How do my words become a print book and an ebook?
When you're ready, press Make it a book at the top of the writer.
Your book goes to BookPublish, set the way you saw it in the writer's pages. From there:
- Check the pages. Press Set it for me if you'd like us to choose the settings, and look at anything we list for you to check. See What does "Set it for me" do?
- Make your cover. The spine is sized to your real page count.
- Pick a printer and download your print-ready files and the ebook.
You keep writing in the writer
Making it a book doesn't freeze your words. Keep writing, and when you're ready:
- In the writer, press Make it a book again. The newest words go to BookPublish. Your cover, and the settings you chose there, stay as they are.
- Changed a book setting in the writer since you last sent it, like the trim size, the style or the Contents page? That one goes too. A setting you didn't change in the writer keeps what you set in BookPublish. If you locked the layout, nothing changes until you unlock it.
- Or open your book in BookPublish. If the words changed, a bar says Your writing changed since these pages were set. Press Update to set the new words. The page count may change, and with it the cover's spine.
The words always live in the writer. That's why a book from the writer has no Word file to upload in the formatter. To change the words, press Open the writer.
Pages made for you, and hiding them
The chapter list shows the pages we make from your book: the Contents page, Notes, your list of sources, and the Index. They are marked Auto. Click one to see what it is made from.
Don't want one in your book? Click it and turn it off. It stays in the list, marked Hidden, so you can turn it back on later. For Notes, you choose where they print instead: on a Notes page at the back, at the end of each chapter, or at the bottom of the page. Hiding a page here hides it in BookPublish too the next time you send the book.
Fixing a word on the page
You can also click a word on the formatter's pages and type. The change is saved back to the writer, so both say the same thing.
If your book has a Large Print edition, changing the words changes every edition. That's on purpose: the two editions can't drift apart.