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Smashwords Style Guide - How to Format Your Ebook
The Smashwords Style Guide has helped indie authors produce and publish over 130,000 high-quality ebooks. 200,000 copies of the Smashwords Style Guide have downloaded!This guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create and format an ebook using Microsoft Word.The Smashwords Style Guide is required reading for any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel. Authors and publishers who don't yet use Smashwords can still benefit from the Guide. It provides detailed information on how ebook formatting is different from print formatting, how to create a reflowable ebook, and it offers step by step illustrated instructions on how to tame the beast of Microsoft Word.INSIDE THE SMASHWORDS STYLE GUIDEGETTING STARTEDWelcome to Smashwords!Do-it-yourself, or hire help?Good formatting examplesWhat Smashwords publishes, what we don’t publishFive common formatting mistakes to avoidHow Smashwords publishes booksHow Smashwords distributes booksHow ebook formatting is different from print formattingHow we convert your book into multiple ebook formatsThe three secrets to ebook formattingHow to avoid (and fix) AutoVetter errorsIntroduction to Meatgrinder conversion systemYour required source fileUnderstanding the different ebook formatsFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONSFORMATTINGPre-PrepMaking Word BehaveStep 1: Make a back upStep 2: Activate Word’s Show/HideStep 3: Turn off Word’s “AutoCorrect” and “AutoFormat” featuresStep 4: Eliminate text boxesStep 5: The Nuclear MethodFormattingStep 6: Unify Manuscript around Normal paragraph styleStep 7: Managing and modifying paragraph styles, fontsStep 7a. How to choose the best paragraph separation method (first line indent or block?)Step 7 How to implement your chosen paragraph separation methodStep 7 How to define a proper first line indentStep 7 How to define trailing “after” space for block paragraphsStep 7 Special tips for poetry, cookbooks and learning materialsStep 7 How to define proper line spacingStep 8: Check your normalized textStep 9: Why you should never use tabs or the space bar for indentsStep 10: Managing paragraph returnsStep 11: Managing hyperlinksStep 12: Designating chapter breaks, page breaks, section breaksStep 13: Working with imagesStep 14: Text justificationStep 14 Centering textStep 15: Managing font sizesStep 16: Style formatting, symbols and glyphsStep 17: Headers and footersStep 18: Margins, page sizes and indentsStep 19: Add the Heading style to your Chapter headers (optional)Building NavigationStep 20: Building navigation into the manuscriptStep 20 Creating the NCXStep 20 Creating the linked Table of ContentsStep 20 Advanced link building (Footnotes, Endnotes)Step 20 Troubleshooting and testingFront MatterStep 21: Front matterStep 21 Blurbs (optional)Step 21 Title and copyright page (required!)Step 21 Add a Smashwords license statement below copyright pageThe End of Your BookStep 22: The end of your bookPOST-FORMATTINGStep 23: Preparing your cover imageStep 24: Review requirements for Premium
130 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 5, 2008
124 people are currently reading
381 people want to read
About the author
Mark Coker
9 books67 followersFounder of Smashwords, the leading distributor of indie ebooks. Since its launch in 2008, Smashwords has helped over 30,000 authors around the world publish and distribute nearly 100,000 ebooks. Millions of readers have enjoyed the talent and creativity of Smashwords authors.
Smashwords ebooks are distributed to Apple (32 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.
Author of:
The Smashwords Style Guide (how to create and format an ebook); The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book); The 10-Minute PR Checklist (how to implement a strategic PR program); and Boob Tube, a novel about the daytime television soap opera industry.
Smashwords ebooks are distributed to Apple (32 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.
Author of:
The Smashwords Style Guide (how to create and format an ebook); The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book); The 10-Minute PR Checklist (how to implement a strategic PR program); and Boob Tube, a novel about the daytime television soap opera industry.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
January 14, 2015
This is very detailed and easy to understand - but something Mark suggested would take 1-2 hours has taken me 2 weeks! I'm not that technically minded but it was good to learn something new. Now back to writing!
May 26, 2016
Before I started it and I saw that it was over 100 pages, I was leery, okay, that's just kind of a lot to have to learn about uploading my document to somebody's web site. Happily, much of what it has to say will only be applicable to a particular kind of person, you know, you can skip X if you're not writing a cookbook, you can skip Y if you're not a freakin' maniac whose document employs 86 different fonts.
Less happily, the voice was fairly offputting to me. It read like the audio track of a cartoon narrated by a "hip" teenage fox wearing a backwards ballcap and Macho Man Randy Savage rainbow mirrored wraparound sunglasses, voiced with the forced enthusiasm of a bad child actor.
