fiction or nonfiction depending on the genre. It worked really well for me.
I am probably the most computer illiterate person in the discussion. Smashwords is so easy! I don't use nuclear, I didn't understand that at all. I use about six pages out of all of those pages and I use Word. It goes right through. It took me awhile to figure out which instructions to use, but once I did that, it was easy. Now I put books on there and they go right through.
My program of choice when writing is Microsoft Works Word Processor. Do I actually have to have Microsoft Word in order to successfully publish on Smashwords or can I just save it as a .doc? Also, if multiple hard enters aren't allowed, how does a writer separate chapters from each other?
If you format your chapter titles with headings their program will automatically insert a page break.As for the program, if it saves as a .doc, I don't know why they wouldn't take it. Have you d/l the free guide?
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52
It's easier to follow on a Ereader than to have to tab all the time while you are working on your text.
It's not quite as straightforward as KDP, but if you're using Word try and use section breaks rather than page breaks, and if you want a TOC use the bookmark function instead of the header one. Even though the guide that Smashwords provide is a but daunting, it's easier to follow.Having said that, I don't know about everyone else but I tend to get 95% of my sales via Amazon so if you want to keep the option of having a slice of the Lending Library pie, you may want to just stick with KDP Select.
The Smashwords Style Guide is long, but not all of it applies to everyone. I found it convenient to read the guide through once and take notes in a Word Doc for the information that applied to me, and then format my book according to my notes. If you have more than one book published, or you plan on publishing more than one book, this is extremely helpful, because you won't have to read through the entire manual each time you publish a book.What is similar about KDP and Smashwords' formatting is that they both suggest 10 pt "after spacing," which can be done in the "paragraph" box. That is also where you can make your document single-spaced, which is preferred (as opposed to 1.5" or double-spaced). You can add a "first line indent" of 0.3", which is recommended for paragraphs that begin with an indent. For block paragraphs, there should be no first line indent, but instead change the "after spacing" to 10 pt to have a space between paragraphs. "Before spacing" and right and left indents should be set to 0". "Before spacing" does not show up in Smashwords' books, so you won't have a space before a line if you use it.
Page breaks (insert > page break) are used with ebooks, not section breaks. Section breaks are for print books so that you can format the headers, footers, and page numbers how you want them. So only use page breaks with Smashwords and KDP.
Numbered (bulleted) lists do not transfer with Smashwords. It's best to add in your numbers manually. With ebooks in general, it is best to use bullets sparingly.
It is best to use heading styles on chapter titles and chapter subtitles, if you want them to appear in your table of contents (for both KDP and Smashwords). You can modify your heading styles to your preference, and it makes formatting your chapter titles and subtitles much quicker and more accurate.
Once that's all done, with KDP all you have to do is insert your custom table of contents (under the "references" tab). You should modify the font and paragraph style of the TOC to be how you want it to look, and you should check "options" to make sure the heading styles that you want included in your TOC will be labeled with a 1 or 2 (this will allow your chapter subtitles to be indented below your chapter titles in the TOC). Lastly, un-check "show page numbers," because all you want is a hyperlinked TOC.
It is much more complicated to create a Smashwords' TOC, and it involves inserting bookmarks and hyperlinks in the right places, and deleting hidden bookmarks. If you have a long book, it could take an hour to create your TOC for Smashwords.
One other thing that I do for KDP is, after I've completed the formatting, and before I save it as "webpage, filtered," I put the cursor in a spot of the text that is the style of the majority of my text. For instance, I mostly use Times New Roman size 12 pt regular as my font, so I click the cursor in a spot of my main text that has that font styling, then I open the "font" box and click "set as default" (in the lower left corner). This helps to maintain consistency of the font in the ebook while also allowing for the font to be changeable by the reader, especially on Kindle Fires.
It is not a good idea to upload the same document to KDP and Smashwords. They have entirely different TOCs so the ebook would not be formatted correctly. Well-formatted ebooks make the reading experience so much better for the reader.
So those are the basics of what I do when I format my books for KDP and Smashwords. I also format other authors' books, so if you are confused by KDP or Smashwords formatting, or you can't get your ebook accepted by Smashwords or to look the way you want on either KDP or Smashwords, send me a message and I'll straighten it out for you.
