Firstly - please understand that if you want to self publish on Kindle you have two choices: 1) get someone to do it for you. This is the easy, but expensive, way. There are many people out there who will offer to do all the work for a fee. Many writers take this route. If you do you will need to do some research, get on forums, ask for references... Don't rush this process and take the first, cheapest offer you get. You will regret it. A badly set up and formatted book looks really naff. I don't know what the prices are that you can expect to pay. I do know that it's not something I would do for a living, and, if I had to, I would charge a fortune. I haven't looked but I am fairly sure that somewhere on the Goodreads site you will be able to get some advice from a published author.
2) DIY. That's where this group comes in. Again, please understand that there is a learning curve involved. If you're not willing to do this then get out your purse and go to 1) above.
Now don't get depressed. Think of it as An Adventure! It is! And the nice thing about it is is that there is a warm glow of rewarding comfort, and a certain pride in your achievement, at the end of the process.
When I started off on this road four years ago it was relatively uncharted. I really had to dig deep down on the web to find the advice I needed from all kinds of very generous people. Things have moved on. For instance, one of the first things I was told by many sources was that using Word to prepare your text, despite what Kindle suggested, was a very huge NO NO! I did the basics in Word but then had to go about a process called Nuking! (That ! is not mine - it's part of the name). We won't go into it now as it's no longer really necessary. The premise was that Word littered the file with all kind of unnecessary code which would mess up your precious manuscript when you uploaded it.
Now there is an eminently sane book which dispels this myth and steers you through the choppy Microsoft waters: Aaron Shepard's From Word to Kindle. Very expensive, too. I've just checked and it's still available on Amazon for 1p. Break open the piggy bank! Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/280-8290631...
Read it carefully, preferably with a copy of a text that you are thinking of printing that you can use to follow his instructions. You will note that I said A COPY. Pardon the caps but you don't want to make the stupid mistake I did. NEVER work with your original. Keep that safe - preferably in at least three places. There's so much free Cloud space around these days (Gmail alone gives you a healthy chunk, and, if you haven't got Google Drive and a free Dropbox account you should have) that there's no excuse not to have several storage locations. Just remember to name, number and date each version carefully.
Shepard will guide you through all the steps necessary to achieve a happy consummation of your publishing dreams.
If you use Scrivener - an advanced word processing programme which can be of real help if you do a lot of research and like to shuffle your chapters about - it apparently allows you to convert your finished file straight to an epub or mobi file which is what will be necessary to publish on Kindle. It costs $40, which is probably worth it. You can get it here: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/sc...
Enough for today. Go and spend a penny. Read. Learn. And don't forget to do your own writing. Tomorrow I will be introducing you to a really inspirational book that all those who wish to publish should read.
Firstly - please understand that if you want to self publish on Kindle you have two choices:
1) get someone to do it for you. This is the easy, but expensive, way. There are many people out there who will offer to do all the work for a fee. Many writers take this route. If you do you will need to do some research, get on forums, ask for references... Don't rush this process and take the first, cheapest offer you get. You will regret it. A badly set up and formatted book looks really naff. I don't know what the prices are that you can expect to pay. I do know that it's not something I would do for a living, and, if I had to, I would charge a fortune. I haven't looked but I am fairly sure that somewhere on the Goodreads site you will be able to get some advice from a published author.
2) DIY. That's where this group comes in. Again, please understand that there is a learning curve involved. If you're not willing to do this then get out your purse and go to 1) above.
Now don't get depressed. Think of it as An Adventure! It is! And the nice thing about it is is that there is a warm glow of rewarding comfort, and a certain pride in your achievement, at the end of the process.
When I started off on this road four years ago it was relatively uncharted. I really had to dig deep down on the web to find the advice I needed from all kinds of very generous people. Things have moved on.
For instance, one of the first things I was told by many sources was that using Word to prepare your text, despite what Kindle suggested, was a very huge NO NO! I did the basics in Word but then had to go about a process called Nuking! (That ! is not mine - it's part of the name). We won't go into it now as it's no longer really necessary. The premise was that Word littered the file with all kind of unnecessary code which would mess up your precious manuscript when you uploaded it.
Now there is an eminently sane book which dispels this myth and steers you through the choppy Microsoft waters: Aaron Shepard's From Word to Kindle. Very expensive, too. I've just checked and it's still available on Amazon for 1p. Break open the piggy bank! Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/280-8290631...
Read it carefully, preferably with a copy of a text that you are thinking of printing that you can use to follow his instructions. You will note that I said A COPY. Pardon the caps but you don't want to make the stupid mistake I did. NEVER work with your original. Keep that safe - preferably in at least three places. There's so much free Cloud space around these days (Gmail alone gives you a healthy chunk, and, if you haven't got Google Drive and a free Dropbox account you should have) that there's no excuse not to have several storage locations. Just remember to name, number and date each version carefully.
Shepard will guide you through all the steps necessary to achieve a happy consummation of your publishing dreams.
If you use Scrivener - an advanced word processing programme which can be of real help if you do a lot of research and like to shuffle your chapters about - it apparently allows you to convert your finished file straight to an epub or mobi file which is what will be necessary to publish on Kindle. It costs $40, which is probably worth it. You can get it here: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/sc...
Enough for today. Go and spend a penny. Read. Learn. And don't forget to do your own writing. Tomorrow I will be introducing you to a really inspirational book that all those who wish to publish should read.