Setting up your book (free instructions and tools)*

Self-Publishing Course at Davitt College

This is a hands-on course, conducted at Davitt College, Castlebar, where you will be walked through turning your own manuscript and into an actual printed book and into an eBook using your own laptop. The course is conducted twice a year (Spring and Autumn - Click here for details). The last evening of the course will be conducted at Books@One in Louisburgh, where your book will (optionally) be printed. You will finish the course with a copy of your own book in your hands.

Nearly one-in-five Americans now listen to audiobooks. Print books remain the most popular format for reading. Read the REW Report here

Book Template Files

Select from the following Microsoft Word Book Template files to download to your PC
(These are our own templates and do include some dummy text)

• 5x8
• 5.5x8.5
• 6x9 No TOC (Trade Paperback)
• 6x9 with TOC (Trade Paperback)
• 8x10

KDP Tools (see also below for tutorials)

• KDP - Kindle Direct Publishing - set up and manage account
  
  
• Using Cover Creator - Tutorial and video
  
  
• Cover Templates - downloadable template files based on your book's page count and trim size
  
  
• Kindle Create - e-Book creator (Mac and PC)
  - format your manuscript in Word and upload the finished .doc(x) file to KDP
  
  
• Kindle Comic Creator
  - a free tool for authors and publishers to turn their comics, graphic novels and manga into Kindle books
  
  
• Kindle eBook previewer - download
  • Mac - MacOS 10.9 or later
  • PC - Windows 7 or later
    
    
• KDP Cover Calculator - Excel file to calculate spine thickness
  
  
• KDP Print Cost and Royalty Calculator

Other free tools

• Book Cover Maker - Adobe Spark

Online Editing Tool

• Grammarly - Free online tool to check grammar & spelling. Also available as Google Chrome plugin
• Grammarcheck - same as Grammarly, but also has a more in-depth paid for service

Font Identifier

Upload a jpg or scan of a font and have it identified

• What is Font
• Font Squirrel

Free conversion tools

These are links to sample sites - there are many others you can use.
Click on or google the following phrases:

• convert docx to pdf
• convert Excel to pdf
• Convert odt to pdf - Open Office Writer
  
  
• convert Word to jpg
• convert Excel to jpg
  
  
• convert pdf to jpg
  
  
• In cases where the Word document is too big and you need to break it down to manageable smaller files, you will need to recombine these book sections once you ahve converted them to high resolution pdf files:
  Merge pdf files PDFsam - Opensource software

Free art, photos, Fonts, etc

• Free photos
• Free vector art (drawings)
• Free Fonts

Open Source software (free)

These programmes have similar functionality as the industry standard packages.
Features will vary and menu structures differ.
They may also contain additional / better fetures.

Book: Type, Design & Makeup

• Open Office - Microsoft Word Replacement - text layout
• Scribus - Microsoft Publisher and Adobe InDesign Replacement - page layout programme (better image handling)

Cover: Design & Layout

• GIMP - Adobe Photoshop Replacement - Photo & Bitmap Image manipulation, book cover creation
• Inkscape - Adobe Illustrator replacement - Vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux

eBook Management

• Calibre - e-book management - useful for file conversion and book viewing

Tutorials

See also the links in the menu on the right-hand side of this page

• KDP
  • Paperback Interior Formatting - Step by step instructions (pdf)
  • Cover Creator
  • Kindle Create - e-Book creator
  • Kndle Comic Creator
• Microsoft Word
  • Printing to PDF - (pdf)
  • Microsoft Word for Windows Training
  • Online tutorial
  • Downloadable Tutorial - (pdf)
  • Understanding Styles in MS Word
• GIMP - Image manipulation
• Open Office
  • Tutorials listing
  • User Guide (pdf)

Miscellaneous

• 10 Imprints of Big 5 Publishers That Accept Unsolicited Submissions
  • Authors Publish Magazine
    
    
• Reedsy - a resource for authors to find and work with publishing professionals: from developmental editors to book cover designers, publicists and translators
  
  
• Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity - Blog on paying markets, writing competitions and much more
  
  
• ISBN (International Standard Book Number)
  • If assigned by KDP this is free for books printed by KDP/Amazon
  • For printing books elsewhere, the ISBN is supplied by
    • Bowker in the United States
    • Thorpe-Bowker in Australia
    • Nielsen Book ISBN Agency in the United Kingdom
    • Raja Rammohan Roy in India
    • In some countries, the government gives ISBNs to self-publishers free of charge
      
      
• Sending big files
  • Dropbox (free version)
    • Create folder and upload file
    • Then share folder or create and send link
  • WeTransfer
    • Select ‘free’
      Type in recipient address
      Type in your address
      Type in message
      Upload file
      
      

Writing

• The art of the perfect first sentence

Questions

• Email Alex
  

Course Review / Comments

This feedback form is targeted at participants in our self-publishing course.

• Click here - thank you!