I'm sure that most, if not all of us, have at one point or another been faced with the prospect of a job interview. Before going to said interview you likely polished yourself up a bit right? Combed your hair, showered, shaved (face or legs depending), put on clean clothes, maybe even a new suit. As the old adage says...dress for success.

Looking through the offerings of my fellow indie authors I'm left wondering why we don't apply the same adage to our work?

Is a publication really all that different from an interview? In a job interview you're basically selling yourself to the company you want to hire you. As authors are we not selling ourselves to potential readers whenever we put out a book? The similarity is striking and we should be doing everything in our power to put the best version of ourselves out there in both instances.

And yet I've come across so many indie books that lack the basic formatting that lends itself to success. I'm not going to name names here; I'm not about tearing people down but rather about building them up.

So with that in mind, this week's post is all about simple formatting elements that can help lend that all important air of professionalism to your book.

One of the easiest things you can do is justify your paragraphs. In Word this is literally just the click of a button. Pick up any traditionally published book and you'll see that the words resemble blocks on the page. Justifying your paragraphs just makes them more appealing to a reader's eye; our goal in publishing yes?

Another often overlooked formatting element is running headers. Headers and footers can really dress up your finished page, almost acting as a border on top and bottom. In Word this is again rather simple to accomplish. The problem that I've seen in a number of works is when the header is placed on the first page of a new chapter. When starting a new chapter the header should be omitted so as to maintain a clean appearance. You accomplish this in Word by using "section breaks" in addition to "page breaks".

I won't spend much time on page breaks but will just say you should be using them keep your breaks where you intend them to be upon file conversion. If this has tripped you up, you're not alone it's got me too!

And while on the subject of new chapters...why don't more us get creative here? I see so many bland chapter headings that make me wonder why the author doesn't change up the font or the size of the heading to make it "pop" or stand out. Such a small alteration but if it allows your work to stand out in the crowded field it will be well worth the effort!

So how about covers? They are the first thing a prospective reader sees of your work and as such are important. I have no issue with using stock photos personally as in this day and age there are a lot of quality photos out there. What I do have an issue with are quotes on the cover. Quotes, that is, that are not attributed to anyone.

If you're going to grace your book with a quote that says "A tremendous read" or "Best book I've read in awhile" then make sure you attribute it to someone who actually said it. When you don't...it appears as if you made it up yourself just to put on the cover and that detracts from all your hard work within the book.

So that's all I've got and I sincerely hope it helps the aspiring authors out there to put that last bit of polish on each of their gems!

Feel free to leave any other helpful formatting suggestions in the comments section as there are none of us who can't stand to learn a thing or two.

Excelsior!!