How to Format a Book in Microsoft Word for Amazon KDP (Step-by-Step)

About this video

A detailed Microsoft Word formatting tutorial covering both Kindle ebook and KDP print from the same manuscript. For ebooks his rules are: a clean serif font (he uses Garamond or Georgia, size 11–12), line spacing 1.25–1.5, every chapter title styled as Heading 1, body text justified, extra spaces replaced with page breaks at chapter ends, paragraph spacing for non-fiction versus indentation for fiction. He shows turning on formatting marks, setting a custom trim size and mirrored margins even for the ebook file to ease later print conversion, and auto-generating a hyperlinked table of contents from the Heading 1 styles. For paperback he saves a separate copy, adds odd/even headers (book title on odd pages, author name on even), centered page numbers, 1.3 line spacing with paragraph spacing, and regenerates the table of contents with page numbers instead of hyperlinks, updating it after any layout change, then exports to PDF. His typical setup is 5.5 x 8.5 inches, cream paper, about 30,000 words for 150–180 pages. He closes with Fiverr formatting gigs as the outsourcing option.

Key takeaways

• Style every chapter title as Heading 1 — that is what powers an automatic, clickable table of contents
• Use page breaks, not blank lines/spaces, to end chapters
• Keep separate ebook and paperback files; paperback adds headers, page numbers, and a page-number TOC
• Non-fiction uses paragraph spacing; fiction uses first-line indentation instead
• Update the table of contents after any change that shifts pagination

Episode details: published May 20, 2024 · 16:19 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Sean Dollwet’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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