The Quick & Dirty Way to Make Paperbacks is Back!

 For a while I used Draft2Digital's format to make my paperbacks.  They weren't always the best format but they were quick and easier than doing it myself.  The header and page numbers always looked better than when I made them myself because Word is such a pain in the ass about it even after 35 years.

Then one day their print book option was relegated to one of those endless beta tests (like the "new" KDP Reports that had been on beta for about 3 years and only this week went online as the main reports--unfortunately) and you had to ask to get in, which I wasn't going to do.  So I went back to formatting myself for a little while.

Then one day I put a book I was doing for free (a collection of Kindle Vella stories I have to give away since I can't publish them or Amazon will cancel my story on Vella) on Draft2Digital so I could get the Mobi, ePub, and PDF files.  When I downloaded the PDF, I saw there are a variety of sizes available.  Check this out:

The 6x9 size corresponds to the default on Amazon.  So it's pretty easy then to just download that and upload it on Amazon for your paperback format.  There are other sizes too if you want one that's not the default.  D2D does all that formatting with the headers and so on so you don't have to.  Like before it's not always the best, but it's quick and easy.

The only caveat for me is the ebook usually has some stuff I wouldn't want in the paperback, like the dreaded ad, the table of contents, and more "Also By" stuff.  So I might want to trim that out in Word, save a separate file, reload it, and then run it through D2D.  Or not.  I'm lazy sometimes.

When you're putting your book in, you can find the page above by clicking the "View Book" link under the PDF preview on the Preview page:

Otherwise, if you exit out and log back in and click on your book it should bring up the "View My Book" page so you can get the PDF in whatever size.  It's a lot easier but if you want a little better formatting, my guide to making paperbacks in MS Word is still really useful--at least for me.