Smashwords Style Guide

by Mark Coker

  It's important you provide your readers visual cues to separate one paragraph from the next, otherwise paragraphs blend together and create a horrible reading experience. Either use first line indents at the beginning of a paragraph, or use the block paragraph method by defining your paragraph style to have a 6pt or 10pt separation after each paragraph. Use one or the other, but not both.

  This Style Guide uses the block paragraph method, which is common for some non-fiction. The first line paragraph indent method is best for fiction.

  Don’t mix the two methods in the body of you book. For reference, pick up virtually any printed novel. Novels almost always use first line indented paragraphs, with no separation between one paragraph and the next. One paragraph ends on one line, then the next paragraph begins on the next line.

  The image below further illustrates the difference between block and first line indent:

  First line paragraph indents are preferable for fiction and also work well with a lot of narrative non-fiction. Block paragraphs work well for other non-fiction, especially if you’re managing multiple sections, or the layout is more complicated. DO NOT USE both first line indents and the block style. Use one or the other only. Yes, I know I’m repeating myself here (it’s one of the most common errors our authors make).

  Also, avoid separating blocks of paragraphs using a paragraph return on an empty line. Instead, modify your paragraph style to define a trailing space. The next few sections below, along with their accompanying images, will help you learn how to modify your paragraph style to define a trailing space after each block paragraph

  7b. How to Implement your chosen paragraph separation method (first line indent, block). If you use Word 2000 or 2003, click Modify: Format: Paragraph, and then view the contents (see example below). Make sure the numbers under both left and right “indentation” are set to 0”.

  For Word 2007, click the Home tab, then click the little arrow, as shown in Step 7 above, then click the down arrow for Normal style (assuming you’re using the Normal style for your body, as we recommend), then click Modify, then click Format in the lower left corner, then click Paragraph.

  7b-a. HOW TO DEFINE A PROPER FIRST LINE INDENT: Once you’re at the screen to modify your paragraph style (this screen is essentially the same for all versions of Word), you can define a first line paragraph indent for the body of your book by selecting Special: First line: By: [enter .25 or .3 inch. Don’t do indents greater than .5 inch]. Make sure the Spacing section, marked by the red oval below, doesn’t define a Before or After space. They should be set to 0pt. Once your settings match the image below, click OK then Apply.

  After you apply first line indents to the entire document, review your document to clean up any anomalies. If you apply the indent to the entire book, be sure to go back to your title and copyright page and remove the first line indents and then center the text for a good-looking title/copyright page. You may also need to manually remove the first line indent from other paragraphs or lines that don’t need them, such as chapter headings.

  7b-b. HOW TO DEFINE TRAILING SPACE FOR BLOCK PARAGRAPH METHOD: Under “Spacing,” set the “after” spacing to 6pt or 10pt. For plays, scripts and screenplays, 4pt is pretty good. We generally don’t recommend less than 4pt or more than 10pt. Then click OK and then APPLY (or, OK for Word 2007)

  7b-c. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR POETRY (AND SOME NON FICTION COOKBOOKS AND LEARNING MATERIALS)

  As we mention elsewhere in this guide, we recommend you don’t use paragraph returns on empty lines to create separation between two paragraphs. However, this isn’t a hard and fast universal rule, and there are times when exceptions make sense. For example, poetry has some special requirements. With poetry, you want your stanzas tight, yet you need each poem separate from the next. If you code your Normal paragraph style to define a trailing “after” space, the poem won’t look right.

  Other content categories that might benefit from this exception include learning materials, such as the multiple choice example below, or cookbooks.

  For poetry and non-fiction that require this more complex layout, below are two options for your consideration (IMPORTANT: You need to have Word’s Show/Hide feature activated so you can implement this formatting):

  1. You can use paragraph returns (don't code them for trailing space).

  The poem above uses simple paragraph returns at the end of each line, with the paragraph style coded for no trailing space.

  2. Use manual line feeds plus a paragraph return coded for a trailing "after" space. This option is a little more complicated, but will get you great results. To create a manual line feed, click Shift and Enter at the same time. A manual line feed creates a line break without invoking the styling of your paragraph style, which in the example below is coded for a trailing 10pt space after each paragraph return. Note how only the question and the last answer have their lines terminated with a paragraph return (created by hitting the Enter key). Use this trick for poetry as well.

  7b-d. HOW TO DEFINE PROPER LINE SPACING: See how the line spacing in the image above is set to single and the “At:” field is blank? This is good. Line spacing of 1.5 is also acceptable. Never set it to double (will make your book look ugly), and never set it to read “Exactly” or “At Least” followed by a point size specification under the “At:” box. This usually renders your book completely unreadable because it can cause lines to overlap on top of one another. More on the next item below on line spacing errors…

  AVOID THIS COMMON LINE SPACING ERROR: The image below shows an example of a common line spacing error that will cause your sentences to overlap and become unreadable. Whether you use the first line indent method or the block method, make sure the “Line Spacing” is set to “Single” or “1.5” and under the “At:” heading it should remains blank. NEVER NEVER allow any entry into the “At:” field, otherwise your book may become unreadable in the HTML reader and in the EPUB. If this error slips through our review process, retailers will remove your book when their customers complain.

