publishing.co.uk
Home  ›  Format my book  ›  Narrative history formatting
Door 1 · Format my book · history book

Format your history book for KDP.

Footnotes, endnotes, bibliography, index — done properly. Maps, plates and timelines that survive reflow. Whether it's academic-leaning or popular narrative history, we format it the way Penguin History and Yale University Press do.

Back to all book types

Free · 60 seconds · No payment

Before you pay anyone — score it free first.

Drop your manuscript and we run the same 30+ checks Amazon does, line by line, in under a minute. You get a clear /100 score, every failure point flagged, and the exact fix for each one. Whether you book us, do it yourself, or hire someone else — running this first means you don't pay for a service you didn't need.

  • Margins & gutter
  • Image DPI
  • Font embedding
  • ToC links
  • Blank pages
  • ISBN match
  • Bleed configuration
  • Page-count rules
  • Spine width
  • EPUB validation
  • 20+ more checks
  • Per-file PDF report
Step 1 · Production

KDP Readiness Score

"Will my history book pass KDP review?"

Drop your manuscript
Or click to choose a file

Accepts .docx, .pdf, .epub · up to 200 MB · files never stored, deleted after 24h

Run the KDP Readiness Score →

The recommended trim size

The format choice that matters most. We can deviate if your project needs it — but here's the working benchmark.

Recommended KDP trim

For history book — go with 6×9 in

6×9 in

Acceptable alternatives: 6.14×9.21 in or 7×10 in · all are KDP-approved trim sizes

6×9 is the dominant narrative-history trim (Penguin History, Allen Lane, William Collins). Generous enough for footnotes-at-bottom and full-page plates, slim enough to feel readable rather than textbook-y. Heavier academic monographs go to 6.14×9.21 to match Yale and OUP house style.

History books with plates and maps get 300 DPI pre-flight on every image; maps are vector-redrawn where source files exist.

What we get right for history book

The six things that make history book formatting different from generic novel formatting.

Footnotes vs endnotes

Your choice — and we honour it. Footnotes at the bottom of each page (Chicago-style), or endnotes per chapter or per book. Both link cleanly to text on EPUB; both survive reflow.

Bibliography + index

Full bibliography set in hanging-indent reference style. Real index with page numbers for print (built from the typeset PDF, not Word's auto-index), anchor links for EPUB.

Plates section

16 or 32-page glossy plates section — we integrate at 300 DPI in the text block where KDP doesn't support coated stock, with captions and figure numbers.

Maps + timelines

Period maps and chronological timelines redrawn vector-first. Foldout maps flattened to verso/recto spread. EPUB gets fixed-layout map pages so they don't reflow into illegibility.

Block quotes + primary sources

Indented block-quote style for letters, diaries, treaty texts. Set with source attribution beneath, in trad academic typography.

Glossary + cast lists

Where useful, scannable glossary and key-figures lists. Hyperlinked first-mention on EPUB so a reader can jog their memory mid-chapter.

Standard, on every project

Whatever the book type, this is what every order includes.

Print-ready PDF

KDP-compliant margins, mirrored gutters scaled to your page count, 0.125-inch bleed where needed, embedded fonts, 300 DPI image pre-flight, semantic page-break logic.

Reflowable Kindle EPUB

Optimised for every Kindle device including phone reading. Clean chapter recognition, working drop caps, scene-break ornaments, properly-linked TOC, semantic ordered/unordered lists.

Cover wrap calibration

Spine width auto-calculated from your final page count. Cover supplied to KDP-template spec for paperback, hardback or both. Full-bleed art tested against KDP's print profile.

Two free revision rounds

Side-by-side viewer to comment on specific pages. Most books need none; complex non-fiction sometimes needs both. Additional rounds £19 each.

KDP-approval guarantee

If KDP rejects your file for a formatting reason, we fix it free. We've never had a rejection — but the guarantee is the principle.

UK-based, no Mac required

You send a Word file (or PDF, Google Docs, RTF, ODT, EPUB, plain text). We send back finished files. No software to install, no learning curve.

Ready to format your history book?

From £69 for print-ready PDF. £119 for print + Kindle. Picture-book and complete packages from £179.

Order your formatting → ← All book types
Last reviewed May 2026 · Reviewed by the publishing.co.uk team