I learn something new every single time I put a book together. You’d think I’d reach a point where the process is routine, but so far there’s always some little detail that’s just waiting to surprise me.
As I’ve said before, I try to share each time I learn something because without others sharing their knowledge, I never would have figured out the book formatting process.
This little tidbit didn’t pop up while formatting Golden Shells, but while I was fixing the Kindle formatting for The Adventure and Discarded Dragons.
I had the manuscript put together and it looked great. But when I uploaded it to KDP and scrolled through the previewer, I noticed several random ghost images that were not showing in my Word document.
This left me scratching my head. Those ghost images were hiding in there somewhere. After checking everything my husband and I could think of, he finally suggested I shift the manuscript from Print layout to Web layout. (Again, this is a Word document I’m working with.) Seems silly, but it worked. All of a sudden I could see the random extra images hiding in the manuscript.
So there’s my formatting tip. If you’re getting ghost images in your manuscript, try the Web layout. Obviously, after deleting the extras, you have to return to Print layout to make sure you didn’t mess anything up in the margins and such, but at least you can find those pesky ghost images.
Blessings,
Jennifer
P.S. As you probably already know, Mystery of the Golden Shells will publish on August 15. Pre-orders open this coming Monday, August 1st. The Kindle version of the book won’t be far behind the physical publication 🙂
Sounds like a game of hide and seek. In this case – you – always win: )
That’s the hope! Just got to keep searching until I find things 🙂
Good to know! Thanks for the tip! 🙂
Always happy to share! There are so many random things that pop up while formatting 🙂
I always had a feeling self-publishing a book with artwork wouldn’t be easy, so I’m glad I’ll never do this. I’d probably horribly mangle it all, anyways. Can’t wait to see the finished product!
I’m always surprised by how complicated images get in ebooks! It’s actually easier in print books, but only marginally. I’m sure you’d do it justice if you ever decided to give it a go, Kat! 🙂
I usually get your books in print form, and they’re always gorgeous, but, especially with all the options to change the sizing on ebook readers, I figure it must be a headache to get it just right. Haha, I would probably pick your brain dry!