  Step 8. Reformat the normalized text: After you have successfully changed everything to Normal paragraph style above, and you coded your Normal paragraph style for either first line indent or block, you'll need to go through and re-check the formatting. Some items may have shifted because of the steps above. Bolds may disappear, centered items may become left justified, font sizes may have changed, and spaces between paragraphs may have disappeared. Just go back and fix, but make sure everything is Normal paragraph style and make the font sizes, line spacing and text justification consistent. If you find you change the text and suddenly Word labels it something other than Normal style, then it means you didn’t successfully disable Word’s nasty auto-format features above in Step 3.

  Step 9. IMPORTANT: Never use tabs or the space bar to create indented paragraphs. An indent is the space in front of the first line of every paragraph. As I mentioned earlier in this Guide, indents are an important visual cue to help guide the reader’s eye from one paragraph to the next. If you use tabs or space bar spaces instead of a proper first line indent, you’ll generate an AutoVetter error and our HTML and Javascript online readers will automatically remove the leading spaces or tabs from your text, thereby rendering your improper indent irrelevant. To create a proper first line indent, follow the section above on How to Create a First Line Paragraph Indent, or use Word’s “ruler-bar” indent feature (see instructions and image a few paragraphs down). NEVER NEVER use tabs or space bar spaces. Always make sure you have “show/hide” activated, per instructions above, otherwise you won’t see these tabs and spaces.

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  How to automate the removal of tabs and spaces - If you try to manually remove, one by one, the tabs and space bar spaces that comprise your improper indents, it can take hours. Luckily, Word’s search-and-replace feature takes mere seconds (see image below). If you used tabs, press CTRL+H (hold
down the CTRL key and the H key at the same time) to "find and replace,” or from the menu select Edit: Replace. Then for the “find what” line enter ^t (the “caret t” is the symbol for tab) and then in the Replace space don't enter anything (If instead of tabs you have multiple spaces, then determine the number of spaces you use, then click your mouse to the “find what” field, and hit your space bar by the same number of spaces you’re currently (improperly) using for your indents, and then hit “replace all”).

  To eliminate all your tabs, enter ^t in “find what” and in the “replace with” line, leave it blank.

  Then click the “Replace All” button.

  Step 10. Paragraph returns. Make sure you only have paragraph returns at the end of a paragraph, not at the end of each sentence or every line (unless of course you’re doing poetry). A paragraph return, created by hitting the “Enter” key on your keyboard, tells the reading device it’s the end of the paragraph. They look like this: “¶” To view the location of your paragraph returns, activate Word’s Show/Hide feature, covered in Step 2. If you do not have the show/hide feature activated now, stop what you’re doing and activate it, because without show/hide, you’re editing blind.

  Do not use multiple consecutive paragraph returns to force page breaks or to arrange text on the screen, because they’ll create a poor reading experience by creating blank pages or unsightly gaps in small-screened e-reading devices. They will also disqualify your book from distribution in the Premium Catalog. Never use more than four consecutive paragraph returns at a time to arrange text on the page.

  Step 11. Hyperlinks. Hyperlinks can point outside your book, like to a web address, or inside your book, using the bookmark feature (more on this later when I show you how to create a hyperlinked Table of Contents!). Web addresses become clickable hyperlinks in the HTML and Javascript readers. Use external-pointing hyperlinks judiciously. Short attention spans are common on the Internet, so if you give your reader too many chances to read something else, you’ll lose them. Even if the hyperlink isn’t live in one of the other ebook formats, the reader will still have the information they need to visit your resource.

  To place a proper hyperlink, highlight the text you want to hyperlink, then right mouse click on the highlighted text, then click hyperlink, then enter a full web address such as http://www.smashwords.com. Be sure to include the http:// portion, otherwise your hyperlink won’t work and it’ll cause errors in EPUBCHECK (more on that later). After you add a link, click on it to test it.

  NO AFFILIATE LINKS: If your hyperlinks link to affiliate marketing pages (common in “get rich quick” books), we will delete your account without warning because this is a violation of our Terms of Service.

  Step 12. Designating chapter breaks, page breaks and section breaks. If you insert page breaks into your Word document (Insert: Break: [choose one]), the PDF and .RTF versions will honor them, but these commands will be lost in most other formats, which strip page breaks and section breaks. Loss of page breaks is okay in an ebook, because you can’t predict the font size or screen size the reader is using, and you want to have continuous reflowable text anyway. The worst thing that will happen is paragraphs may become artificially close or too separated.

  If you use page breaks, be sure to enter a paragraph return or two before and after the break so that if your manually inserted break disappears in some formats, your paragraphs don’t smash together.