The writer is bizarrely insistent on your using MS Word to compose your work, for somebody who uses most of the book to teach you all the many ways and means to trick Word out of doing everything it's been designed to do. Plus the hardline about the fantastic importance of getting into the Smashwords Premium Catalog reminded me of Jerry Lundegaard leaning on TruCote like he had a broken hip.
I picked up some exciting tips, tho.
"Hot Shot City" was particularly good.
Less happily, the voice was fairly offputting to me. It read like the audio track of a cartoon narrated by a "hip" teenage fox wearing a backwards ballcap and Macho Man Randy Savage rainbow mirrored wraparound sunglasses, voiced with the forced enthusiasm of a bad child actor.
The writer is bizarrely insistent on your using MS Word to compose your work, for somebody who uses most of the book to teach you all the many ways and means to trick Word out of doing everything it's been designed to do. Plus the hardline about the fantastic importance of getting into the Smashwords Premium Catalog reminded me of Jerry Lundegaard leaning on TruCote like he had a broken hip.
I picked up some exciting tips, tho.
"Hot Shot City" was particularly good.
November 16, 2012
This book is really indispensable for any author who anticipates his or her work may someday be published electronically, at Smashwords or anywhere else. Taking a finished ms and trying to format retroactively is a pain, but it's certainly possible and usually worthwhile. This book will help you discover how to do that. More importantly though, you'll learn tips from this book that will save you great heartache before you type the first sentence of your next blockbuster. As I said, whether you publish at Smashwords or you send your finished ms to some other epublisher, having read this book and implemented its sage advice is going to make your life much easier.
September 30, 2024
I'm incredibly grateful for Smashwords and that Mark Coker took the time to write a guide on how to format for the website. On the other hand, a 130 page book should not be required reading for publishing.
However, if you need detailed instructions, here they are. I'm yet to publish on Smashwords and might update this review once I have.
However, if you need detailed instructions, here they are. I'm yet to publish on Smashwords and might update this review once I have.
January 25, 2020
The first part of this book has generally good advice.
The second part of the book is very specific advice about how to format a document in Word for Smashwords, and other advice such as choosing a price that ends in $.99 cents, because otherwise your book won’t have the same price on Apple as it does everywhere else.
The big problem is not so much with the book as with the Smashwords process; they don’t appear to have any control over the software they’re using to convert documents into ebooks. This conflicts with the Smashwords desire to output to as many formats as possible. For example, they output to Palm Doc/PDB format, which is a bit long in the tooth. Real quotes can get garbled in PDB format. But instead of, in their conversion process, converting real quotes to straight quotes, they recommend that the writer turn them off in their source file, which either means maintaining multiple source files or dumbing down every other format as well.
Generally, the point of having a conversion process to different formats is to allow funneling a single source document to those formats, so as to reduce the nearly 100% chance of multiple source files getting out of sync.
Much of the instructions about how to format in Word are specifically about getting around the lack of control Smashwords has over their software. This can get very complex, partly because they’re using Word, but mostly because the bugs they have to put up with (and, thus, that Smashwords authors have to put up with) are nuts.
Also, don’t use the automatic table of contents.
This is crazy—the point of using a computer instead of a typewriter is to avoid having to manually create such things—and guarantees an out of date and mistyped table of contents page.
It’s also sad that the Smashwords conversion process still doesn’t support epub3, released in 2007. I uploaded a custom epub file for 42 Astounding Scripts because the needs of a programming book are far different from the average book. I wasn’t surprised that ensuring that code could be easily copied from the ebook to the reader’s text editor was too complex for someone else’s automated process (of course, it would have been hypocritical of the writer of a script book not to have an automatic script for it, and I do). But the novel I’m going to publish next does nothing out of the ordinary. It looks like I’ll have to upload a custom epub file anyway, because, in emulation of The Three Musketeers, it contains a handful of footnotes. Footnotes have been supported in epub for, as far as I can tell, twelve years, but they’re still not supported by the automated scripts Smashwords uses.
Knowing the difference between two very old formats really isn’t something an author should have to understand. For that matter, knowing the underlying methods Word uses to format a document is also not something an author should have to understand.