I'm having an issue with my formatting. I use Open Office (it's so nice not having to worry about hidden crap randomly thrown in!), and when I save to .odt and close and reopen my document, it saves the hyperlinks, but when I save to .doc, close, and reopen, the hyperlinks are all gone. Sometimes it will save the underlined and blue look, but sometimes that will be gone, too.Advice?
I am currently only published on KDP. It was so easy with the 'Building your book for kindle' book which literally took you through each step on how to prepare your .doc file. I also got a fantastic free programme called Calibre which I could use to convert the file to mobi (after first converting to HTLM filtered. Calibre then allowed me to put the mobi converted file onto my own kindle and I could check for any faults and could keep going back and doing the same thing until I had got the mobi file running perfectly. It was 'dead easy'. I now want to expand to Smashwords and got the Smashwords style guide kindle book thinking it would be just as easy - was I wrong! Instead of just telling you what to do (as on 'Building your book for Kindle' - the author goes on and on and on about what you shouldn't do - page after confusing page of unnecessary long winding infuriating blurb. Does anyone know - IF I have a .doc file which works perfectly when converted to mobi on kindle - IF that .doc file is then submitted unaltered is it likely to be converted by Smashwords processes to a healthy looking epub.. mobi... palm doc and all the others... and is there a handy programme I can get to check it out. I really think the Smashwords style guide could have been written in a much more simple fashion.
I followed the smashwords style guide to the letter (at considerable use of my time) and had the book approved for premium disto. Unfortunately the formatting is terrible when read on a Kindle. Like every other ebook formatted by smashwords I have seen, the book starts halfway into the table of contents. (The first page that comes up when you open the book is Table of Contents Chapter 19)
It is so irritating I can't begin to tell you. Amazon's KDP has never done this to any of my ebooks. I will not be using smashwords in the future.
Ed wrote: "It is so irritating I can't begin to tell you. Amazon's KDP has never done this to any of my ebooks. I will not be using smashwords in the future."
I have not yet used Smashwords, but I've seen more than one recommendation to use Smashwords to submit to everything except KDP and to always manually submit your Kindle version directly through KDP for best results.
I never had a problem publishing with smash and i never read the idiotic guide. What you have to do is easy: no formating, no trying to make the text look nice, actually the worse it looks the better u get into premium catalogue, no mora than 3 spaces between each chapter, no more than than one text size, as simple - simple - very simple as possible, all text to the left etc. Make it look very simple and very unedited and u are there.
@Ed That's the first time I hear that. I did download the mobi format and tried it in my Ipad with the Kindle app and it looked fine. I submitted to kdp individually but I rely on Smashwords for free copies since I don't have to buy my own book to gift it to someone. Now, I'm worried...
If Smashwords doesn't accept tabs (or most other MS Word formatting) how do I indent, add page breaks, center titles and chapters numbers, etc?Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
J.L. wrote: "If Smashwords doesn't accept tabs (or most other MS Word formatting) how do I indent, add page breaks, center titles and chapters numbers, etc?Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks."
Smashwords offer a free book on how to format to their specs.
@JL everything has to be done with styles. So your indent is in your 'normal' style that you use for paragraphs, you use one of the 'Heading' styles in Word such as 'Heading1' and format it how you want for chapter headings and use that for the chapter headings. I haven't done any of this for real yet but am reading the free Smashwords formatting guide and I think if you have chapter headings with a Heading style, Smashwords automatically puts in a page break, at least for certain formats such as EPUB. No doubt people who are more experienced will verify. Also see message 22 by Christine above as she explains a lot of this.
A.C. wrote: "Currently I am publishing exclusively through the Amazon KDP program but after the 90 days are up, I am looking at expanding into the smashwords as well. I have started to look into it because I re..."It's pretty straightforward, actually. At the risk of sounding snarky, just RTFM ... and you'll have no problems.
My question is: Is it really as difficult as they make it out to be or once you get started does it start to make more sense?
Getting set up with kindle was a cakewalk - it was very user friendly and their guide was a single page and straight forward. It was also an HTML file as compared to a .doc file....