# I'd like to format your paperback for Createspace.



## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

I've just started up my paperback formatting service. Here's the info from my website.

Rates
Under 20,000 words: $10
20,000 - 40,000 words: $20
40,000 - 60,000 words: $30
60,000 - 80,000 words: $40
80,000 - 100,000 words: $50
100,000 - 120,000 words: $60
120,000 - 150,000 words: $75
Over 150,000 words: $90

I aim for a turnaround of less than a week.

For a sample of my work, please take a look at my paperback here.

I will need to know:
- Trim size

Send anything else you may want included in the book. This could be:
- Author bio (and a photo if desired)
- Map
- Links

Payments are to be made via Paypal in Australian Dollars (AUD).
___________

If you're interested, please contact me at *nightwriter [at] live [dot] com [dot] au*.

If you have any suggestions as to how I can improve the service, I'd love to hear your ideas. Happy publishing!


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Bump for the US morning...


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Apologize in advance for 1st Createspace dumb question. But if I want to use your service, Ryan, do I need to go back to my cover designer and get a new (expanded for print) cover? And do you take the epub file I already have or do I need to provide you with a different file format?

Oops, two dumb questions.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Hi there, EC. Yes, you will need to get a "print cover" from your cover artist. There are also people who expand your ebook cover into a print cover. For fiction, I suggest the dimensions 8x5.5 (lxw).

I would need to be provided with a Microsoft Word document.


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## Aducknamedjoe (Apr 25, 2013)

EC Sheedy said:


> Apologize in advance for 1st Createspace dume question. But if I want to use your service, Ryan, do I need to go back to my cover designer and get a new (expanded for print) cover? And do you take the epub file I already have or do I need to provide you with a different file format?
> 
> Oops, two dumb questions.


I would also be interested in an answer to these two questions.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Ryan Sullivan said:


> Hi there, EC. Yes, you will need to get a "print cover" from your cover artist. There are also people who expand your ebook cover into a print cover. For fiction, I suggest the dimensions 8x5.5 (lxw).
> 
> I would need to be provided with a Microsoft Word document.


Thanks, Ryan. I'm going to contact my cover maker and see what she can do. The Word doc part, I can handle. I think. I had my books scanned for epubbing and the only word doc I have is the one returned to me for proofing after the scan. It has coding in it that I'm assuming I'll have to take out, because you'd need a very clean Word doc.

Again, thanks. I'm sure there's a Createspace for Dummies out there, but I'd rather use someone else's brain/time than my own for this project, methinks.


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## JB Rowley (Jan 29, 2012)

Thanks for the info, Ryan. I like your subject heading and I like the idea of using PayPal. 

JB


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Thanks, guys.


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

Just a quick tip. If you are having someone design your ebook covers, you should always ask your artist to design it at print size and resolution and then make the ebook sized one from that. Unless you know for 100% certain that you'll never need it for a printed book, there's really no sense in not having a high resolution version. Who knows, you might need it for a poster or a flyer or something, if nothing else.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Good point, Greg. You should always receive high resolution covers from your cover artists. Otherwise, if it was a lower resolution, the expanded ebook would become pixelated and the cover would have to be designed over again.


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

Ryan, you'll have to excuse what may sound like a stupid question, but what's involved I'm formatting it for Createspace?  That is, what happens once we flip you over the word doc? As well, and I know EC asked it already, but we need to have our cover artist "extend" our ebook covers then?


Darren T. Patrick, author of the Rithhek Cage series

@9thChapter (twitter)

darrentpatrick.com


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Hi, Darren. No problem.

After receiving the document, I set the page size, margins, gutter, page numbers, titles, chapter headings, line spacing, headers, front and back matter arrangements, and ultimately provide you with the final PDF (and Word document in case you want to edit anything, e.g. typos) which you can upload to Createspace.

You can get a print cover any time before uploading to Createspace. I don't need a copy of the print cover, but the cover artist needs to know the final page count of the formatted book so they know how big to make the spine.

Does that answer your question?


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

For people who are wondering when to get your cover artist on board for the print cover of your book after the formatting of your paperback is done, here is my order:

- Upload the inside of the print book to CreateSpace to make sure everything is right and exactly where you want it
- accept and go to the next step which is the cover page of your book
- Download book cover template
- Hand over template to cover artist

From there on it's waiting for your cover artist to finish the cover, you upload that and you're done.

I hope this helps?


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

That is helpful, yes!

Do we need an ISBN (or similar) for printing?  Also, for novellas, the books might be fairly skinny (mine are novellas).  What is the min word count suggested to make this a worthwhile endeavour? Can't imagine this process is "cheap". I've just yesterday signed up for a Createspace account but haven't looked at costs. 


Darren T. Patrick, author of the Rithhek Cage series

@9thChapter (twitter)

darrentpatrick.com


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

The only cost is the expanded distribution option -- a cost which is worth it. It's not very much if I remember correctly. Amazon give you an ISBN for free. They make their money on their percentage of the books sold.

Yes, novellas might be fairly skinny. But that's okay.


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

9thChapter said:


> That is helpful, yes!
> 
> Do we need an ISBN (or similar) for printing? Also, for novellas, the books might be fairly skinny (mine are novellas). What is the min word count suggested to make this a worthwhile endeavour? Can't imagine this process is "cheap". I've just yesterday signed up for a Createspace account but haven't looked at costs.
> 
> ...


Books don't go by word count, they go by page count. The only issue with a short book is that you can't put text on the spine. I think you also have to have at least a certain number of pages to be eligible for distribution too. I want to say it's 48 pages, but I don't remember for sure now.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

The minimum page count for Createspace is 24. You can easily make that with a short story of 5,000 words.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Ryan Sullivan said:


> The minimum page count for Createspace is 24. You can easily make that with a short story of 5,000 words.


This is a truly useful service, Ryan. I've done it myself, but it takes me a long time to get a book formatted to CS specifications.

Do people really buy books as short as 24 pages? Or even 30-40 pages? Especially considering that CS books have a high cost of production? I wonder at the economics of it from the author's point of view.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

I honestly don't know, Richard. I guess it's just useful for Amazon/Createspace to give a concrete figure that people can work from.


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

That's good to know re: page count.  The first book of my series will be around 40,000 words (combining book one and two together - had a change in thought).  That should be no problem for a Createspace book.


Darren T. Patrick, author of the Rithhek Cage series

@9thChapter (twitter)

darrentpatrick.com


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Bump...


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Richardcrasta said:


> Do people really buy books as short as 24 pages? Or even 30-40 pages?


Sometimes. I've sold a handful of copies of my shorts in print since I uploaded them.



> Especially considering that CS books have a high cost of production? I wonder at the economics of it from the author's point of view.


Shorts probably aren't worth it unless you have a lot of fans who'll buy them, or you can do it all yourself. But they look good on the book shelf.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

That. Or, you can wait until you have several short stories and bundle them into one book.


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## Steve W. (Feb 23, 2011)

Bookmarking this thread!


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Ryan Sullivan said:


> That. Or, you can wait until you have several short stories and bundle them into one book.


Yeah, that's a good idea. It's certainly the cheapest way for readers to buy shorts in print, since the lowest price you can sell a single short through Createspace and make any money is about $4.99.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Ryan,

Welcome to KBoards! [br][br]You're welcome to promote your business and website here in the Writers' Café, but we ask that the same basic rules be followed as we have for authors in the Book Bazaar: you may have one thread about your service and must post to it rather than start a new thread each time. New threads about the service will be removed. Please bookmark this thread so that you can find it again to post to. And, you may not make back-to-back posts to the thread within seven days. If someone responds (such as this post), you may reply but otherwise must wait seven days, thanks![br][br]Also, active members (10 or more posts on our forum, active in the last 60 days) may have a listing in the Yellow Pages for Authors. [br][br]Betsy [br]KBoards Moderator


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Richardcrasta said:


> This is a truly useful service, Ryan. I've done it myself, but it takes me a long time to get a book formatted to CS specifications.


If you've done it once shouldn't it be easy to do it the next time? I mean, if it's in Word, all you have to do is save your original file under a different name, then go in and substitute your new title for the old one, your new Chapter 1 for the old Chapter 1, and so on? The formatting and everything else stays the same; you're just swapping out text.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

I'm pretty sure Richard was talking about a different book.

It's also not as easy as swapping out text. If the text is formatted as double-spaced in the manuscript, when you copy it over to the book file it keeps the double-spaced formatting, as well as the page size and margins of the original manuscript.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Ryan Sullivan said:



> It's also not as easy as swapping out text. If the text is formatted as double-spaced in the manuscript, when you copy it over to the book file it keeps the double-spaced formatting, as well as the page size and margins of the original manuscript.


In that case, couldn't you just use the previously-formatted file as a template? Just delete the existing text and start typing your new manuscript/text in its place whenever you want to begin a new book?


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

KevinH said:


> In that case, couldn't you just use the previously-formatted file as a template? Just delete the existing text and start typing your new manuscript/text in its place whenever you want to begin a new book?


I have used the Createspace pre-formatted file. And I've done this for around three books. When you have more than the chapters provided by their pre-formatted file, you have to copy and paste to make new chapters, and add new chapter numbers. But somehow, something goes wrong with one of the later chapters--a less than full page, for example. It is mechanical work, to some extent--and therefore, work, which an expert can probably do better, more elegantly. A 200-page, 20-chapter book could take me four hours to format, and if and when I can afford it, I would like to delegate all mechanical aspects of production to someone else, while reserving my energy for the more creative work.

Also, my books, even with the Createspace preformatting, and Garamond 12 or Garamond 11 font, don't look as professional as regularly published books. My guess is that Ryan is capable of producing a more pleasing result.

To respond to Edward M. Grant's comment:
"Shorts probably aren't worth it unless you have a lot of fans who'll buy them, or you can do it all yourself. But they look good on the book shelf."

I had the feeling that a 24-page book would be so thin it would be hard to give it a spine; it would therefore require a face-up display on a book shelf.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

bump...


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

I just finished formatting a book for Theresa Weir/Anne Frasier. Just letting everyone know that I'm still around.


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## Anne Frasier (Oct 22, 2009)

Ryan Sullivan said:


> I just finished formatting a book for Theresa Weir. Just letting everyone know that I'm still around.


I would def recommend Ryan. Nice job and fast turnaround.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Ryan, I don't have Word, only Word Starter and LibreOffice. Can you do anything with those?


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Not those programs specifically, but if I were able to copy the text into Word, I could save the final formatted document as a PDF and send you that file. (I would usually send back both the formatted Word document plus a PDF, in case authors want to make any changes i.e. typos.)


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## K. D. (Jun 6, 2013)

Lyndawrites said:


> Ryan, I don't have Word, only Word Starter and LibreOffice. Can you do anything with those?


Hi, in Libre Office you can 'save as' your document to word format.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Thanks, Ryan.

CeeDee - thanks. That's what I usually do when sending documents or files to my editor or elsewhere. Sometimes there're can be problems, though, hence my question.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Thanks, CeeDee.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

So far I've worked with Theresa Weir (Anne Frasier) and Barbara Bartholomew. More authors welcome!


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## Steve W. (Feb 23, 2011)

I'd like to see some samples of your work, Ryan. Do you have a portfolio? Print layout is one of those tedious jobs that take quite a while and I'd love to find someone affordable. Do you have some links to books you've done the interior for?


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Anne Frasier's (Theresa Weir's) book Come As You Are is still processing the Look Inside feature, but hopefully it will be done soon so I can share the sample. I'll be linking to people's books as they become available.

In the meantime, you can have a look at my own book, Aundes Aura, which I of course formatted myself.


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## Steve Vernon (Feb 18, 2011)

Formatting for Createspace ISN'T that hard - but it does take time - and time is something that an indie writer doesn't have a whole lot to spare. 

So Ryan - your rates are fair and I'm sure you'll get a lot of business. 

Heck, if I wasn't broker than broke - (wife's gone back to college and our household budget bears a STRONG resemblance to the parade route for the Bataan Death March) - I'd take advantage myself.

I would mention that Createspace has a built-in "cover creator" - so, if a writer CAN'T afford to have their original artist turn the cover into a properly compatible front/spine/back cover than they can always upload the cover they have onto a Createspace cover template.

The results are a little crap-taculous - but they do offer a simple compromise until a writer can save enough empty beer bottles to pay their cover artist to create a proper front/spine/back cover.

On the other hand anyone with any sort of graphic ability could certainly create their own working cover as well.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

I've moved the page for this service to a new website. I've also updated the original post on this thread. I don't have a contact form anymore, so you'll have to email me directly. Hopefully I can use a contact form again in the future with some sort of code.

I've also added testimonials, and Anne's book is now available as a sample. On my website, samples will be available along with the testimonials, just like Anne's is.


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## JB Rowley (Jan 29, 2012)

What a relief to have this job taken off my hands - and for such a good price. Thanks, Ryan.

JB


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

You're welcome, JB. It was a pleasure working with you.

I've now updated the testimonials at the bottom of the page.

http://ryansullivanauthor.blogspot.com.au/p/paperback-formatting-service.html


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## Judy Powell (Sep 25, 2011)

Hi Ryan.  Thanks a lot for offering this service.  I'll be in touch as soon as I'm done my next book.  This is a big help for people like me who get frustrated trying to format for CS.  I'll be sharing your website info with a couple of other writer friends.  Thanks!


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Thanks very much, Judy! I look forward to working with you.


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## 9thChapter (May 6, 2013)

Hey Ryan.  I've sent you a note through your site!


Darren T. Patrick, author of the Rithhek Cage series

@9thChapter (twitter)

darrentpatrick.com


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Thanks, Darren. I'm just about to respond now.


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## Steamdave (Sep 24, 2013)

Cheers, Ryan.

I've got a silly question for you - is language an issue?
I'm toying with the idea of doing a hard-copy version of my most popular ebook, to sell them to punters at public conferences.
My book is in Italian.
Would that cause problems to you? (I'm thinking about text wrapping and such)

Thanks for your answer.


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

Do you use InDesign or Word?


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Steamdave said:


> Cheers, Ryan.
> 
> I've got a silly question for you - is language an issue?
> I'm toying with the idea of doing a hard-copy version of my most popular ebook, to sell them to punters at public conferences.
> ...


Hey, Steamdave. Language shouldn't be an issue. As a French learner, I'd love to work on a book in another language. However, I wouldn't be able to add the "copyright notice" at the start of the book in your language. You could send me a version yourself, and I'd add that to the book. I can look over the manuscript and see if there are any other possible issues before starting to work on it. I can't imagine any other issues, though.


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## Seleya (Feb 25, 2011)

Hello, Ryan 

Do you work with illustrated books?
I have something I'd like to publish in paper (11K words all in all) with six full-page illustrations (one at the end of each chapter). 

Thanks for your time.


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## Steamdave (Sep 24, 2013)

Thanks for your response, Ryan


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2013)

I'd like to add two things if possible. First, while it's already been asked, I am wondering if you use Indesign.

If so, what is your default font size and line spacing?

One thing I noticed in the sample of your own book is that you have quite a few widows and orphans (one or two words on a line that could've been bumped up to the previous line if you changed the letter/word spacing). It isn't so bad at the end of a paragraph, but I did see one or two instances where this happened at the top of a page. I'm a tad bit OCD when it comes to empty space in the middle of text, but that's just me.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Nadia and Nicole: No, I don't use InDesign, just Word.

Nicole: What tends to happen if I set it to "keep widows/orphans together" is that the entire paragraph shifts over to the next page, leaving heaps of white space on the first page. I'm still learning how to deal with a few minor things like this, and if you'd like to suggest how to deal with this issue in particular, please PM me! (Would you change the font spacing in the last paragraph?)

Seleya: I would love to work on an illustrated book for you. I will add the caveat that when I got my printed copy, I was surprised to find I could see some dots making up the map in my fantasy book. I think I've since solved this, but can't be sure. Could we discuss this further via PM?


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2013)

I actually don't format in word aside from single-spacing the text and such like that. I do all of my formatting changes in Indesign. Does Word have a way to change the word/letter spacing? I never looked at it, so I don't know. Sucks that it bumps the paragraph down.

If you can reduce the spacing, or even increase it for the last two lines, that may help the widow and orphan situation.

In Indesign, a lot of times when I have widows and orphans, I have to severely reduce the spacing of the last two lines, or increase the entire paragraph depending on just how bad the widow/orphan is. 

Like I said, it isn't a huge deal, just something that bothers me because I'm OCD about everything


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Thanks for that, Nicole, I think that would help.

Sorry, I forgot to respond to your font size and spacing question. For font, 12pt for Garamond, as it's relatively small, with single line spacing. The sample you looked at has 1.2 line spacing with 11pt font, but I'd do it differently now. Cardo's a bigger font, so I'd make that 11pt -- it evens out to the same actual size.

The reason for the 1.2 spacing for my book was to help get it to a length that would feel like a decent, proper book. For full-length novels I work with an aim to get the book to 200+ pages.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2013)

That's a good font size. I know for shorter works, I sometimes lean toward 12 point, but that's mostly so I can have lettering on the spine since Createspace is very specific about not having text on thin spines (which sucks).

Best of luck


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Thanks!


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

Ryan Sullivan said:


> Nadia and Nicole: No, I don't use InDesign, just Word.
> 
> Nicole: What tends to happen if I set it to "keep widows/orphans together" is that the entire paragraph shifts over to the next page, leaving heaps of white space on the first page. I'm still learning how to deal with a few minor things like this, and if you'd like to suggest how to deal with this issue in particular, please PM me! (Would you change the font spacing in the last paragraph?)


InDesign can neatly avoid the problem Nicole mentioned above (and I honestly hate it, hate it) and create a super neat square-off folio look, which I adore. Hence my question. I know how to do InDesign, but it's pretty time consuming, so I was wondering if I can outsource it cheap to somebody who knows how to use it to create the look I want. (I'm OCD with formatting, so I'm going to want the gridline look & square-off folio, no widows/orphans on the top of each page, 32-33 lines per page, etc.)


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

For now I only work with Word.


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## Seleya (Feb 25, 2011)

Ryan Sullivan said:


> Seleya: I would love to work on an illustrated book for you. I will add the caveat that when I got my printed copy, I was surprised to find I could see some dots making up the map in my fantasy book. I think I've since solved this, but can't be sure. Could we discuss this further via PM?


Yes, of course. Thanks for your answer.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

Bumping.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

My website now has two samples as well as my own. _Come As You Are_ by Theresa Weir and _Mother of Ten_ by JB Rowley. Just waiting for _Mother of Ten_ to show the paperback sample rather than the Kindle.

Anyone else need formatting done? I'm available.


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