Given that you do need to know these things, at least to publish through Smashwords, this book is very detailed about how to make a Word document move successfully through the Smashwords conversion process. In that sense, this is a very useful book for potential Smashwords publishers. I’m glad I read it, and I’d definitely recommend that everyone publishing through Smashwords do so, just because the requirements seem so arbitrary. My complaints would be pointless sniping about things the author can’t do anything about if the book weren’t written by the founder, CEO, and “Chief Author Advocate” of Smashwords itself. I couldn’t get around thinking that the Chief Author Advocate’s time would be better spent fixing the things that have to be worked around in their company’s software, instead of writing a book about how to work around them.
Don’t try to make your ebook look like an exact facsimile of a print book, otherwise you’ll disappoint readers by creating a poorly formatted, unreadable ebook.
The second part of the book is very specific advice about how to format a document in Word for Smashwords, and other advice such as choosing a price that ends in $.99 cents, because otherwise your book won’t have the same price on Apple as it does everywhere else.
The big problem is not so much with the book as with the Smashwords process; they don’t appear to have any control over the software they’re using to convert documents into ebooks. This conflicts with the Smashwords desire to output to as many formats as possible. For example, they output to Palm Doc/PDB format, which is a bit long in the tooth. Real quotes can get garbled in PDB format. But instead of, in their conversion process, converting real quotes to straight quotes, they recommend that the writer turn them off in their source file, which either means maintaining multiple source files or dumbing down every other format as well.
Generally, the point of having a conversion process to different formats is to allow funneling a single source document to those formats, so as to reduce the nearly 100% chance of multiple source files getting out of sync.
Much of the instructions about how to format in Word are specifically about getting around the lack of control Smashwords has over their software. This can get very complex, partly because they’re using Word, but mostly because the bugs they have to put up with (and, thus, that Smashwords authors have to put up with) are nuts.
In the ToC-building section above, I recommended naming your Table of Contents bookmark as ref_TOC. Why? We’ve noticed that in some instances, Meatgrinder will create corrupted NCX files that include duplicate NCX entries at the end of the NCX. If your Table of Contents bookmark starts with ref_ it’ll help prevent this problem.
Also, don’t use the automatic table of contents.
Reminder: Word has an automatic ToC generation feature under the reference tab that uses field codes. Do not use this. It uses automated headings and formatting to generate the ToC and this will un-normalize your text and cause font conversion issues in your Smashwords files.
This is crazy—the point of using a computer instead of a typewriter is to avoid having to manually create such things—and guarantees an out of date and mistyped table of contents page.
It’s also sad that the Smashwords conversion process still doesn’t support epub3, released in 2007. I uploaded a custom epub file for 42 Astounding Scripts because the needs of a programming book are far different from the average book. I wasn’t surprised that ensuring that code could be easily copied from the ebook to the reader’s text editor was too complex for someone else’s automated process (of course, it would have been hypocritical of the writer of a script book not to have an automatic script for it, and I do). But the novel I’m going to publish next does nothing out of the ordinary. It looks like I’ll have to upload a custom epub file anyway, because, in emulation of The Three Musketeers, it contains a handful of footnotes. Footnotes have been supported in epub for, as far as I can tell, twelve years, but they’re still not supported by the automated scripts Smashwords uses.
Knowing the difference between two very old formats really isn’t something an author should have to understand. For that matter, knowing the underlying methods Word uses to format a document is also not something an author should have to understand.
Given that you do need to know these things, at least to publish through Smashwords, this book is very detailed about how to make a Word document move successfully through the Smashwords conversion process. In that sense, this is a very useful book for potential Smashwords publishers. I’m glad I read it, and I’d definitely recommend that everyone publishing through Smashwords do so, just because the requirements seem so arbitrary. My complaints would be pointless sniping about things the author can’t do anything about if the book weren’t written by the founder, CEO, and “Chief Author Advocate” of Smashwords itself. I couldn’t get around thinking that the Chief Author Advocate’s time would be better spent fixing the things that have to be worked around in their company’s software, instead of writing a book about how to work around them.
November 26, 2022
This is the first ebook I have read and finished using my new Kindle essential 8th, so I'm thrilled to be using it. Now let's analyze this book:
1. Reading it once is not enough. It needs reading at least one more time while editing your ebook and maybe more while troubleshooting your editing. It's a Guide, after all.
2. Most professional authors use Microsoft Word 2007 or later, and few use older versions (2003). I recommend using a separate old cheap laptop with Microsoft Word 2003 to edit and upload the manuscript to Smashwords.
3. I found that the best file format for engineering ebooks is only .pdf, and that is because these books contain a lot of tables, graphs, figures, charts, mathematical equations, and computer codes which are hard to be formatted to other file types (EPUB, MOBI, RTF, etc...) leading to a lack of marketing process.
