Go look at some books that are on your shelf or in the bookstore. Take a close look at the outside of the book and notice the details. This will help you determine what is needed for your book.

Cover

Hire someone to design your cover who has experience! Your cover is the very first thing a reader will see – be it on a book shelf or on Amazon. Unless you’re a graphic designer, you do not have the skills to create a cover that has impact. Trust me.

The font for your title is very significant. If you have to pay for the font, then do so. It’s worth it. The artwork of your title and subtitle will be replicated in the front matter of your book. So be sure to get a file that is in color (eBook) and another that is black and white (paperback).

Your author name. Are you going to use a pen name, your own name, or a variation of your name? Put a lot of thought into this and the font you will use. Make sure the artistry of the font matches the genre of your writing (plain block letters may not be a good choice for devotionals). Your name and the font of your name will forever be your brand. To see examples, check out Daniel Steel or  Francine Rivers.

Back Matter

The back matter of your book will have a small, catchy phrase that will cause a person to keep reading. This will be in larger font, centered at the top.

Next will be a blurb about your book. Again, this is the first thing people will see that will determine if they buy it.  Use active voice! Don’t give away everything that’s in your book, but instead pique their interest by putting them right in the middle of some action and then leave them hanging.  Wrap it up with a call to action – “Find out how….” or “Get this book…”

Include a high quality, up-to-date picture of yourself. Please hire a photographer. I personally feel much more connected to a book if the author is looking right at me.

Include a short biography that is personal and not just a list of your accomplishments. Use active voice!

Finally, you will need to leave some space for a barcode. Whoever prints your book will provide it for you and they should define exactly how much space is needed.

Spine

When the book is upright with the front cover to the right, the spine should have your title (top/middle), author name, and at the very bottom – the publisher logo.

eBook

• Title page (with artwork, subtitle, author name, & publisher) in color
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents (links)
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Page with title (no artwork)

Hard Cover

( left and right pertain to displaying two pages at a time in MS Word)- 

• Reviews [left]
• blank page – or 2nd page of reviews [right]
• Title only page (no subtitle) [left]
• blank page [right]
• Title page (with artwork, subtitle, author name, & publisher) [left]
• Copyright page [right]
• Dedication [left]
• blank page [right]
• Table of Contents [left]
• Table of Figures (if needed) [left]
• Preface [left]
• blank page if needed [right]
• Acknowledgments [left]
• blank page if needed [right]
• Title & Subtitle page [left]
• blank page [right]

Remaining chapter title pages are all on the left.

Most published books today have reviews on the very first few pages. You don’t need these, but as an unknown author it’s a good idea to have them.

Who are the most visible people that you know? Send them a copy of your book in .pdf format (electronic or hard copy) and ask if they would consider writing a review that you can include in the front matter of your book. This will serve two purposes – 1. Hopefully they will provide you with honest feedback that might lead you to change a few things (including the ever-present misspelled words!) and 2. They will be your best marketers because they’re name is in your book! My pastor told our congregation that he was published while holding up my book. Ha! – that was awesome!

Include the reviewer’s name and title with their review in your book.

Once you get reviews for your front matter and your book is published, ask these same reviewers to put their review up on Amazon and/or GoodReads (send them a copy of what they wrote in case they no longer have it).

Your copyright page should include:

Copyright © 2017 by  author name as it appears on the cover

Published by

Publisher’s information

ISBN: ISBN number

All rights reserved. This book and its material is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. No portion of this material may be shared or reproduced in any manner under any circumstance whatsoever without advance written permission from the author.

Copyright message for any bibles that you used (this can be found online by searching for the Bible version and “copyright statement”

It is also nice to recognize your cover designer and the person who took your author photo if it was a professional.

Talking about copyright…

Copyright your book

Click on this link to copyright your book.  This is a way to insure your book against theft. This will be your proof that this book is actually yours. By registering a copyright, your book will be included in the Library of Congress, which is the largest library in the world.

 

 

A Table of Contents can be built from your Heading styles.

Heading 1 will be a main entry, while Heading 2 and Heading 3 will be sub-entries.

Create a new page where you want your TOC to be placed.

In the References tab, click on Table of Contents in the ribbon. Choose the style that you would like and it will insert automatically.

If you click on the new TOC, you will notice a grey box that contains the entire TOC field. You can change the text in this grey box, but your changes will be lost when the TOC is updated.

To update the TOC (which is the very last thing you want to do before uploading to be printed) – right click in the grey area and choose “Update field”