Format & Publish Your Ebook Today: Bar Napkin Guides

By Mel Newton, DVM

Bar Napkin Guides are the essential how-to for the new skill you want to learn. They're just like friends scribbling the must-do's on a napkin during a night out, except this one won't end up crumpled in your jeans pocket in the wash. The handwriting is easier to read in the morning too!

 

In this Bar Napkin learn how to turn your finished manuscript into something that (might) make you money. Publish it as an In this Bar Napkin, learn how to turn your finished manuscript into something that might make you money. Publish your work as an ebook on major ebook distributor platforms, and create a print version for Kindle Direct Publishing. Included are formatting tips, and hints complete with easy-to-follow diagrams, suggestions on content, such as an appeals page and teasers, and an overview of the most common formatting choices.

 

Note: This book is specifically written for Scrivener 3 on Mac computers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bar Napkin Guides
• Release date: Oct 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393696049

Mel Newton, DVM

Melinda Newton, DVM is a veterinary practitioner and free-lance writer who lives in Northern California with her husband, daughter, and (according to her husband) too many animals. She loves a good story and lots of miles on the trail. Whether it’s on horseback or on her own two feet, Dr. Mel’s favorite distance is 100 miles. Is there anything more wonderful than running all day and night, and then spending the rest of the day napping on the couch? Her husband isn’t convinced and makes her get her own snacks when she wakes up, since any pain and soreness is self-induced. Dr. Mel been telling stories about running, riding, and veterinary medicine on her blog since 2009. Her mission is simple: Inspire and motivate readers to go out and do exciting things that make life richer, even if they seem impossible. It is the little steps and choices every day that culminate into your dreams. Dr. Newton also writes under the pen name of Orvetta Black, and is the author of the Bar Napkin Guide books and numerous nationally published articles.

Book preview

FORMAT & PUBLISH YOUR EBOOK TODAY

Mel Newton

Copyright © 2021 Mel Newton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the author or publisher, except as permitted by U.S. Copyright law.

For permissions contact:

[e-mail]

Cover art credit: Melinda Newton

Format & Publish Your Ebook Today is published by Singletrack Press, Yuba City CA, 95991

SINGLETRACK PRESS

To Funder and AareneX.

INTRODUCTION

I WROTE THIS book because I desperately needed it for myself. Between books I would completely forget the million (and one) details I needed to turn my manuscript into an ebook or a print copy. What I needed was a tidy organized list that walked me through the process.

Ed Ditto’s book, How to Format Your Novel for Kindle, Nook, the iBookstore, Smashwords, and Createspace…in One Afternoon, was a life-saver for a newbie self-publisher. But then, Scrivener 2 was replaced by Scrivener 3 (better, but really different), I discovered I like Draft2Digital better than Smashwords, and Createspace was swallowed up by Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

I needed a new checklist.

It turned out I wasn’t the only one. Please help, was a common refrain from friends and family members trying to publish their own books.  Yes, you really can publish your own book, but the details can seem as overwhelming as writing the dang thing in the first place.

This book is the bar napkin scribbles that I dig out of the bottom of a drawer each time I have a manuscript ready for publishing, and have given out multiple times to friends and family members struggling through their own publishing journeys.

This is a step-by-step instructional, organized to efficiently prep your manuscript for publication to the most popular ebook publishing sites, and to Kindle Direct Printing for paperback printing. Let’s get started.

ROADMAP: FORMAT YOUR EBOOK

HERE’S THE NAPKIN basics for how to format and publish your ebook. This will be a handy checklist after you no longer need step-by-step instructions. It will be confusing if this is your first time through the process, but trust me, you will be flying through this list in no time.

First book only

Download Scrivener and review tutorial.

Create Canva account.

Create a publicity folder, including an author byline, book descriptions, appeals page, and other content that will be copied from book to book.

Download Kindle Previewer and KindleGen and install.¹ Set KindleGen location in Scrivener.

Download Skim.

Create a KDP Amazon publishing account.

Create a Draft2Digital account.

Create other distributor accounts if you wish.

All Books

Organize manuscript in Scrivener, review styles used, and review image sizes.

From the publicity folder, place the appeals page, other books by page, and other back matter (except the author page) at the end of the manuscript. Place a copy of the copyrights page into the ebook and paperback front matter folders.

Create a cover for both ebook and paperback.

Write a dedication, or delete this file from front matter.

In Compile, assign section layouts, front matter, and back matter (author byline). Set metadata, book cover, and then compile an ePub version. Review in Kindle Previewer.

Get a KDP ISBN number for print copy and update paperback copyright page with the ISBN number.

Decide on trim size for paperback version.

View manuscript in page view at the chosen trim size in Scrivener.

Format the as-is pages such as title page, author, front and back matter. A separate preview or appeals page for print-only may need to be created. Make sure during the compile process that the correct version of the page is selected.

Create Table of Contents.

Prepare for a PDF compile. Change page size in settings for trim size, assign verso/recto pages, sections start on new pages, font size and type for headings/footings/body, style types, check metadata, header and footer settings, footnote settings. Check that recto pages are odd numbers. Start chapters with padding from top and uppercase words. Compile a PDF version.

After compiling and reviewing in Skim, put blank pages in as necessary for back and front matter to appear on correct side of pages.

Download cover template from KDP based on page count, and create paperback cover.

Upload finished versions of files to distribution sites.

PART ONE

Organize

CHAPTER ONE

I RECOMMEND SCRIVENER to turn manuscripts into ebooks. Download it² and give it a try for free.³

What makes Scrivener so great? It’s a word processor and manuscript organizer designed for writers. Scrivener makes it easy to organize the different parts of writing, write the content, and then quickly export it into the many different formats you need for online publication. This last feature is called compiling, which is the process of creating multiple versions of your ebook. Why do you need so many versions? Each distributor, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle Direct to Print, and Draft2Digital, has their own requirements for manuscripts to be uploaded to their site. You will need to create a different version of your book for each of them. Additionally, the distributors are constantly revising their requirements. For example, just prior to publication of this book Amazon now recommends ePub files instead of .mobi files for their Kindle ebook platform. Scrivener allows you to rapidly produce each of these variations without modifying your content and re-formatting the manuscript file each time. It eliminates duplicate manuscripts and inconsistencies between versions. Even if you create your manuscript somewhere else, please copy-paste your manuscript into Scrivener when you are ready to create your finished ebooks.

For Mac OS users the newest version is Scrivener 3 (S3 abbreviation is used throughout this book). It is a significant improvement over Scrivener 2 (or S2) because it offers more flexibility and control in the compile functions. I highly recommend upgrading to S3 if you have been using S2. However, there are some authors who are running older Mac OS systems