PREPARING FOR SMASHWORDS
- Save your Word file with a pre-ebook filename.
- Save file into windows Notepad.
- Copy file back into Word and save with an ebook filename.
- BIG DON’Ts:
- Do not put more than 4 paragraph spaces together!.
- Don’t insert symbols.
- Don’t use headers and footers.
- Never use Tabs: If you did (OMG why did you do that? That what the Normal Style is for.) Use the find and replace feature of Word to get rid of them. Search for “^t” (Don’t include the “”) Leave the replace field blank. Totally blank! THIS IS A MUST!
- Left justify: Smashwords seems to block justify your book to the left and right margins. It did mine.
- Table of Contents: Never use the automatic TOC generator in word. Do this manually!
- Customize a Normal Style with ALL parameters set exactly as you want. (Do this in the Styles box) NEVER set line spacing with the “At” field.
- Customize a Disclaimer Style. Use this if you like the look of your fiction disclaimer being different. (Use the Styles box) You can also customize the left and right indent. Do not set the line spacing with the “At” field.
- Customize a TOC Style if you intend to put a TOC link in the book. I used a TOC link at the end of each chapter. I suggest you make the font style and size different from the text to help differentiate it. It would be best to use a font style suggested in Smashwords style guide. I use Arial and 8 pt.
- Pre-story pages: Add your acknowledgements, copyright, licensing statement, fictional work disclaimer, and table of contents before the start of the story. Suggest you place them in this order. See the Smashwords style guide for the right format and words. This is a must or it will be kicked out of Smashwords.
- Do a Select All and set the style of the entire book to Normal Style. All headings will be fixed individually in a bit.
- Line breaks: I used a line break immediately after the last line of the chapter. This worked well for my Kindle and Nook readers. Smashwords said not to do this because it is possible that with an HTML document or JAVA Script, the chapters will run together. They recommend putting a couple of blank lines just before and after a line break. Now, these formats seem to mostly used for viewing a book sample on the hosting page. It might be possible that an old ebook reader might use HTML. Maybe? Sooo, I didn’t worry about it.
- Chapter titles: Put a chapter number and/or name at the start of each chapter. You must start the chapter title with the word “Chapter”. This seems to tell the ebook converters and readers that this is to appear at the top of the page. My Kindle and Nook readers worked perfect with this.
- Bookmarks: Apply bookmarks to chapter titles, and if you want TOC links at the end of each chapter, apply a bookmark to the Table of Contents heading.
- Make sure that at least a few letters of the chapter title is in the bookmark.
- You will have to type in the name of the bookmark.
- IMPORTANT: Never create a bookmark covering more than one line!
- Check the Hidden Bookmarks box in the bookmark dropdown. Remove all hidden bookmarks!
- Hyperlinks: Apply and assign to the Table of Contents and TOC at chapter ends.
- Apply Styles: At this point, everything is Normal Style. It’s time to apply heading styles.
- All centered text must be centered only by applying the correct heading style. Do not use the toolbar icons. This is for all titles.
- Apply your TOC Style to the TOC links
- Format anything else using styles.
- Book Cover: Must be a minimum of 600 pixels high. I used 610. Don’t put a book cover picture as the first page of your book. Smashwords will do it automatically for you.
- Upload the book: Go to their site and follow their instructions. If you get errors, follow their recommended fixes or check the Smashwords Style Guide.
