There's Lots of Bad Advice on Formatting a Paperback for KDP

Bad input, bad output? Maybe my Google search term was faulty, because it resulted in a lot of bad, wrong advice about how to fix my paperback formatting. I've been around long enough to know that sometimes a gem is hidden on Page 6 of Google's search results, so I didn't give up easily. 

But either people are nuts or they're sadists, because I read advice like, "You should NOT be using paragraph indents." Wait, what now? All my paragraphs should be left justified? That doesn't sound like any book I've ever read. Know how goofy that would look? 

I read so much crazy info, some of which I actually tried, that I finally gave up and did it my way. What's my way, you ask? I started over from scratch.

If, you, too, are pulling your hair out over trying to upload your manuscript for a paperback, first the basics:

1. Download KDP's paperback formatting template. This downloads as a folder that contains not only the templates in various languages, but templates for every size paperback. I chose the 6 x 9, because it's the most commonly used and because that's the size of my Running From Herself paperback, and I can't imagine making anything bigger or smaller.

2. Determine the number of printed pages your book will consist of, then refer to the chart on this page to show you how to set your margins. Admittedly, I knew how many pages I had because I had already uploaded my manuscript and finished the publishing process; thus Amazon listed the number of pages on the product page. (Then I discovered how badly the book was formatted.) 

But don't bother doing it that way. Go to the Word doc that contains your manuscript, click on "size" in the layout section and choose 6 x 9 or whatever size your book will be. Then set the margins according to the chart I linked to, and you'll be able to see how many pages you'll be working with.

(I don't know if using KDP's formatting template is completely necessary or if you can use your own formatted Word doc. Personally, I prefer having guides for the title and copyright pages, table of contents, etc.; thus the template was the right choice for me.)

The following are extra-careful steps I took, because, damn it, it needed to work this time:

3. I made note of the font type and size the template used, then went back to my manuscript and changed both to match the template. (Garamond, 11-pt.) 

4. I ditched my original plan to add an introduction page and a preface, which required adding pages to the template. Who knows if doing that the first time messed things up or not, but I wasn't going to take that chance. (The template does have an Acknowledgements section, so I changed that to Introduction, again foregoing a preface.) I'd also added an Afterword page at the end, which begged for asked for a review. That, too, I nixed this time, because I was afraid to stray from KDP's format. 

(It's bad enough that the template adds blank pages at the beginning and end, which I had to figure out how to delete. I wasn't about to add to the problem.)

5. I changed my view to Print Layout (under the View section) and selected "Vertical" (on that same ribbon, a little to the right of "Print Layout".) That allowed me to see a few things, such as whether a chapter title was at the top of a page or in the middle, which I naturally didn't want.

6. I added page numbering. (Insert section, then Page Number in the Header and Footer group). 

7. Then I completed my Table of Contents by identifying the page each chapter began on and filling that in.

8. The template still showed, "Book Title" at the top of each page, so I changed that to the actual title by clicking on "Book Title" and typing my title in its place. That only needed to be done once, and it carried through to all the pages.

9. I then scrolled and scrolled to look for any anomalies. 

10. After I'd examined the entire document, I saved it as a PDF.

My upload worked! I did not get any error messages! Now, who knows what the final product will look like; it might still be terrible, but this was all I could do, and I couldn't have been more thorough. 

I also discovered that I could order a proof copy, as opposed to an author copy; something I'd never noticed previously. Although in my defense, I was so flustered by the big red error messages the first time, I was blinded by them.

I have read online posts that state an 11-point font is too small. That's possible, although why KDP would format its template as 11-point is confusing, then. If that does turn out to be the case (sigh), I'll have to start over. 

I'm not claiming to have cracked the code; all I know is that my upload "took" this time, and that, to me, is a win. 

I'll run through the steps once again when I format Book 2, although GetCovers has been awfully silent, so it appears I'll have some time.