Putting Formatting to the Test

When it comes to formatting there is a lot of advice out there already. Rather than rehash the same things, we wanted to look at what the big publishers do. After all, when most authors ask for a good, professional job, they generally mean they want to look like a book in their genre sitting on the shelf in a bookshop or library.

For this experiment we looked at ‘General Fiction’ in a bookstore. This category excluded romance, sci-fi, fantasy, young adult and westerns. We were not too concerned about breaking this down further as the sort of things we were looking at were not too specific, with the possible exception of artwork.

So what did we look for?

• Did the books have headers?
• Were the headers in the same font and style as the text?
• Did they indent the first line after spaces?
• Were the chapters titled (as well as or in place of a number)?
• Was there artwork with chapter headings? 

​We also looked at line spacing, at least to the naked eye, and found 100% of books surveyed were single spaced. There was therefore, we thought, no need to go deeper into that.

Did the books have headers?

Pretty much an even split down the middle. 50.5% of books sampled had no headers. 49.5% had headers. 

Were the headers in the same style as the text?

This seemed to follow more of a standard. 94.5% of books with headers used a different font or style for the header text. Only 5.5% appeared to use the same font as the rest of the page. 

Did they indent the first line after spaces?

This was 100% - no books in our sample indented after a space. The reason we still report this though will be clear in a later post we plan to make about another genre.

Were the chapters titled?

In the vast majority of general fiction - 95.5% of sample - chapters were numbered (ie. Chapter 31, 31, #31, Chapter Thirty-One etc…) without a title (ie. “Deception”, “Turning Point” etc…). While we didn't record which books had titled chapters, it did appear to be more the military and historical fiction side of things. (If the title above interested you it is from A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami)

Was there artwork with chapter headings?

Not surprisingly, for adult fiction the vast majority of books - 97% - did not have artwork with their chapter headings. However, most the 3% that did were trade paperbacks, perhaps reflecting the space available for such enhancements. It was more common in historical fiction, such as The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory pictured above.

So what can authors take from this?

Well, there are limitations. The sample size was large, but it covered a few different genres. The general message stayed true throughout - headers are optional, don't indent after a space, and numbered chapters are safe. Beyond this it would be a good idea for an author to look at just the books in their area. For example, artwork and titled chapter headings were more popular in historical fiction. Thrillers, on the other hand, tended to be very minimalist with just numbered chapters and no art. 

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