eBook formatting for Kindle

[Megg81]

Does anyone have experience in creating eBooks for the Kindle?

Im working from existing Word documents of text & diagrams (the diagrams may be removed).

Can anyone shed any light on the formatting though? Is it a straightforward file conversion from a finished Word document on an A4 page layout or should the text be pasted into something like WD on a specified page size so it is a .html file when complete?

The finished products will be for sale via a website. I don't own a Kindle either, so Im not entirely sure how eBooks appear on them.

Thanks

[pauland]

I have no experience, but ironically today I received an email for an e-book that tells you how to create ebooks using Apples pages application. Not much help if you have a windows machine, though.

[Fred C]

Megg81,

This should help:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishi...A3R2IZDC42DJW6

[iamtheblues]

To convert a Word Document (.doc) into a Kindle file (.mobi), I think that you may have to convert it to a .pdf file first. Then you need to use a converter - I use Calibre (free) to make the conversion from pdf to mobi.
Bob.

[Megg81]

I read a few things which said that the best results aren't obtained from Word documents because of some formatting issues... is this true? or is it overcome by converting to .pdf first?

Also are all the ebooks which are available for download to the Kindle .mobi files?
I read that it's capable of downloading .pdf files - but Im guessing this isn't the standard format that the books are sold in.

Anyone know if the Word document has to be formatted in a certain way, I mean with regard to page breaks, font, line spacing, margins etc?

[iamtheblues]

I don't think you have anything to lose by converting to pdf as you can do this using MS Office. The Calibre application is easy to use for making mobi files. You could then test the .mobi file by downloading Kindle for PC (also free) to check the formatting.
Loading pdf files into the Kindle can give poor results; ie text can be too small to read.
Bob.

[jon404]

Well, I wrote a book about self-publishing 6 months ago. Since I'm graphically oriented, I recommend creating/selling PDFs for all the obvious reasons. But, for the Kindle, here's a short piece from my text --

"As the author, you'll supply Amazon's Digital Text platform with your book in basic HTML format... with a few special HTML tags to generate Kindle bookmarks, like for a table of contents. Pictures? Why bother? The Kindle reader uses e-ink technology... batteries last a long time, but the screen is black-and-white with only 16 gray levels. Suddenly, it's 1980! Amazon’s Digital Text Platform -- http://dtp.amazon.com -- has a Word (and PDF)-to-Kindle convertor. But you may find it much easier to use free Mobipocket Creator ... an Amazon company product, at http://mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSof...tion=Publisher ... and, during the install, choose the ‘Publisher’ instead of the ‘Home’ version... so you can convert PDFs. Mobipocket ebooks are viewable on Kindle, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile ereaders. Blackberry and Windows Mobile can also view PDFs directly. The program is easy to use, and will build you a table of contents if you want. The resulting HTML file can be uploaded to the Amazon Kindle Digital Text Platform site."

Basically, if your work is all-text, you'll be OK. But the more you want graphics and page-formatting (gee, like a real book!) the more trouble you will have both with the Kindle and with Apple's iBook scheme. I personally hate DRM -- Digital Rights Management -- and am very biased towards unencrypted material.

Anyway, good luck! And, if you want the full story, go to http://jon404.com ... there's detailed information about my book, Self-Publishing Secrets, which you can get as a paperback from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishin.../dp/0983319103 or download from the website as a PDF (lots of usable hyperlinks) ... or order in from Barnes & Noble. The quick take on the book is that you should create works aimed at a specific, targeted market that will actually pay full retail and buy them from your website, so as to maximize your profits. I'm not writing for folks who are hoping to have a mass-market best-seller...

[pauland]

On a differrent forum, by coincidence, a guy has just published a book. I asked how he'd created the book.

Regarding writing - one thing I'd definitely recommend is getting some friends to read over your draft manuscripts as they'll see mistakes in both the English and the plot-line that. as the author, you're blind too.

As far as publishing on the Kindle - it's fairly straight forward - first get an Amazon account (or use the log-in details of your existing account) and use this Amazon account to register on http://kdp.amazon.com/ - you'll then get your own "Bookshelf" where you can upload your ebooks and prepare them for sale. Just follow the comprehensive set of on=line instructions Amazon provide about how to prepare your book for publishing.

The simplest way to upload the book is to export it from Word as an HTML file and then, from within your Bookshelf, add a new book (filling in all the details about the book), then point the upload requestor to the set of HTML files you exported from Word.

For larger books you can prepare the document files (like adding a table of contents for the chapters) using an application that generates files in the formats Amazon accepts. Amazon recommend Mobi Pocket Creator for generating the ebook. However, I found that Mobi Pocket Creator didn't generate the table of contents for the chapters in my book correctly, and I ended up using Calibre, which not only is an excellent ebook reader, but also has really good facilities for generating ebook files. Calibre generated the TOC without any problems. It also allows you to export in a range of ebook formats including epub.

Regarding tools: The book was written in Microsoft Word, exported as an HTML file, and then imported into Calibre where I set up the front cover image and the TOC for the chapters. I then exported the book in MOBI format, which I then uploaded to the Amazon Kindle store.

[cresshead]

also be aware that amazon has a new file format based on HTML5 for the new colour kindle Fire and probably will also update it's pc/mobile phone/tables free readers to support this soon also

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000729511

i hope to see xara update their apps to support creation of html5 compatible output for childrens picture books soon!,...hint hint!

[jon404]

Just stumbled on to a utility program, Jutoh, that might be very helpful re Kindle book creation. On the website -- http://www.jutoh.com/ -- you might want to download their free user guide... it is VERY helpful. As noted in an above post, I'm really into highly-graphical PDF ebooks, but this Jutoh looks like it would be very helpful for a Kindle text-and-a-few-graphics ebook. And, who knows, maybe the new Kindle Fire will display full-color graphics!