Formatting looks like the boring bit at the end. It's actually the only stage a retailer validates automatically before publishing you. Embedded fonts, spine width, bleed, image resolution, page count inside the binding range. Miss one and the file bounces, usually the week you wanted to launch.
Upload a print PDF as your ebook and readers get a book they can't resize. They'll say so in the reviews. Here's what each format actually needs.
A print PDF is locked to its trim size. Inside it you need mirrored margins, a gutter that grows with page count so words don't vanish into the spine, running heads, front and back matter in the right order, and chapters that always open on a right hand page. Print ready means embedded fonts, the right colour space, and bleed where the design calls for it.
The reader picks the type size, so your layout has to survive getting rearranged on a phone, a tablet and a six inch e-reader. That means real styles instead of manual spacing, a linked table of contents, working internal links and a proper cover image. Anything you positioned by eye is going to move.
Picture books, cookbooks, poetry with shaped stanzas. Anything where the position of the text carries meaning needs fixed layout EPUB. It behaves differently on every device and you can't just export it out of the reflowable file.
KDP and IngramSpark run automated checks the moment you upload. Files fail on embedded fonts, wrong spine width, missing bleed, low resolution images, page counts outside the binding range. We build to the spec instead of fixing rejections after.
These are the retailer requirements that decide whether your file gets accepted.
Every month it sits in the drawer is a month nobody reads it. Tell us where the book is at and we'll give you a straight answer on what it needs.
That's enough for us to tell you what shape it's in, what the page count will land at, and whether anything in the design is going to cause a rejection. No guessing required.
You've probably heard that publishing services take your money, take your rights and go quiet. The industry earned that reputation. So here's how we work instead.
Your rights, your royalties, your files. Nothing we make gets licensed back to us.
Scope in writing first. No work starts on a handshake and a number that moves later.
Source files, print ready files, accounts and logins. All handed over, all in your name.
If your book doesn't need a service, we'll say so. That's cheaper for you and better for us.
Real books we've worked on. Covers, interiors and distribution, all of them out in the world.
Every month it sits in the drawer is a month nobody reads it. Tell us where the book is at and we'll give you a straight answer on what it needs.
Five stages, and you sign off at every one. Nothing moves to the next stage until you've said yes to the last.
Tell us where the book is and what you want it to do. We'll tell you what it actually needs.
Scope and price agreed in writing before anyone starts. You know the number up front.
Editing, layout, cover, whatever the scope says. You approve each stage as it lands.
Final proof on the typeset pages, plus a physical proof copy before anything gets printed at volume.
Retailer setup, metadata, categories and keywords. Then the files and logins come to you.
We don't publish testimonials on our own site anymore. Ours live on Trustpilot, where you can check them yourself.
Verified reviews
We publish our reviews on Trustpilot so you can verify them independently rather than take our word for it. Read what our authors have said at trustpilot.com/review/publisherinusa.com.
Audio Book
Formatting
Author website
Illustrations
Book cover 