1. Reading it once is not enough. It needs reading at least one more time while editing your ebook and maybe more while troubleshooting your editing. It's a Guide, after all.
2. Most professional authors use Microsoft Word 2007 or later, and few use older versions (2003). I recommend using a separate old cheap laptop with Microsoft Word 2003 to edit and upload the manuscript to Smashwords.
3. I found that the best file format for engineering ebooks is only .pdf, and that is because these books contain a lot of tables, graphs, figures, charts, mathematical equations, and computer codes which are hard to be formatted to other file types (EPUB, MOBI, RTF, etc...) leading to a lack of marketing process.
June 8, 2014
Contains 21st-century e-book publishing information I've never thought of before. Example: Text color should be "automatic," not "black," so that if a reader sets their device to nighttime reading, it will give them white text on black background, not black text on black background.
Easy to read, engaging, and not condescending; no repetitive lectures about why authors should use spell-check. Instills confidence that I can get Smashwords right...we'll see!
Easy to read, engaging, and not condescending; no repetitive lectures about why authors should use spell-check. Instills confidence that I can get Smashwords right...we'll see!
Want to read
August 7, 2014later. again.
April 16, 2021
Rápida, concisa y práctica.
Aunque a la hora de usarla vale la pena tener cerca pues es más bien un manual práctico.
Al final, a pesar de tener tantas opciones y herramientas para editar un libro y preparar publicación, Word sigue siendo una gran opción y ya está instalado en la mayoría de las computadoras.
Aunque a la hora de usarla vale la pena tener cerca pues es más bien un manual práctico.
Al final, a pesar de tener tantas opciones y herramientas para editar un libro y preparar publicación, Word sigue siendo una gran opción y ya está instalado en la mayoría de las computadoras.
November 14, 2017
Very clear instructions
I don't mind work if I know what to do, but when things go wrong because instructions were misleading or missing critical info, it is beyond frustrating. I was amazed that I had no problems uploading my books on Smashwords.
I don't mind work if I know what to do, but when things go wrong because instructions were misleading or missing critical info, it is beyond frustrating. I was amazed that I had no problems uploading my books on Smashwords.
March 1, 2018
Very thorough and helpful.
September 21, 2018
Very helpful. Essential to any self-published author.
May 5, 2019
good formatting guide to get all kinds of formats onto Smashwords, including Kindle and other major e-book distributors.
Read
April 9, 2020Just recently published My first book of Poetry on smashword.com. This book helped.
August 6, 2020
Didn't get to use it. No time to write outside of work. Maybe in future after retire end of 2020.
September 21, 2011
A fine guide for any of us who don't want to spend our time looking for a publisher.
Smashwords.com is a sort of online nexus for electronic publishing. With a bit of effort and time, any of us can put a book online and even charge $$ for it!—a first in history. This guide's a pretty complete breakdown of what you need to do, technically and otherwise, to get a book put up (for free) on smashwords in a huge variety of formats that almost any electronic reader can handle.
Of course, you don't end up with a print book, you don't have DRM protection (thank Jehovah) and, as this point in the game, you probably can't find more than a small handful of your acquaintances who know that smashwords exists. That, of course, could easily change, and it can change in a matter of months. Probably, it's good to get your stuff published there before the rush starts (if it does) and you become one of 7,500,000 online authors on a single site.
This guide is a free download, pretty much kept up to date, and (at least seems to be) author friendly. A good written tutorial to publishing in a particular way.
Smashwords.com is a sort of online nexus for electronic publishing. With a bit of effort and time, any of us can put a book online and even charge $$ for it!—a first in history. This guide's a pretty complete breakdown of what you need to do, technically and otherwise, to get a book put up (for free) on smashwords in a huge variety of formats that almost any electronic reader can handle.
Of course, you don't end up with a print book, you don't have DRM protection (thank Jehovah) and, as this point in the game, you probably can't find more than a small handful of your acquaintances who know that smashwords exists. That, of course, could easily change, and it can change in a matter of months. Probably, it's good to get your stuff published there before the rush starts (if it does) and you become one of 7,500,000 online authors on a single site.
This guide is a free download, pretty much kept up to date, and (at least seems to be) author friendly. A good written tutorial to publishing in a particular way.
January 2, 2012
I don't have much to say about this book. It served a purpose.
