Squirrel Deep: The Truth About Self-Publishing Formatting

Nobody tells you about the squirrel hole.

You finish the book. You think the hard part is over. And then someone mentions margins, and you fall in.

Right now I am squirrel deep in font sizes, page numbering, gutter settings, mirror margins, and the eternal question of whether the author name goes on the odd pages or the even pages — or is it the book title? Or both? Or neither? I genuinely do not know, and I have looked it up four times.

Then there's the size question. 6x8 or 6x9? Sounds simple. It is not simple. The trim size affects the margins, which affects the gutter, which affects whether your text disappears into the spine, which affects whether your reader can actually read the book without breaking the binding. These are things I did not know when I started. These are things I know now because I learned them the hard way.

And then there are embedded fonts.

Thank God for AI, because finding the embedded fonts setting in Microsoft Word is not where you think it is. You go looking on the Home tab — that's where the fonts are, right? No. You check the headings. No. It's on the File page. At the bottom. In Options. At the bottom of Options. It is tucked away in a place that makes no logical sense, and once you find it you will never forget it, because you spent forty-five minutes looking for it.

I picture myself standing in a Microsoft tunnel with settings and options and checkboxes just flying at me from every direction — each one an expectation of knowledge I didn't know I was supposed to have. Which one is which? What does this do? If I check this box does something break?

The first time someone told me to export my Word document as a PDF, I stared at the screen for a full minute. I knew what a PDF was. I did not know what it meant to create one correctly for print — bleed settings, embedded fonts, color profiles. I did not know any of that. I do now.

And the ISBN. Paperback and hardback are different. They get different numbers. Which means you have to make absolutely sure you are uploading the right file with the right number for the right version, because if you don't — well. You find out when the proof copy arrives and something is wrong.

I have proof copies on the way right now. I am waiting to see if I finally got it right.

Here's the thing nobody puts in the self-publishing brochure: we haven't even gotten to marketing yet. This is just getting the words on the paper. In the right size. With the right margins. With the fonts embedded. Exported correctly. Uploaded to the right place with the right ISBN.

The writing was the easy part.

Getting closer. 🐉