As an author, you've probably spent more time worrying about what goes on the page than what goes around it. But as a reader, you've likely relied on the little print around the margins--you know, the stuff that tells you the author's name, what chapter you're reading, and what page you're on. That "stuff" is called the "page elements," and it's an important detail to your published book.

Page elements consist of three main parts: 1) the page number, 2) running heads (author name, chapter title, book title, etc), and 3) the body (your manuscript).

You've likely never paid attention to how the page elements are presented, but if you take 3 books off your shelf at random, you'll probably notice that each one has the elements laid out slightly differently. There are some general conventions to presenting your page elements, but so far no hard and fast rules.

Here, we've included 4 different sample layouts. This should help you decide when you lay out your manuscript, or help you direct us if you want Light Messages to do the work. (That's one of the advantages we offer our partner authors--they only do as much prep work as they want to do.)