Word For Authors: Special Instructions for Poets

A well organized Word document will make turning your work into a Kindle or print book far easier if you simply follow some basic suggestions. 

I have formatted many books of poetry and have seen the same problems over and over. Poets care more about the look of the work than most authors. The shape of the poem is occasionally important. The line lengths matter. The problems stem from the fact that poets compose on an 8.5" x 11" screen for a book that will be 5" x 8" or 6" x 9". 

I recommend poets change the page size and margins before they compose. This way they will see how the poems will look on the final printed page and can make informed decisions. 

Before you start typing, choose the Layout tab on the toolbar.


Click Size on the Layout toolbar.


Change the size to your desired book size (5 x 8 or 6 x 9 are very popular options). Make sure Whole document is selected where it says "Apply to".  Then click OK.



Choose Margins from the Layout toolbar. If you are working on a print book, change the Multiple pages field to Mirrored. Make sure the "Apply to" field is set to Whole document. You can make the margins whatever you want, but I would recommend you make them at least .5". The critical margin is the one labeled "Inside" -- this margin has to account for the binding. I usually set this to at least .75", but it does depend on the number of pages in your book. You can look up the minimum inside margin in the KDP help files. The inside margins are generally the same for the other platforms (Draft2Digital, Ingram...) as they all use the same print-on-demand technology.


In a previous post I covered the Heading style and Normal style setup process. One suggestion for poets is to not indent the first line and to choose Left Alignment, not Justified. Keep everything flush left to the margin. If you want to center the poems, that's OK - if you set Normal up that way they will be truly centered. You can center some and keep others flush left -- no problem. I recommend either Single or 1.15 line spacing. Lastly, in the paragraph settings I recommend you set the After between 12 and 15 pt. This will put a consistent blank line between your stanzas.

Also, please read my post about the correct way to indent lines (or whole stanzas). Please do not use the tab key. 

The Enter key creates a new paragraph. Poets should use the Enter key to create a new stanza. Within a stanza, use Shift-Enter to create a new line. 

If you follow these guidelines you will avoid surprises when you (or your formatter) works on the print version of your work. It will also make the Kindle version much more readable than if you composed in the default 8.5 x 11 format.

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