It’s not enough to bang out a novel on a laptop and self-publish it the next day. This work of wonder has to be competitive with professionally published books. This means that the work must be equal to a professionally published book in writing and editing quality and interior and cover formatting.

Very few, if any, first-time writers have the knowledge and skill to self-publish a novel; and they do it anyway. It goes without saying that a basic understanding of grammar and punctuation is required. Even casual readers will notice if the writing is poor quality. Hardcore, die-hard readers will likely not tolerate poor writing for very far into the book. They will put it down and not pick it up again. Regardless of how wonderful mom says it is, if it isn’t—it simply is not good. Even if a high school English teacher went through the manuscript as if it was an assignment and pronounced it good, if it isn’t—it simply is not good.

Fiction writing has an identifiable style, often distilled even more by genre. (See links below.) Experienced editors know the “language” of fiction writing. Content editors make sure the timeline is straight throughout the time of the story. They make sure that the writer doesn’t say one thing and later contradict themselves. Content editors test facts to make sure that the reader can dispense with reality and lose themselves in the “reality” of the story. They make sure that someone who has walked out of a conversation doesn’t continue to participate in it. And, they make sure that the elements of storytelling are intact, well written, and believable. A line editor checks for grammar infractions and continuity of tense, and million-in-one punctuation rules: some I hadn’t heard of until they came up in an oddly worded sentence. Qualified editors cost money. The best advice to any writer is: Print the work and read it aloud, preferably to someone. It isn’t a waste of ink/toner and paper; it is an investment in the future book. Then hire pros to content edit and line edit the work.

There are a million details to formatting that makes a book look authentic and competitive. Use the CENTER function to center things like scene breaks, rather than tab, tab, tab to the location you eyeball as the center of the page. Remember with the ditch, the margins are not equal on the right and left of the page. Use the PAGE BREAK function to end one chapter and start the new chapter at the top of the next page. Use the JUSTIFY FULL function to make the lines begin and end at the same place as the lines above it. There are little details like the first line of a new chapter is flush with the left margin, not indented. The line after a scene break is indented. Indentations look best as three characters, rather than the five spaces we learned in typing class. There is only one space between sentences. The first page of a chapter is not numbered. The rest of the pages in that chapter are numbered on the lower outside corner of the page. The author’s name and book title are alternated on the header throughout the book, but not on the first page of a chapter and not on the front matter pages. There are expectations about the content of the front matter. There is the pesky problem of widows and orphans. The ditch needs to be calculated. That is the part where the left and right side of the pages when opened has extra space in the facing margin so the text is easily visible; that’s the inside of the spine. There is software that espouses to format a book, but the accuracy depends on the knowledge and skill of the developer. Hire a qualified person to format the interior of the book.

Depending on the genre, there is an unspoken expectation of the look of the cover art. Take a trip to the bookstore and browse the covers of books in the genre of your book. What elements, including color palette, do they have in common? It is best to hire a cover artist experienced in your genre or purchase the license to commercially use art stock from the internet to design your cover. You need to calculate the bleed, and make sure the cover art is at least 300 dpi. If a font for the title is gotten from a font site on the internet, buy the license to use it commercially. Google your title choice and see how common that title is. If everyone is using the same title, you will not stand out in the crowd. Purchase your own ISBN rather than use a free ISBN that is not registered to you.

If your manuscript is truly the next Great American Novel, then why not have experts bring it to print? Do the work your manuscript deserves: Write an industry standard synopsis, research publishers or literary agents, write a compelling query letter, and submit your manuscript in accordance with their submission guidelines. If your manuscript is worth it, then invest time and money into getting it to print.

Book Genre Lists:
https://www.novel-software.com/book-genres/ (I don’t know anything about their writing course; this is just a useful list.)
https://literary-devices.com/list-of-literary-genres/
https://brookevitale.com/blog/book-genres

NOTE: eBooks have different formatting expectations. An audio book of a poorly edited manuscript will say out loud all of the uncorrected mistakes.