Getting Started

Preparing your Word document

Before you start, you need to perform certain basic tasks in Word to make sure the system can ingest your book efficiently. This will save you time and effort once you’re in the MyBook app.

First, we suggest you clear all formatting from your book. Select all the text in your word document, then use the Styles menu to Clear Formatting (clearing the formatting works differently in various versions of Word, so refer to Word’s help section if required). If you have bulleted or numbered lists in your book, you can leave these in, or restore the bullets/numbers afterwards.

However clearing the formatting of your Word document will also remove the bold, italic and underlining from your text. If you have a lot of text formatted like this, you can skip clearing the formatting of your Word document.

It’s also a good idea to check for things like hyperlinks (these will show up as underlined text) and hard returns at the ends of lines in your Word document, as these will show up once your manuscript is in the MyBook app.

Secondly, choose the most important components of your book – eg the title page, the dedication, introduction, preface, chapters and appendix – and style them in Word as Heading 1. This will enable the system to split your book up into logical sections when it appears in the MyBook app. You can also use H2 and H3 styles for subsections within your book.

Images: Make sure the images you are using in the manuscript are embedded within your word document, and are of optimal size and quality

Table of Contents: The system will generate this automatically, so take it out of your Word document before you upload it. Also make sure you delete any other text that you would not want to appear in the final book (this might be instructions to typesetters, notes to future publishers etc etc).

Once your book is ready to upload, click ‘browse’ and locate the file, then click ‘continue’ to upload your manuscript.

Choosing your book size and format

You can choose to have your book in printed or EPub format, or both. For printed books, we offer templates in four industry-standard print book sizes. Different sizes are recommended for different types of books. All templates are in portrait orientation.

B Format is one of the most popular sizes of paperback book. It measures 128mm W x 198mm H. We recommend you use this template for fiction. This is best for text only books, with no images.

C Format is popular for both paperback and hardback books. It measures 153mm W x 234mm H. This is sometimes called “trade paperback” size. We recommend you use this template for non-fiction, including books with black and white illustrations.

B5 Format is a wider book format that we recommend for non-fiction and how-to books. It measures 176mm W x 250mm H. It can accommodate colour or black and white images.

Sub-A4 Format is the largest size format we offer. It measures 205mm W x 290mm H. We recommend this format for illustrated non-fiction and how-to books. It can accommodate colour or black and white images.

If you choose one of these options for printed books, you can also opt to download your book as a PDF ebook (a print-ready, formatted version of your manuscript without a cover) or, for professionals, as a set of InDesign files.

If you’re sure you don’t want to print your book, you can opt to just create an EPub. EPub is the industry standard for ebooks, which can be read on many (but not all) hardware devices. Please note: if you choose the EPub version at the start, you won’t be able to change this into a printed version later on – you’ll have to re-upload your manuscript and start again.

Paper options

We offer a choice of two types of paper when printing your book: Standard quality - 70gsm Cream, or High quality - 80gsm Fine Offset. The Standard quality paper is a nice, light stock for predominantly text-based works (and only for black and white images), while the High quality paper is marginally weightier and better for mid-resolution colour images. If you choose to have colour images in your book, the system will automatically set the paper to High quality (80gsm).