Some authors do not have the skill of formatting their own book. Yes they can write and plot stories but the formatting or layout process is different and more technical. If you are like this, you do not have to go through the hassle of renumbering pages chapter by chapter, setting margins, adjusting the resolutions of your images into 300 dpi, generating the Table of Contents automatically and other complicated features of your text editor. The best thing to do is hire the service of a CreateSpace book formatter expert, that is if you are publishing in CreateSpace.

A book formatter can help you on the following:

• * Determine the margins of your book base on its number of pages
• * Fonts to be used on your book. There are appropriate fonts for each type of books.
• * Setting the correct header and footer for pages. Page numbering can be really time and patience consuming
• * Adjust the resolutions of your images. It must be 300 dpi or more.
• * Format tables, charts, poetry
• * Format chapter titles, subtitle, headers, block quotes, etc.
• * Format footnotes or endnotes
• * Generate the table of contents
• * Follow the pdf settings required by your printer

The above are just a few that a book formatter can do for you. There are actually a lot, depending on what type of book you have whether it’s a simple novel, colorful children’s book with lots of illustrations, magazines and other types of reading materials that requires complicated formatting, an expert in layout or formatting is a must.

Aside from its expertise in formatting, one good reason why you should hire a book formatter is that she knows the submission guidelines required by your printer or publisher. If you are into self-publishing in CreateSpace, Lulu or Lightning Source, hire someone who knows the submission requirements of each one.

The answer is NO. Amazon will not format your manuscript neither CreateSpace nor Kindle Direct Publishing. If you want to publish in Amazon for print on demand books, choose CreateSpace as a self-publishing platform. What you would do is format your manuscript and export it to PDF then that PDF file which conforms the CreateSpace requirements will be uploaded to their system together with your book cover.

If you want your book in eBook format, Kindle Direct Publishing is the right place for you. Again, KDP will not format your manuscript but they do convert your Microsoft Word document into mobi file. Mobi file is a format that can be read by Kindle device.

All formatting is done by the author himself or a book formatting service like The Fast Fingers.

As someone whose been inspired by his writings, I would like to answer the title question first. Personally, ‘The Notebook‘ is an all-time favorite. The love story of Noah Calhoun and Allie Nelson made me cry and made my heart flutter. Hopeless romantic as I am, I began to dream of a man just like Noah.

Other books written by Nicholas Sparks are:

Wokini, coauthor Billy Mills
Message in a Bottle
A Walk to Remember
The Rescue
A Bend in The Road
Nights in Rodanthe
The Wedding
The Guardian
Three Weeks With my Brother
True Believer
At First Sight
The Choice
Dear John
The Lucky One
The Last Song
Safe Haven
The Best of Me

Among these titles, what made you cry,  fall in love?