There are a variety of options available to use in terms of format. If you’re doing a series, it’s nice because you can figure out one format and apply it to every book. But for that first book, choosing format can sometimes be a doozy. There are a lot of decisions to be made.

Book Size

This is potentially one of the most important decisions you’ll come upon. People do judge books by your cover, so when you choose a size for your book, it needs to reflect the genre. Look in a bookstore or just look at other books you own (by a variety of authors) in your chosen genre. What sorts of sizes do you see there? A size that is preferred by One Good Sonnet Publishing is 6 x 9. But that doesn’t mean your genre will fit that size.

HOWEVER, please take note that most POD publishers (like Createspace) charge by the number of pages and not by the size of the book. What does this mean for you? Well, the more pages your book has, the more your book will cost. If you choose a smaller book size, then your book will have more pages and cost more. This could potentially be bad for you (because it means lower royalties) or your reader (because it might mean the book cost will be higher). As a result, if you’re going back and forth between two sizes, you should probably go with the bigger size.

Font

This is another of those really important decisions. In terms of the body of the book, you’ll want something that’s readable. The smaller the font, the fewer pages there are (and the lower the cost), but you want it to be readable. In general, you’ll want a font size of 10, 11, or 12, but that can often depend on the font, as some fonts are smaller/bigger than others. That also means that your choice of font can affect the cost of printing a book.

Research what sorts of fonts are used in your genre. One Good Sonnet Publishing has used Garamond and Book Antiqua. There are also fonts like Times New Roman and Calibri. You don’t want to use a frilly font for the body proper, as that can be hard to read. Similarly, you don’t want to use a font that is permanently italicized.

Another thing to think about is how to handle the font for things like headers, footers, the title page, the cover, etc. It’s generally recommended not to use too many different fonts. I’d say you probably don’t want to use more than two or three. On Wings of Air uses Garamond for the body, Trajan Pro for things like headers, and Monotype Corsiva for the mythological sections. Monotype Corsiva would certainly not work for the body proper, as it is an italicized font, but for the short segments in which it is used, it provides a necessary feel (calling to mind a scribe).

Drop Caps

You know how sometimes a book will have a giant letter at the start of a chapter? That’s called a drop cap. There are actually lots of different types of drop caps, but rather than go into detail here, I’m just going to recommend that you research the issue. There are many different ways to do it and many articles about different kinds. To help with your decision, look at books in your genre. Maybe they don’t do a large capital letter and instead tend to have a few UPPERCASE WORDS at the beginning of the chapter. You want to fit in with your genre as best as you can. And if your story is a grisly one, you might not want frilly capital letters detracting from your mood (for instance).

Headers

Different genres have different conventions for headers, so again, look at what books in your genre do. Sometimes, there will be the author name on the top of one page and the book title on the other. Sometimes, the chapter title will be on one of the sides. Sometimes, the page number will be up there. Look at what you think looks good. Do italics work? Capital letters? Small caps? (Note that small caps is a Word function where all the letters are capitalized, but the actual capital letters (at the beginning of certain words) are slightly bigger than the others.

Footers

Like with headers, there can be a bit of variance. But typically, footers will either have a page number or be blank. You don’t want to get too fancy with your headers and footers, as they are meant to be helpful rather than to call attention to themselves.

Chapter Headings

Here is where you can get a little fancy. If you want your chapter title to be all frills, that’s fine. If you have, for instance, “Chapter One” and then a title, you might want to do one in a different font and one italicized. Often, this information won’t start at the top of the page but down partway on the page. There are options like lines and symbols which can be coordinated in this part. Feel free to get creative and have fun. Look at a bunch of different works in your genre and see what they do! Just make sure every chapter heading has the same formatting.

Indenting

You’ll want to choose an indention for your paragraphs. It needs to be easily visible, but you won’t want it to be too big, as that will lengthen the number of pages of your book.

You also need to come up with a standard for the first paragraph of a section. Typically (with the exception of the first paragraph of a chapter, which may have a drop cap), the first paragraph in a section is not indented. There will be a blank line between it and the preceding section. But sometimes, there is a symbol or series of symbols (like asterisks) to show the transition.

Again, the best way to figure out what would be best for you to do is look at other books in the genre.

Justification

Make sure you justify your text! You don’t want it to look jagged and unprofessional.

Spacing

Do not double space the body text or have an extra line between paragraphs. Not only does that make your book longer, but it is also not “how it is done” in the book world.

Front Matter

This is the fancy term for “the stuff that comes before the body text.” You need to decide what all you’ll need. You definitely need a title page, and you need a copyright page. The formatting of the title page can be an exercise in creativity–just make sure you have the title and author name. The publishing imprint name is good, too. The copyright page is all about information, so look at how some other folks do it, but you in essence need your name, the book title, the copyright year, and the ISBN.

What about other stuff? You have options: a dedication page, an acknowledgments page, and a table of contents are all possibilities. For a paperback, you probably don’t need a table of contents for a fiction work unless you have chapter titles. There can be a little bit of flexibility in what can be up front, but those are the typical sorts of things you see.

Back Matter

This is the stuff that comes when the book is done. You might want to place your acknowledgments here instead based on preference. If you have published other stuff, this is a great place to advertise it. Your author bio should also go back here. This is also a good place to put your website or social media contact information as well as an excerpt from an upcoming title.

Conclusion

All this is just a drop in the bucket! While your work needs to have its own life and allow you to express your creativity, you need to be careful to follow certain conventions if you want your work to be taken seriously. Your own bookshelves can be a great resource for figuring out what path to take.