For various reasons (e.g., to avoid viruses and to ensure that certain book requirements are met), Smashwords uses proprietary software to convert Word documents into ebooks. If you want to use Smashwords's distribution channels, you have to submit your book in Word format for Smashwords to process internally. I now feel equipped to deal with the little eccentricities in Smashwords's software. I highly recommend this read for anyone seriously considering using Smashwords to publish an ebook.
I was pleased to find that the author lightened the lesson a bit with some jokes here and there. The book was packed with information and not too difficult to stomach.
On the downside, there are a couple of useful tips, such as how to create page breaks that are preserved during the Smashwords conversion, that aren't in this book. (No, Ctrl-Enter will not do the trick.) I had to find this information from other sources.
For various reasons (e.g., to avoid viruses and to ensure that certain book requirements are met), Smashwords uses proprietary software to convert Word documents into ebooks. If you want to use Smashwords's distribution channels, you have to submit your book in Word format for Smashwords to process internally. I now feel equipped to deal with the little eccentricities in Smashwords's software. I highly recommend this read for anyone seriously considering using Smashwords to publish an ebook.
I was pleased to find that the author lightened the lesson a bit with some jokes here and there. The book was packed with information and not too difficult to stomach.
On the downside, there are a couple of useful tips, such as how to create page breaks that are preserved during the Smashwords conversion, that aren't in this book. (No, Ctrl-Enter will not do the trick.) I had to find this information from other sources.
March 29, 2012
Mark has guided his professional life professionally. He's the founder of smashwords.com, which is the elite facilitator to many on-line eBook stores such as Apple's iBooks, Sony, Kobo, B&N, etc, etc. His Smashwords Style Guide is the perfect example of his professionalism in giving guidance to authors about the features of designing eBooks as well as how to format books into exciting pieces of entertainment.
It's free and it's necessary for you as an eBook author to follow his expert advise.
I'm the author of six novels, and all six are selling well using smashwords.com as my facilitator. My eBooks have sold more copies through smashwords.com than have sold through amazon.com.
You can preview and purchase my eBooks here on the smashwords site.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
It's free and it's necessary for you as an eBook author to follow his expert advise.
I'm the author of six novels, and all six are selling well using smashwords.com as my facilitator. My eBooks have sold more copies through smashwords.com than have sold through amazon.com.
You can preview and purchase my eBooks here on the smashwords site.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
January 21, 2014
Not an easy read but not a difficult one either. All you have to do is read and pay attention. It may seem like a long guide but the margins actually make it longer and there are a lot of pictures as well. So don't be intimidated by the length but at the same time, don't try to publish your first ebook overnight. And when you do read it, make sure that you have your work right in front of you so that you can make the changes to your manuscript as you read along. You also don't need to be a master at Microsoft word because in the guide, they teach your EVERYTHING! Also make sure that you make multiple copies of your original manuscript in case you make a mistake and have to start over again. Once again, not an easy read but if you have your manuscript in front of you and if you pay attention, you will definitely make your first time publishing an easy experience.
August 28, 2013
I just read the book and really enjoyed it. I have not published a book yet and wanted to learn about formatting for e-books before I jumped into it to hopefully give me an edge and so, I haven’t put any of the tips into practice yet. The book is written in clear enough language that I understand what to do. There are a couple of things I didn’t understand as well but I think once I begin the actual formatting process the concepts will become clearer.
You will need Microsoft Word to follow this guide. A really awesome thing Mark Coker did was to include written and screen cap instructions on how to do everything for versions of Word as old as 2000 up to 2007 so no one is left struggling.
If you’ve never formatted your writing for e-books and feel lost, you should read this guide.
You will need Microsoft Word to follow this guide. A really awesome thing Mark Coker did was to include written and screen cap instructions on how to do everything for versions of Word as old as 2000 up to 2007 so no one is left struggling.
If you’ve never formatted your writing for e-books and feel lost, you should read this guide.
July 28, 2014
Easy to follow and understand. I used this style guide to create my ebook, Swallow the Evil. Though a time-consuming process, the Smashwords Style Guide took what would have been a daunting, headache-filled mess of a formatting process and simplified it, providing step-by-step instructions which made for an easy and worry-free process. Following the style guide to the letter, my ebook was published without having to make any changes to formatting, and I received no tickets from any affiliate stores requesting alterations be made.
Absolutely essential to anyone serious about self-publishing for profit with Smashwords, but also a great guide for anyone looking to create ebooks independently of traditional publishers.
Absolutely essential to anyone serious about self-publishing for profit with Smashwords, but also a great guide for anyone looking to create ebooks independently of traditional publishers.
