Formatting Nightmares

The most difficult part of self-publishing would have to be formatting. I have a very basic design for the book: each chapter should start on a separate page. To me, that should be easy. In the Word document I created, each chapter starts off on its own page. The hard part? When you change the page setup from 8 1/2 x 11 into Book Fold, all of that goes away. It sets the type where it wants it.

So, what do you do? In Book Fold, you set all the chapters to begin on their own page. Then, you upload to Amazon. Amazon recommends an HTM or HTML file. So, you convert it. What happens then? The page view you normally have in Word goes away and you have one long white page with your chapters simply separated by the amount of spaces you have. No biggie.

Then, you upload it to Amazon. What happens there? It is back into Book Fold and all the chapters start where they feel like it.

Now, I am on CreateSpace. I would very much like the book to look like as professional as possible, obviously. But the chapters still want to start wherever they damn well please. So far, I have spent approximately 45 minutes going back and forth. Hopefully, I can get this right. Regarding the online services that will convert your document into book presentations, they are starting to look better and better...