Self-Publishing: Basic Fiction Formatting for Smashwords in OpenOffice (Part 4: Steps 10 - 11)

You can read the first three parts here, here, and here. This post should complete the Smashwords series. Since it has been fairly well-received, expect to see one for Kindle Direct Publishing and one for AllRomance, too.

Today, we're going to create our "extra" pages (the summary, the table of contents, acknowledgements, about the author, and also by) and then create a linked table of contents. As always, I strongly suggest consulting the Smashwords Style Guide by Mark Coker and using this guide only as a program-specific supplement. Click on any photo to enlarge.

Step 10: Extras

Step 10a: Summary
In all of my books, I've included a summary first thing. I got the idea from someone on Twitter who lamented that she'd download free books and then forget what they're about when she got around to reading them. Not remembering what they were about meant she was less likely to read them. So I include a sort of "inside front flap" summary. You don't have to. If you choose not to, just skip this step.

In front of your copyright page, type up your summary, then do three carriage returns (no more).

Step 10b: Insert Manual Break

A manual page break won't affect the HTML or TXT files Smashwords creates, and it may not work on some devices, but I've always had excellent luck with this making the book look exactly as I want it to look. Even if the file doesn't break for a new page, the three carriage returns create space to separate the summary from the copyright page.

Step 10c: Table of Contents Page
After the summary page, you should have your title page and then your copyright page. For each of those, do the same thing: three carriage returns, insert page break. By this point, you should be on a fourth blank page. Here's where you create your table of contents. Give it a title (use the same style you used for your title page) and then add the contents list in default style. It should look something like this:

Step 10d: Acknowledgments, About the Author, Also by
These are all entirely optional pages, just as the Summary page is. If you'd like to keep your book super simple, just lead with the title and copyright pages, create a ToC that has only the story, and leave it at that. If, however, you'd like to give your thanks to those who helped you along, or your readers a chance to learn a bit about you and discover more, then this is the way to go. Marketing guides will tell you to add your website address (the full address; you can even try linking it, but I don't recommend it) and maybe even a sample of something else available for purchase.

At the end of your story, do the same as before: three carriage returns and insert manual break. This will be your acknowledgements page (or your About the Author, or Also by, or whatever it is.) Whatever you decide to do, be consistent in your formatting. If you have complete paragraphs, format the paragraphs with first line indent. If you're creating a list (of titles, for example) then leave them left-justified. Make sure you use the same header style as the other title headings in your book. This is what my "extra" pages look like:

Note that my web address is unlinked. I try to keep my hyperlinks within the book because I feel like it can get messy if you add too many.

After this is where you'd add the sample of your other available writing. You can also add more or less to this page as you desire. In one of my books, I added summaries of each story.

Step 11: Creating a Linked Table of Contents

There are several reasons to create a linked table of contents yourself. The Smashwords program won't do it for you and your book will get rejected from the premium catalog, you want to control where your readers can go easily, you want to organize your book. You really want to do this and it's really easy once you figure it out.

Step 11a: Bookmarks

First you want to create the bookmarks. These should match up with the list you already typed up on your Table of Contents page. Go to the beginning of each page, click your cursor to in front of the first letter on the page, go up to "insert" and select "bookmark."

Give your bookmark a concise, clear name.

Do this for each page that begins a section you want linked in your table of contents.

Step 11b: Hyperlinks
On your Table of Contents page, highlight each entry. Go up to "insert" then select "hyperlink."

Make sure "Document" is selected in the left part of the window that pops up, then click on the target button to the right of the Target box.

A window will appear to the right. Expand the "bookmarks" section.

You should see the list of all bookmarks you created. If you don't, or if you see duplicate links, you'll have to go back into the bookmarks box and delete/add as necessary.

Click on the bookmark that matches what you're trying to link to (in this case "summary"), click "apply" and then click "close" in the small window to the right. When you're done, the main hyperlink window should look like this:

Do this for each item on your table of contents. Go slow, take your time. When you're done, your ToC should look like this:

And this is a good time to test those links.

When you were creating bookmarks, you should have created one for the table of contents page. (Two images up, you'll see a "toc" link in my bookmarks list.) Now, while you're testing those links, highlight something on each page (on my Summary page, I use the story title; on all other pages, I use the page title heading) and create a hyperlink back to the Table of Contents.

All right. You should be ready to upload to Smashwords now. Before you do, check over your file one last time. Is it saved in a .doc format? Is the main body consistently formatted? Do all of your links work?

Does it make you proud?

Good luck!