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BookBaby>Book Design>Interior Formatting for Printed Books

Interior Book Design & Formatting

Book Design & Formatting starts at just $399

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What is book formatting?

A well-formatted and designed book is critical to your success as an author. Even though you worked hard on your manuscript, it may not get the attention it deserves without professional formatting. BookBaby will help you provide the best possible reading experience for your book’s audience. Our staff of professional book designers will work with your input and create a custom layout to match the theme and message of your book. Our book designers don't use templates to design your book. Each book is custom designed by a real life professional book designer right here in our New Jersey facility. And best of all, we send you proofs of your designs to review and approve. We stand behind our work with the book publishing industry’s only 100% quality guarantee!

Designing your own cover? Get it right the first time

Download our helpful checklist
Book Printing Preparation Checklist

Questions about interior book formatting?

Download our helpful guide
Book Printing Preparation Checklist

Interior Book Design (Manuscript Formatting)

Professionally formatted text is an important part of book design. A clear hierarchy and readable typeface help create a layout that is inviting to your reader. Every section you include in your manuscript (foreword, dedication, chapters, etc.) will be custom formatted to create a polished book. We will send a PDF proof for approval before printing. We offer both eBook manuscript formatting and Print manuscript formatting (Black Text or Color Text Design).

Black Text Design

Black Text Design includes:

  • Customized layout that meets industry standards and provides the ultimate reading experience for your book audience.
  • Ideal for Novels and other general fiction, Biographies and Poetry books
  • Black text printing only. If images are included they will be printed in grayscale.
Color Text Design

Color Text Design includes:

  • Combination of text, graphics and color photos for the greatest visual impact.
  • Best suited for Art & Photography books, Cookbooks and Children’s books.
  • Text and Images will be printed in full color.

After you've selected the design options that are right for you and saved your quote, you will be asked to complete a short design questionnaire. It will give you the opportunity to share your ideas about the mood of your book or the style of the inside pages. You will also have the opportunity to upload images of your own for us to work with. BookBaby designers will combine your input with their expertise to create a custom designed book that you'll be proud to show off.

IMPORTANT: Interior book design and formatting does not include editorial services and is strictly a design service. BookBaby does offer stand alone editing services. You should upload your fully-edited and final text. Non-design related text edits after uploading will incur additional cost.

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Before & After Samples

Formatting example 1
Formatting example 2
Formatting example 3
Formatting example 4
Formatting example 5

Word Count

You can use the chart below to get an idea of your page count for some of our most popular trim sizes. Factors such as numbers of images in the book and amount of chapters make it difficult to pinpoint. There is no guarantee your book will fit neatly into the projections below, but it will help you to obtain a ballpark figure. Word count can be obtained in Microsoft Word under the "Tools" menu. If you have overestimated, we will refund the overages when we have a final formatted page count. If you underestimate, customer service will contact you to discuss the balance due on your order.

Word Count POCKET BOOK pages DIGEST pages TRADE pages
10,000 30-75 25-50 25-50
20,000 75-100 50-100 50-100
30,000 100-150 75-150 75-150
50,000 200-300 150-250 150-250
70,000 250-375 250-350 200-300
100,000 400-500 350-450 300-400
150,000 550-650 450-575 400-500
200,000 700-800 600-700 550-650
225,000 N/A 700-800 650-750
250,000 N/A N/A 700-800

Based on 11pt font (9pt for Pocket size), 1.5 line spacing, no images.

Before & After
Formatting example 1
Before & After
Formatting example 2
Before & After
Formatting example 3
Before & After
Formatting example 4
Before & After
Formatting example 5

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100 Digest 5.5” x 8.5”

Softcover, perfect binding, 60lb natural paper stock, gloss cover finish, 100 full-color pages.

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Multiple trim sizes and options based on your book genre.

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Build your book from scratch with a range of trim sizes, cover styles and finishes, bindings, paper stock options, and print types.

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