How to format your manuscript
for God's Word Publishing
(Please note you do NOT
need to "layout" your manuscript in
the way you want it to look as the printed book
- our designers will do that for you!)
Step 1- Don't "design"
your manuscript
Our designers use software specifically
created for designing and building books. MS Word
and other word processors are great at creating
manuscripts, but lousy for building books.
Use BOLD and
ITALICs where you need them.
Create space around heads by
using a single return before and after.
If you want a page to break
in a specific place, insert a manual page break
- DON'T use a long list of hard returns (hitting
enter multiple times). This should be done when
you want a chapter to start on a new page, or
a specific element to fall on the next page. You
DON'T need to put a page break at the end of each
page - MS Word and our software will figure that
out for you.
Avoid getting too "designy"
within the manuscript itself - instead, help us
understand what you want during our phone call,
and our design team will build the design template
for you.
Step 2- Don't embed your art
- use art references.
For example, don't paste "picture01.jpg"
into the manuscript, but put a simple directive
like this "Insert picture01.jpg here"
- and our design team will find that reference
and insert the art. Make sure you use the FILE
NAME of the piece of art - otherwise we can't
find it.
Step 3- Watch out for extra
returns.
Don't hit ENTER except at the
end of paragraphs and before/after lines that
you want to be by themselves. Our software will
determine the line length when we layout your
book, and will break them accordingly. Adding
extra returns (by either hitting the ENTER key,
or hitting SHIFT-ENTER) really wreaks havoc with
your final book design.
Step 4- Avoid "auto-formatted"
fractions in MS Word
Our system cannot interpret
some of the 'special characters' from MS Word
- specifically fractions. A fraction should be
represented as 1/2 (one-slash-two) - not the unique
'one-over-two' special character. To turn off
Auto Format in MS Word for fractions, go to Tools
/ AutoCorrect / AutoFormat As You Type and un-check
the "Fractions" check box.
Step 5- Do Spell Check.
Spell check, then spell check
it again... really...
Step 6- Read the Author Contract
and then call us to process
your order - 1-866-222-0926