Normal block formatting isn't supposed to have paragraph indentations (think emails), but book readers do expect them (except
for first paragraph of each chapter as noted above).
If you choose to follow standard print formatting, the first line of
the first paragraph of every chapter will not be indented and the first few words or first clause of the sentence will be capped.
Open up the epub and look at
the first paragraph of chapter one.
Does
the first paragraph of each chapter begin with a special character or is it in some other way different from the other first lines in the section or chapter?
The first line of each paragraph should be indented.5», except for
the first paragraph of each chapter, which should not be indented.
(Note:
the first paragraph of a chapter should not be indented.)
Popular novels do indent paragraphs, but not usually
the first paragraph of the chapter.
If you understand what I mean by «not indenting
the first paragraph of the chapter» (see the two pictures below) you should observe that this is very common among those books.
The second example doesn't indent
the first paragraph of the chapter.
Most traditionally published books don't indent
the first paragraph of each chapter.
You can omit this on
the first paragraph of each chapter and use a drop cap on the first letter instead; a drop cap is a large capital letter at the beginning of a text block that has the depth of two or more lines of regular text.
I take off first line indent for
the first paragraph of each chapter.
Here's
the first paragraph of Chapter 1 of our thriller A Killing Song.
In
the first paragraph of chapter one, Susskind adeptly sums up the premise of his book: «Unless they adapt, many traditional legal businesses will fail.