  Remove all section breaks from your document. For some reason, they create unnecessary blank space in your ebook.

  If you want to separate chapters, insert a consistent number of paragraph returns (maybe three or four), or use a combination of a couple paragraph returns, followed by centered text characters such as “~~~~” or “* * * *” followed by a couple more paragraph returns and possibly chapter headings if you have them. Do not use solid separator bars.

  The general rule for formatting is “simpler is better.” DO NOT use a long series (more than four) paragraph returns anywhere in your book to try to arrange words on a page, or to designate page breaks, because not only will this cause your book to be rejected from the Premium Catalog, it’ll also create a lot of awful looking blank space in your ebook. Many ebook reading devices such as the Kindle and iPad will add extra padding after each paragraph return, so if you add multiple paragraph returns this can create excessive spacing between paragraphs.

  Step 13. Working with Images. If you have images, they should be embedded in your Word file, usually via the Insert: Picture: File option. If the images are critical to your book, then when you publish your book uncheck the checkbox ebook format option for “Plain Text” because photos and charts don’t translate into plain text. If the images are a nice-to-have but not a need-to-have, then go ahead and allow the Plain Text option.

  Do not use floating images (If you can click on the image and drag it, it’s floating) because your image may appear in unpredictable places after the conversion. To fix floating images, click right mouse click on the image, then click Format Picture, then click Layout, then click In Line With Text, then click save, then click Word’s center button.

  We’ve also found that images work best if you keep them small. If your current image runs the length of a 6 inch wide page, it may not display properly on the smaller screens of some ereading devices. Restrict images to widths of 500 pixels. Before you import images into your manuscript, use a photo editing tool such as Photoshop or a free utility such as Picasa by Google at http://picasa.google.com, to reduce the dimensions and file size.

  If you want a page break inserted before an image, try clicking on the image and coding it as a Heading style. This should insert a page break in EPUB.

  If you try to upload a 15 megabyte manuscript to Smashwords because you didn’t reduce the image sizes, Meatgrinder will reject your book. See the Q&A section earlier in this guide for tips on how to compress your image sizes.

  Step 14. Text justification. I’ve found that text converts most cleanly if it’s all left justified. Centered text works well, especially for your title and copyright page. I don’t recommend using Word’s “Justify” command, which attempts to spread your words evenly from margin to margin without leaving spaces at the end of each line. The PDF conversion can sometimes look odd for justified text. If you love justified text, then go ahead and try it - the results may still be acceptable to you.

  Step 14a. Centering tip. You may notice that even after you use Word’s button to center text, such as the title and copyright page, or ***” separators, the RTF conversion doesn’t preserve the centering. Here’s how to force it to stick: Try creating a new paragraph style, based on Normal, that defines centering. That’s how Gerald Weinberg and Brian S. Pratt [the two formatting examples above] managed to keep their title pages centered).

  Step 15. Different font sizes. Minimize font size variation in your book, otherwise your book will look ugly. Some of the best-looking books on Smashwords use 12pt for the body and 14pt for the book title on the cover page, and for headings. If you must use different font sizes, minimize the range of their variance. For example, if you normal body text is 12 point, don’t use a 20 point header. We recommend you keep your largest font size to 14. Dramatic variations in font sizes can cause unwelcome glitches in some of the conversions, such as causing the large point text to bleed onto the smaller point text. Most of our ebook formats support multiple font sizes, but our Javascript online reader makes everything the same font size (though it has other great online reading qualities so you’ll want to offer it to your readers).

  Step 16. Style formatting and symbols. Italics, underlines, and strikethroughs work well. Some symbols (such as é î ® © Ω ∑) may translate, but test your book in EPUB to ensure they work properly. Rather than use the © (circled c for copyright), just use the word ‘copyright’, because some e-reading devices will turn it into a question mark. Similarly, in general, avoid symbols (created by “INSERT: SYMBOL”) because they may turn into question marks.<
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  Step 17. Headers and footers. These generally remain in the PDF and RTF versions but disappear in the other versions. We recommend you remove headers and footers. Definitely remove auto-page numbering because it can trigger a text-box error.

  Step 18. Margins and Indents. Try to format your book to adhere to Word’s standard margins for printing, otherwise your PDF and RTF files won’t print well or present well on screen. Authors often ask if they should format for American-style pages (8.5 X11 inch) or A4. About 60% of Smashwords customers are American, so it’s really up to you.

  HOW TO FIX WACKY INDENTS: If your indents are pulled too far to the left or right, it will cause your text to flow off the page and become unreadable in some e-reading devices. To fix, do a CTRL+A on your entire document, then right mouse click on Paragraph, then set the Left: and Right: Indentation to 0”

  Step 19: (Optional) Add the Heading style to your Chapter Headings

  Word offers various Heading styles, usually for use with the start of chapters or sections. Some of our ebook formats such as EPUB and MOBI will automatically insert a page break before each Heading, which is a nice touch because it allows your chapter to start at the top of the page on the e-reading device.