You've poured your heart into your book outline and are well on your way toward creating your masterpiece. But your rough text has a long way to go before it can become a polished, published piece of literature. The process can seem daunting without help. What file formatting do you need to use? How do you format it? What about the cover? The binding? The page size?
Fortunately, book templates can help you create a polished piece of literature quickly and easily, and many sources online offer these templates for free! Book templates provide structure and eliminate a lot of headaches so you can stay organized and focused on content. Some templates give you the freedom to write your book from scratch within the template itself. Another bonus is that many of the websites that offer these templates can also give you a push in the right direction to get your book published.
The following online sources offer book templates that can help you move your writing process along and offer additional sources for advice and guidance in the publication process:
Squibler
Squibler dives into the specific aspects of book templates, outlining the different types you'll find out there, as well as what makes a template good and effective to apply to your text. Even if you don't use the templates on Squibler's site, a review of the content could give you a better idea of what kind of template you will want.
Squibler also walks you through the writing process, using encouraging tips to guide you right from the beginning of the writing process. It illustrates the time-saving benefits of using a book template, depending on your book genre and length, and touts the importance of good, clean design.
48 Hour Books
48 Hour Books offers free book templates that automate some of the setup and formatting of creating your finished book. You can use your favorite word processing program for the text and just input the template. The website for 48 Hour Books provides cover size calculators and other helpful tools to help you move toward self-publishing. As the name implies, 48 Hour Books offers a quick turnaround once you are ready to print your book and provides you a PDF and printed proofs upon request. Once you sign off on you proof, the printed books ship within two to five days. The website is easy to navigate, with straightforward headlines and strong visuals that guide you to find the information you seek.
Bonus: the website for 48 Hour Books also has a blog feature, which provides a source for valuable information that can help you as you write. For example, a recent blog post identified the top five podcasts for writers and self-publishers, giving you an even further source of advice. You can also find an extensive series of how-to videos designed to troubleshoot problems common to self-publishing authors.
Blurb
Blurb offers several categories of service, including photo books, trade books, magazines, and eBooks. Subcategories related to layout, quality, content, and size are found under each of these categories, allowing users to further customize their products. In addition, Blurb offers a book-writing software program called BookWright, which facilitates the custom publication of photo books, magazines, and novels in both print and eBook formats.
If you like to use Adobe InDesign, Blurb also offers an InDesign plug-in that creates "Blurb-ready" blank templates, with output available in both print and digital formats. The Blurb website also features an interesting sales and distribution section, offering valuable information on pricing and distribution strategies.
Create My Books
Create My Books offers you a straightforward self-publishing service, with simple, step-by-step instructions for you to follow. It provides several word processing templates in which you can start composing your book, which can enable you to follow the correct formatting guidelines from the beginning of your writing process.
Create My Books also features a section called How Does It Work that clearly and concisely explains how to design and publish your book. It also offers an FAQ section to help you navigate the process of publishing.
DiggyPod
DiggyPod provides templates for the interior pages of your book as well as the outside cover. The templates DiggyPod offers are set up for Microsoft Word and come in a range of sizes according to your specifications, which will automatically set your margins and page sizes as you insert or compose your text.
If you've already written your book, DiggyPod provides a how-to video that walks you through the process of inserting your text into a template, including setting your margins and page sizes in Word. It also covers topics such as font embedding and book trim size to help you along.
Creative Market
Creative Market features more than 8,200 book templates according to category to meet your publishing needs. It offers several options to help you Find the perfect creative asset to bring your project to life.
Creative Market offers a dedicated template section with a great many offerings from its partnering companies as well as a blog devoted to book templates in case you need a nudge in the right direction. It also offers promotions and discount offers at every turn.
Kindle Direct Publishing
Kindle Direct Publishing presents several tools to assist in the publication of eBooks and paperbacks. Drawing on the consumer reach of Amazon, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) gives you customization options and a pre-publication checklist as well as cover templates for your paperbacks. You have your choice of several template sizes with or without page bleed and can customize your chapter pages and headers.
Lulu
Lulu offers downloadable templates according to your product line (standard paperback, premium paperback, or premium hardcover). Within Lulu's six-step process for the publication of print books, you can access valuable tips on formatting, distribution, and cover design. The simplified eBook process gives you tips for creating your own device-ready text.
Solentro
Solentro places its testimonials front and center, which could attest to its ability to produce great results. Solentro markets not only to book authors, but also to those who wish to publish photo books after special occasions. This makes the Solentro website a good candidate for your graphics-heavy content. Solentro stresses simplicity and usability and offers features that enable you to choose the size, cover type (hardcover or softcover), binding preference, and number of pages for your book.
Whether you're just getting started writing your text or you've already put the last punctuation marks on your sentences, using a book template can help guide you to bring your book to life and prepare it for publication. Most of these online template sources come from companies that want to help you succeed, and applying one of the thousands of available free templates can help you get closer to distributing your book to your audience.