The type of book or booklet I am talking about is usually between 15-30 pages long. It is pretty simple to write and edit and do your own artwork, and then put it all together with a cover.
All you need is a computer, printer, printer paper, card stock and a story or poetry, or whatever it is you want your book to say to others.
I have put together three of these types of books and have four actual written books.
Maybe you already have your material ready to go and all you have to do is put it all together, if so, then you can skip the manuscript writing part and go to the following part. However, you may still want to read the manuscript details, to see if there is anything you may have missed for your own book.
To put together your manuscript from an idea that you have on writing your book, you must first do a general mapping of the manuscript.
To do this, you must jot your idea down on a piece of paper and then brainstorm about your idea.
Let’s say you want to write a 20 page book about coin collecting. Then you would write coin collecting on the paper and then from there, you would start brainstorming any and everything you already know about coin collecting.
Now, maybe there is a lot of resources that you have gathered that you will use to develop this book. If so, make sure you give proper credit to these sources otherwise, you will be in trouble for copyright infringement.
Now it’s time to organize your book. The Title and the Title page can be done at any time. Sometimes I do it right away and sometimes I wait till last. Remember this, the title page is what everyone sees first and it is one of the most key elements to attract someone to your book.
The next thing is to organize your book according to chapters. Chapter one may be titled “A Brief History of Coin Collecting”. Chapter two might be titled, What Types of Coins To Collect”. This gives you an idea of the way the book should flow. It also helps when you are writing, because you can just pull up that chapter title and then write directly about that title.
So, let’s say you have created five chapters for your little book and now you can fill in all the work for each chapter. Just because this is a book about coins, does not have to mean it will be a boring book. Make sure you give great details and use some colorful wording. If you are not excited about this book, then no one else will be either. Write it with all your zeal. Just don’t get caught up in being too wordy, or using terms you will have to help your reader to understand.
For a little book, keep your chapters to about 2-3 pages. Also, be clear and concise.
Sometimes writers get hung up on writing because they want to be the number one author, or they feel they have to write for everyone as their audience. You will not please everyone as a writer. So, write because you know that someone out there either needs or wants to hear what you have to say, and they don’t want to have to read a big bulky book to find what you may have already put in your little book.
Do a spell check after each chapter and also read and reread your work several times to make sure it is what you want and that the material can be understood. You may want a friend or family member to read it also, there may be something you don’t see and another reader will see it or raise a question about it that will let you know you have to revise the material.
Okay, now that you have edited your material, making sure the beginning, middle and end is everything it should be, it is now time to put it to your own personal press.
The next steps may be hard and seem a little confusing. They were for me at first, but once you get the idea of what you are suppose to do, then it becomes easier.
The first thing you must decide is, do you want your title page to have anything on that page with it? If so, then you can figure out as I tell you the steps as to either putting it with other things, or standing alone.
The very first and most important step at this point, is to do a save of your book as it sits right now. I would save it two ways, on a removable type of file and also on the PC itself.
Open a new file as if you are going to start all over again.
Set your page setup to landscape and do it so it will be split into two separate pages.
Make sure you have a “Table OF Contents”, this is how a reader can see the name of each chapter and what each chapter might be about.
Now you will do some copy and pasting of your completed book. If you want to, get a small book out and look at how they go from page to page. Pa 1 may be across on the right hand side of the book from the title page and page two will be on the back of page one.
Change your page set up to landscape. You can do this at the start of the completed book.
You will also need to decide if you are going to have an introduction, glossary, dedication page and reference page to put in your book. A reference page is a must for using other author’s resources.
The first and last page should usually be across from each other in the final print. It changes if you include other items.
If you are totally confused, look at it this way. normally there are 2 sides to a sheet of paper. But since you split it in half, now there are 4 sides.
What will go on those 4 sides? Page 1 and 2 and 19 and 20. But, not always, you may have Table of contents, Page 1 of chapter one and the glossary or reference across from them.
The best thing you can do is look at a small book and then it will show you how you will need to set this up page by page.
You may have to play around with it for a while till you get the hang of how to set this up.
Once you realize how to do this, you can copy your already written text onto each page and then you will see your book come to life.
To copy and paste, go to edit on the top menu and start copying onto each page. You will only want to copy a small portion of the page because it will be reduced to only half of the full size page. When you paste it onto the other page, just place your cursor at the top and go to edit and click on paste.
Go to the last page of your book and do a copy/paste across from the first page of your book. You will be building your book as if it was lying open in front of you and you will be starting with the first and last page including your title page.
You will end up with the middle of your book. once you get done, you will be printing out each page and each side of each page and then put it together like you just did from the title page on up to the middle of the book. Recheck your book to make sure it is in the order you want the pages and it reads like it is suppose to read.
Before you staple it together in the middle with two staples spaced evenly away from each other approximately 3 inches from each other and 1 1/2 -2 inches from each edge of the paper, you must turn the booklet toward the table. The middle of the booklet will be facing toward the table. You want the prongs of the staple to be inside the middle pages of your book.
One last step before you offer it to the public, get it copyrighted. You do not want someone to steal your hard work. You can apply for a copyright through the Library of Congress and it will usually run about $35.00-$45.00 for your book. You will need to make a copy just like the one you just done, except now, you can take this copy to a print shop and print up several copies for a small cost. If you want to print extra copies, don’t staple or fold the pages, make this your master copies to print from. You may be able to download an application for the copyright on line from the Library of Congress.
The benefits of what you just accomplished are great! You saved a lot of money and found out you could do this. You did not have to go to a publisher or an editor.
The downside of doing this yourself is, you will not have the exposure you would have if you had went to a publishing company and you will not be known as having published works until someone will publish your book or a portion of it.
Good luck in your venture and I hope this has helped you to do it yourself!
Reference:
- www.loc.gov/index.html (this is to the Library of Congress)
