In a previous post I described my experiences with creating an ebook using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Once I finished my ebook, I decided that I also wanted the book available in paperback. Sticking with the Amazon tools and marketplace I thought would be cool, and I figured Amazon would just have a single entry for my book and allow shoppers to pick either the Kindle or paperback edition.
Ahem.
Turns out, as far as I can figure out, I've done things backwards by creating my Kindle ebook first. While KDP is fine for creating an ebook, there's no tools available (or that I can find) to convert your ebook manuscript into something that will work for a paperback. However, if you create a paperback using the CreateSpace tools, in the very last step you can convert your book into a Kindle ebook with not a lot of work. The advantage here is that you only need one copy of your manuscript, formatted for CreateSpace (coming to that) and the CreateSpace tools will (I hope; haven't done this part yet) do the conversion for you. So, having done things backwards, I had to have two copies of my book. Sigh.
Since the content of the two books would be the same, the only changes I'd need to make would be to the layout. How hard could that be? Ahem #2. A couple of weeks on, I have a newfound respect for everyone who has ever done book layout. It is a royal pain in the ass. Lets start with the easy things. First I read the CreateSpace guidelines for book layout (yes, to do this right you really do have to read the instructions). Then I picked a trim size - the overall size of the book. I measured my previously published books and decided to match them and picked 6" x 9". I made a copy of my ebook file in MS Word. I changed the page format to 6" x 9" from 8.5" x 11" (which immediately added about 50% to the page count. I then added back in the page numbers and changed the Table of Contents to include page numbers on the ToC page. Not a problem. Then I started in on the margins.
It turns out that if you lay out a book, that the margins on the left and right pages are different. Why, you ask, are the margins different? I lean over and whisper in your ear - "binding!" Think about it. A paperback book is bound and the thicker the book (the more pages it has) the wider the inside margin where the binding is must be so you can open the book and read it comfortably. Who knew? That inner margin - called the gutter margin - is on the right side for left pages and on the left side for right pages. So when you're doing your page setup, the right margins of left pages and the left margin of right pages must be the same. Same for the outer margins. They must be narrower. Oh, and you need to have even-justified lines (not left justified as you normally might).
The CreateSpace guidelines also recommend that all your chapters start on right-hand pages. This isn't universal. I looked at a bunch of paperback books and the left-hand, right-hand thing for chapter beginning was all over the place. I decided to follow the guidelines because my book was an anthology and that meant that each of my stories would start on a right-hand page and that sounded better. But if a story ends on a left-hand page, then logically the next story would begin on the next page. If the story ends on a right-hand page, there would be a blank page before the next story. Ahem #3.
So I needed to count all the pages and figure out left and right pages so I could insert blank pages when necessary. I also need to make sure that the page numbers ended up correctly. Several days later (and after becoming a master of the MS Word Section Break) I had a book that looked pretty good (but remember, I haven't submitted it yet).
The final piece of work was fonts. Remember from the previous post that I couldn't get monospaced fonts to work using the Kindle Direct creation tools. I figured that since this was a paperback book I could get them to work. And I probably could. But I then remembered the days of tedious work I'd put in converting every cryptogram in my book back to variable-spaced font and creating the tables to make everything line up. And I thought about having to undo all of that just to use Courier. And I said screw it; the tables looked pretty good and I was getting sick of layout errors.
So I submitted my manuscript to CreateSpace and an amazingly short time later I got an email telling me that my proof was ready for review. I decided to review it online the first few times (it was free) before I get CreateSpace to send me a hard-copy (which they charge for). Once again, their tools are very good. I did a quick review online, then downloaded the PDF file and did a more detailed review with the PDF and my original MS Word file side-by-side. I found a number of mistakes and found things that just didn't look good. So I made some edits and re-submitted (you can re-submit and review the proofs as many times as you like). I did this like half-a-dozen times before I was happy enough to buy the hard-copy proof. While I was waiting for the hard-copy to arrive I re-reviewed the last proof a few more times, finding more errors (I really need a good editor). By the time the hard-copy finally arrived I thought I'd found everything, only, of course, to find several more things that neither spell-check or the MS Word grammar checker can find. Finally I felt good enough about things that I hit the "Publish" button! So now the paperback and the ebook are both available (and I've only had to re-submit each of them once! ;^). If you're interested, they are at my Amazon author page at https://www.amazon.com/John-F.-Dooley/e/B0187W2XVQ Enjoy!
