Book Design Wizard 2.0 is a nifty custom layout wizard for Microsoft Word that easily helps you create a template for your book. When you start it, it runs through a series of questions that takes into consideration all of your options for formatting your book. When you are done with the wizard, you have a Word document fully formatted for your book.
(Click the above image to see a larger view)
Here are some of the features that I really like about this program:
- Choose your trim size, including standard sizes that come print-ready for publishers.
- Choose all styling for title, chapters, and all sections of your book
- Insert new chapters/sub-chapters at the click of a button
- Rearrange chapters easily
- Check box to add acknowledgment, dedication, foreword, index, and table of contents
- Automatically creates copyright page
- Custom page number placement
- Easily insert images
- You can use all the features of Word while editing your book template
This is a brief list of the many features found in this nifty little program. I stumbled across Book Design Wizard 2.0 because me and Word don't always get along. I didn't want to spend time becoming a Word expert and every time I tried to do something complex with my formatting, I would invariably mess it up.
I tried a lot of other free templates, but found that the ones I ran across were as difficult to employ as trying to do it myself. When I found Book Design Wizard, I bit the bullet and spent the $37 to give it a try. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I made. I ceased spending time trying to learn to format my book and completed the first draft of my book with no further technical issues.
The support is in a help file and online. On the rare occasions that I could not find the answers to my questions in the help file, the company was responsive and helpful with my questions.
I don't review a lot of products on this blog, but this has been such a time saver for me, that I wanted to let you know about it. If you write books and struggle with formatting issues, you may want to look into this nice little program. If you have advice or other programs you use for book formatting, I encourage you too share them in the comments field.
Tony Eldridge
7 comments:
Thanks for posting this resource, Tony. I have fits with creating different headers/footers for each chapter. Sounds like this program will be worth getting for that alone!
MaAnna Stephenson
www.JustTheFAQs.net
MaAnna, I think you will love it. Like I said, I hated dealing with formatting issues in Word an this has literally made all those issues disappear for me. I haven't really checked the whole market to see what's out there, but this did such a good job, I didn't feel compelled to keep looking. I am curious to see if anyone has found other programs like this.
Tony,
Sounds interesting, but it would have been more informative to post a screen shot of the results rather than the program's interface.
Also, I wonder about the idea of "professionally" formatted. Does that make sense if you're just pouring your text into a template? I mean, there were no professionals involved.
Sounds like a useful program for the DIY authors, thanks for the review.
JFBookman,
Thanks for the post. It gives me another chance to reiterate my feelings about DIY and hiring someone to do something for you. In most cases, hiring a professional will give you better results than doing just about anything on your own (though on rare cases, a really good template is better than a really bad professional).
I appreciate the thanks for the review. It was just that- a review of a product and definitely not a comparison of human help vs DIY.
About the idea of using the word "professionally", I'd have to defer to you if this were an etymological discussion.
Thanks again for your comment. I do appreciate it.
Thanks Tony! I just downloaded the sister application from her site called Poetry Book Creator 2.0 and started working on some books with it. Just like anything else it throws you off but you just got to get back up and keep working at it. This version is a lot better than having to go through all the years of formatting some people go through. And since we both purchased similar copies and appear to be having good results, there should be many people -on this site- that will obviously appreciate our test drive, including the author kim at self-pub.net. By the way while we're on this subject, I like to have many nuclear options in my arsenal of authoring applications, and so, I just ran into a site named (wizards for word.com). After reviewing the info and the materials I can't wait to purchase their Prose Pro application and they also offer a package deal that costs about $139.00 and some change. It comes with all the bells and whistles to start your own merry band of books. A great arsenal to store away.
See you around kido,
JR
Fair enough, but I firmly believe Styles & Formatting in MS Word is *the* most important function in the entire program. I would urge all authors to become familiar with it.
Not only does it ensure consistency in terms of formatting, it does a lot of the work for you when you want to produce an eBook, upload to Smashwords, or sending a file to a graphic designer for typesetting.
The best results that can be achieved in Word are often judged by authors to be fine, but there's no comparison to the work of an experienced book designer. Software programs are just tools. Experience and training drive the decisions made every step of the way. Book designers take great pains and follow dozens of rules during page composition that authors don't even know about. For what it's worth, only self-publishers focus on DIY formatting. "Real" publishers know the investment in quality design is a necessary expense that pays for itself in increased sales.
Michele DeFilippo
1106 Design
Book design and self-publishing advice. With hand-holding.
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