 

Learn How to Format & Publish Your Book in Microsoft Word

Self-Publishers Guide to Formating "Print-Ready" Books for Createspace and Lulu (or anywhere else) with Microsoft Word
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  • Lectures 16
  • Contents Video: 1.5 hours
  • Skill Level All Levels
  • Languages English
  • Includes Lifetime access
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    Available on iOS and Android
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About This Course

Published 10/2014 English

Course Description

Self-publishing is the wave of the future for authors. With greater creative control there are greater levels of responsibility for the self-publishing author. While the traditional publishing route takes longer, many of the more difficult aspects of the process are taken care by the big publishing house. With the technology available today, publishing a book is easier, but the task of creating great looking books can become costly for independent authors with little to no design experience and limited funds.

This course is designed to help authors finish their projects. Many authors take a lot of care in writing and editing, but sometimes forget to invest as much in the overall look. This course will focus on how to create books that look great in a shorter amount of time.

If you have already written a book and are ready to move to the final stages of your books journey, this course will help you learn the basics of using the built in functions of Microsoft Word to maximum effect. Most people have Word on their laptops at home or desktops at work. The reality is that Word is the most accessible word processing software available. The step-by-step lessons in this course will walk you through the process of creating a “print-ready” document to provide to the many Print-On-Demand companies you can chose from.

Each lesson in the course includes information about the various aspects of the design process. You will walk with the teacher through each step, watching as they show you how to do each of the step. Even if you have never used some of the functions in Word before you will learn some important ideas about what it takes to create great looking books.

In the end we believe that the price of this course will save you hundreds of dollars in the long run and may even become a source of income for you!

What are the requirements?

  • You will need to have written and edited your book prior to taking this course.
  • You will need to download and install PrimoPDF (the free version).
  • You will need access to Microsoft Word.

What am I going to get from this course?

  • You will have greater creative control over the look of your documents or books.
  • You will be able to create print-ready books for yourself and others.
  • You will be able to prepare a document for publication.
  • You will learn how to use styles and heading tags to structure your document
  • You will be able create a Table of Contents.
  • You will be able to format headers and footers appropriately for a book.

What is the target audience?

  • This course is for anyone wanting to have more control of documents and books created in Microsoft Word.
  • This course is for independent authors who want greater control of the look of their book.
  • This course if for those who are ready to prepare their book for publication.
  • This course is NOT for those who have not finished their book.

What you get with this course?

Not for you? No problem.
30 day money back guarantee.

Forever yours.
Lifetime access.

Learn on the go.
Desktop, iOS and Android.

Get rewarded.
Certificate of completion.

Curriculum

Section 1: Introduction to the Course
03:38

In this introductory lecture we go over who this course is for and what you can expect to learn.

04:34

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we will discuss what formatting, or typesetting, actually is.


In our modern world, filled with all kinds of technology, we can sometimes take the development of ideas for granted. We will learn, in general terms, what we are doing when we say we are formatting a document or book.

Section 2: Introduction to Typography
11:31

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we will look at what fonts are and what we are talking about when we talk about fonts.


There are more to fonts than how the letters look. In this lecture we will discuss and learn what the is being described when the following words or phrases are uses.

  • What are font families?
  • How are fonts different from each other?
  • What are glyphs? How do I discover what glyphs are in each font?
  • What is point size? How do I change the size of fonts?

These are other questions will be answered.

08:36

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we will continue our discussion of typography.


This is an extension of the previous lecture. We will look at how line length, leading (or the space between lines), letter spacing and Kerning (the distance between letters) affects the way our text looks on a page.

Section 3: Preparing Your Book File
07:38

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we discuss determining the size of your book and setting up the margins around your content.


When publishing a book, the books size is an important decision. This choice in influenced by a variety of factors. The most common are:

  • Printing service or website used
  • Cost of production
  • Genre of the book
  • Purpose of book
  • Audience of the Book
  • Length of the book

After these choices are made it is time to set up the book. In this lecture we will demonstrate how to set up your book using Microsoft Word's page set-up menu.

04:57

Lesson Focus: In this lecture you will learn how to use the "Show/Hide" functionality of Word.


We will use this functionality to see what's happening "under the hood" of your document. You will be able to remove any unseen formatting and clean up your document before you start formatting.

If you are formatting a document you created from scratch there will be fewer issues to deal with. However, if your document pulled together information and content from external sources, there may be some issues you cannot see without deeper investigation.

06:17

Lesson Focus: In this lecture you will learn how to insert page/section breaks.


Word's built in headers and footers are wonderful tools. In order to use them effectively you will need to divide you book using page breaks that also create section.

05:04

Lesson Focus: In this lecture you will be begin adding some preliminary styles (event though they will not be formatted yet).


These styles will be what you will use when we get to the table of contents section. The styling we apply at this step will be changed as we begin the actual formatting of the project.

Section 4: Formatting the Easy Way
06:28

Lesson Focus: In this lecture learn how to find free and low-cost fonts that we can use for our books and other projects.


Fonts are propriety files and products. This means that the person who built them is entitled to get compensated for their use. It is important to use fonts in accordance to the specified usage permissions.

14:18

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we will look at how to modify the styles we are using as well as some basic design ideas to keep in mind.


Microsoft Word's styles are power tools, if they are used (correctly!). Styles allow you to make global changes to any and every aspect of your document. If you have identified the various elements of our book or document, the this will make your work much easier and more efficient.

08:58

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we look at creating enough white space in the document to enhance the reading experience.


When formatting a book. The reading experience is of most importance. If the words and lines are too close together it becomes difficult to read. The strain on the eyes can cause discomfort. When you are designing and formatting your book or project it is important to keep this in mind.

01:09

This lecture covers the topic of Hyphenation that was omitted in the previous lecture.

09:18

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we discuss adding header and footer information.


Many books have information in the header of their books. Page numbers can be included in either location. This section will help you deal with the sections we created in Lecture 7.

04:45

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we cover building and formatting the Table of Contents.


In a book the Table of Contents (TOC) is very important. Word has a simple way of including a TOC. Formatting is also simplified because we can use styles to make changes to the entire TOC without having to change any particular element individually.

Section 5: Create your Files
02:53

Lesson Focus: In this lecture we learn how to create the PDF file you will need for you printing/publishing website.


The process of creating the Print-Ready PDF is covered. You will also be shown how to download and install a free PDF creating software that functions like a digital printer on your computer.

02:38

In this final lecture we go over four concepts to keep in mind as you work on your book or project.

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Instructor Biography

Victor Scott, CEO and President of Scott Publishing Services

Victor Scott is a self-published author and business owner (among other things). He also has three published books to his credit. He has a bachelors and masters degree and has been an avid blogger and writer for the past ten years. He has helped over a dozen authors publish almost two dozen books.

Writing a book is hard enough. Publishing a book should not be. That is why Victor started Scott Publishing Services. After years of writing, editing, creating and publishing Victor discovered that the lessons he learned could be of benefit to others. Scott Publishing Services provides consulting, editorial, and design services for clients.

He has over a decade of experience in the self-publishing world, publishing with Createspace and Lulu extensively. Victor enjoys sharing what he has learned with his students and clients.

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