August 1, 2013
If you have any intentions of self-publishing I recommend this book. Smashwords is a reputable self-publishing platform (other platforms are available). The first part of the book is a general description of what Smashwords is, and isn't, and a general description of what you need to do to get your manuscript published. Most importantly, it tells you why you have to do these things.
My book isn't yet at a stage where I needed to try the second half of the guide. This takes you through the steps in detail, and from looking through it, it seems to be almost idiot-proof and most detailed, and I fully intend to try it out in due course.
My book isn't yet at a stage where I needed to try the second half of the guide. This takes you through the steps in detail, and from looking through it, it seems to be almost idiot-proof and most detailed, and I fully intend to try it out in due course.
April 9, 2020
A good and helpful guide. Very useful.
This guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create and format an ebook using Microsoft Word.
The Smashwords Style Guide is required reading for any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.
Authors and publishers who don't yet use Smashwords can still benefit from the Guide. It provides detailed information on how ebook formatting is different from print formatting, how to create a reflowable ebook, and it offers step by step illustrated instructions on how to tame the beast of Microsoft Word.
This guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create and format an ebook using Microsoft Word.
The Smashwords Style Guide is required reading for any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.
Authors and publishers who don't yet use Smashwords can still benefit from the Guide. It provides detailed information on how ebook formatting is different from print formatting, how to create a reflowable ebook, and it offers step by step illustrated instructions on how to tame the beast of Microsoft Word.
September 22, 2010
This is a clear, concise, direct guide to assist independent publishers who wish to publish successfully through Mark Coker's website smashwords.com.
He educates about the differences between epublishing and paper publishing. Though only a proofreader/copyeditor and not an author myself, I would recommend this book to any author who wants to epublish. He covers many platforms of epublishing. He's honest about the prospects. He gives illustrative guidance to assist the author. No fluff--my favorite feature!
He educates about the differences between epublishing and paper publishing. Though only a proofreader/copyeditor and not an author myself, I would recommend this book to any author who wants to epublish. He covers many platforms of epublishing. He's honest about the prospects. He gives illustrative guidance to assist the author. No fluff--my favorite feature!
August 1, 2011
This book is comprehensive. The instructions within are easy to comprehend and follow. It's written in a friendly style, as though someone you know was guiding you through the process of getting your book formatted properly for Smashwords. It doesn't particularly expect you to know anything except MS Word. If you don't know Word, you might find this a bit difficult. As a writer about to embark on self-publishing, this book is proving invaluable. I highly recommend it to like-minded writers and publishers.
January 2, 2016
This is a great how-to guide to help publish your ebook to Smashwords. The instructions are easy to follow and straight forward. I read this book within a few days and when I got to actually working thru the steps of preparing to publish my book it was easy for me to reference back to the steps explained in this guide. I am so happy to say that with the help of the Style Guide I published my very first book "A Life Cycle Reborn" By Carolynne Raymond to Smashwords. Please stop by and take a peek at my labor of love.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
January 15, 2014
I haven't used the Smashwords service yet but this book make me want to, so I guess that's a good sign. It's clear and focused, so you get useful information.
Against it, I can say that some warnings are repeated many times (I can understand that's done on purpose but it gets boring after a while). And I don't like the idea to be forced to use Microsoft Word to be able to get a decent result, but that I respect that everyone has his/her own tools of choice.
So thumbs up for the book, I'll try the service next.
Against it, I can say that some warnings are repeated many times (I can understand that's done on purpose but it gets boring after a while). And I don't like the idea to be forced to use Microsoft Word to be able to get a decent result, but that I respect that everyone has his/her own tools of choice.
So thumbs up for the book, I'll try the service next.
April 2, 2014
First, let me just say that this guide doesn't necessarily replace the need of finding a publisher. Yes this book will guide you step by step in formatting your manuscript into a layout that will work with the majority of ebook formats such as kindle, epub, kobo, iBooks, just to name a few. Even if you never want to publish through smashwords, this guide is the best I've read so far in helping with organising one's ebook manuscript to make it ready for a clean publication to be read on any ebook device. Not only that, but this style guide works as the basics of the printed manuscript as well.
January 18, 2015
A great book if you want to self-publish an eBook. Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, explains the advantages of publishing with Smashwords and goes on to explain how to format a Word document for publishing. The book also has advice about book covers and content. The only frustration I had was with the template document (linked in the book). It is very difficult to change the formatting for a particular type of text, and I don't see how to add a new one or how to create one with an automatic page return. I guess for now, all of my eBooks will follow the same formatting.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews