Need a designer to format your book’s interior?

So you’ve finally finished and edited your novel or nonfiction book, and you’re ready to take the next step. Congrats!

At this stage, the next step in the publication process might be a hazy mystery. It’s quite possible that you’ve been so engrossed in writing and editing that you’ve not given much thought to how you’re going to get your manuscript into book form.

These days, the possibilities are blossoming: ebooks, paperbacks, hardbacks, specialty hardbacks, audiobooks… Whew! Where to start?

Here’s one place if you plan to hire out the formatting work to a professional. Below you’ll find some useful questions to ask a potential book formatter, so that you’ll have a solid chance of finding a communicative, skilled, and ethical formatter you can turn to again and again for professional work.

1. Ask if they have a website or a spot on the web where you can learn more about their service offerings.
2. How many books have they formatted?
3. Have they formatted books in your genre or field? How many?
4. What programs do they use for creating ebooks and/ or paperbacks?
5. If you have specific formatting needs, ask if they specialize in anything, such as author/series branding; working with bleeds (when images and elements are placed all the way to the edges of pages); formatting in bells and whistles, such as:
   1. drop caps
   2. first line nesting
   3. glossaries
   4. indices
   5. chapter glyphs
   6. etc.
6. Ask if they always have clients sign a contract. Make sure there is a clause that will let you out of the contract if they end up being unable to finish by the agreed upon deadline or in cases of Acts of God (hurricanes, etc.), illness, etc.
7. Let them know that if anything comes up (scheduling snafu, illness, or they discover during the process that your book isn’t quite ready for formatting, that they let you know ASAP. (Remember that the formatter needs a fully edited manuscript. Attempting to make edits while formatting can introduce errors, be time-consuming, and can potentially be more costly.)
8. Ask how often they tend to communicate with clients, and ask them if they would agree to emailing you updates on their progress along the way.
9. Ask how the payment process works and the payment platforms they use.
10. Ask to see examples of their formatting work, whether it be sample chapter title pages in PDF format or a link to a published book on Amazon where you can use the Look Inside function to take a look at their work.

With these 10 questions to ask a potential formatter before hiring, you’ll hopefully set yourself up for success when it comes to polishing your manuscript and preparing for publication. For more articles on publishing, check out the ScribeFlow Hub!