Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Have you ever published a book through Amazon for the Kindle? If so, what was your experience through the publishing experience?
From reading their guidelines regarding submission and formatting your book, it seem a bit confusing to me.

Submission is extremely easy. Formatting can be difficult to understand and there are several ways of going about it.

The easiest way of doing the formatting is just to hire someone to do it for you. More expensive, but then you don't have such a steep learning curve.

Some publish using Word or PDF files. I haven't tried that, as I hear it's more difficult to get proper results.

So I've learned to do it myself doing the writing and a tiny bit of format preparation in Word, and then everything else as html/css/xml in Notepad++. THAT can get confusing and a bit fiddly, but since eReaders are basically just specialized web browsers, that's what the core of any eBook actually is.

If you go that route, there are required files you need to know how to create which for some reason are not very well documented (.opf, .ncx) but once you get one working you can always use it as a template for later books.

The rule is, though: the simpler the book the better. I.e., adding graphics, tables (good luck with that), or other fancy formatting is just going to make things more difficult and ruin your day(s).

Hi Vanessa,

I had published my book "Wings of Freedom" (http://www.amazon.com/Wings-Freedom-R...) a couple of years back. I got the word file formatted,along with the cover image, by paying about $40. The converted file was easily uploaded by me on kdp and everything proceeded smoothly after that.

Ratan

Formatting was an unholy tragedy with a huge learning curve (especially the cover and page numbering for the paperback with Createspace). The rest was actually nice. Though they could be slow to get back to me, their staff was pleasant and helpful. I still had some problems with things like ellipsis, etc. so I went back and got (for a relatively small fee) Createspace to do a better formatting for the paperback and the ebook. That was great. I plan to use them for formatting and proofreading on my next project. It's worth the money.

Vanessa Eden wrote: "Have you ever published a book through Amazon for the Kindle? If so, what was your experience through the publishing experience?
From reading their guidelines regarding submission and formatting ..."

Published my novel on Amazon,Kindle, B&N Nook. I outsourced all the technical file tasks. Once I had the files upload was easy. Also, If you go over to CreateSpace there are several gurus over there who offer services. R.C., Lighthouse 24, Stevo, Seal, Walton. They know Kindle and CS specs in and out. They come in at lower $$s than using CS. (at least my guy did) Just post a message or Private Message them and they'll get back to you.

GT

Vanessa Eden wrote: "Have you ever published a book through Amazon for the Kindle? If so, what was your experience through the publishing experience?
From reading their guidelines regarding submission and formatting ..."

Found it very easy. I have published three novels and two short stories all were written in word and just uploaded to Amazon KDP with no problems.

What are you having trouble with?

Hope this helps...

http://jonathancotty.wordpress.com/20...

I formatted the file myself, upload and you're done :)

It's not difficult at all, and if you're not confident to do your own formatting you can even outsource it (costs around $50) or upload a word document and let it auto-format.

I found that when I uploaded the html doc directly I didn't get a goto menu. I run the html through Calibre and then upload an EPUB. Works fine.

Ken wrote: "I found that when I uploaded the html doc directly I didn't get a goto menu. I run the html through Calibre and then upload an EPUB. Works fine."

I thought about that but Calibre adds a bunch of metadata junk that I didn't like sitting around in the background. It wouldn't hurt anything, but to me it just kinda looked bad.

Micah wrote: "I thought about that but Calibre add..."

I do get criticized a lot for using Calibre, not sure why, but all I can say is that as soon as I started using it, I stopped having format troubles. You do get a better result feeding html into it, though.

I work in page plus and export as rtf so i can submit the story through smashword's grinder and make a version for amazon as a web filtered htm file to run through sigil to make the epub. from there, i use calibre to create any other format i might need (mobi, lrf, pdb, etc). I use an older vesion that hasn't given me greif like i've heard from others with the new version of calibre.

Taught myself how to publish an eBook via amazon & smashwords, and paperback via createspace!

I do it all via word and I get excellent results!

If you need help, send me a message - if you teach yourself you will save a lot of money.

I recommend you read Mark Coker's guidelines & Let's get Digital by David Gaughran.

I have to admit that I am very computer savvy so I enjoyed the challenge & take pride in what I do. If you don't have the patience, then outsource. Just be aware that you might not get back the money you spend...

Hope this helps :)

There was indeed a learning curve, but I got most issues solved.
The only thing that still bothers me is empty space; on Kindle devices and apps, it seems I can't avoid the occasional empty page. I've tried ending a chapter with an inserted page break and also by using ###, different from my action break symbol #. I'm wondering now if the best way is simply to skip a single line or use the #, then begin directly with 'Chapter Fourteen' or whatever to indicate that there's a new chapter. I suspect that would work on electronic devices, but not on CS when I get around to trying that.
Comments?

Your page break should be placed directly at the end of the last sentence in the relevant Chapter.

In addition, my link (POSTED ABOVE) should help you to remove unwanted spaces when formatting your Word document for Kindle.

:)

I already did that; didn't help. I'll look at your link. Sometimes the blank page is there, sometimes not, which makes fixing it frustrating.

I have that on screen; no extra feeds. Puzzling.
FWIW, I run Word through Calibre and submit the Mobi version, after checking it.

I've not used Word for doing Kindle formatting, but I have for Smashwords.

If I were you, Jack, I'd strip out all pagebreak codes. Then, on the Chapter Headings, I'd modify the Header style so that it always puts a pagebreak before it.

Converter programs are notoriously fickle when translating Word to eBooks.

You're submitting a Mobi file to amazon that's been created in Calibre? I thought amazon had stopped accepting files from Calibre back in 2012...?

Micah wrote: "You're submitting a Mobi file to amazon that's been created in Calibre? I thought amazon had stopped accepting files from Calibre back in 2012..."
All of my books have been submitted to Amazon since December 2013, and the Calibre formatting was accepted. But I've heard that before.

Ah, it may have changed. There's been a back and forth between Calibre and amazon for years. Newer versions of Calibre were done to conform with changing Kindle rules.

Personally, I avoid Calibre for the reasons I've given above, but also because it was really created as an eBook management app with added file conversion features. It was never meant to be a production tool. Sure, it's free, but there are relatively cheap apps that are probably more suited for this kind of work.

For example, I've heard good things about Jutoh, which is supposed to work a lot like Word's styles. I've never used it, though. For ePubs I've used Sigil, but more recently just used Smashword's meatgrinder to produce all files except Kindle.

If you follow the Smashwords guidelines, or go the nuclear option route (which is what I did--delete all in-document formatting and use Word's styles for EVERYTHING), getting clean ePubs is pretty easy. Might be able to just take those ePubs and run them through KindleGen.

But as I have working html templates, I'll just stick to doing it the old fashioned, hardcore way! ;D

For Smashwords I don't use Calibre. I convert my LibreOffice doc to Word, and it works fine if I clean it up a little. I think we use what we use because it works for us, and we don't want to change because of the learning curve. I tried Sigil, but didn't want to go through yet another instruction manual.

I have recently launched a second book on Kindle and it was much easier than the first. You can now submit it as a Word doc, just make sure there are no unnecessary spaces after your chapters, before the page breaks. I'm with the Create Space people now as well, so they launch the Kindle version for you, which is even simpler.

Hey all - I teach an ePublishing class (I was talked into it...I usually like doing just workshops) but I made a handout for my students here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?i...

It gives an overview of the ups and downs of ePublishing and some notes on how to do it, how to format, etc. hope some people find it helpful.

sorry, I included the link to my pitch folder. in that link is this document about e publishing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G...

I write with Scrivener, which links with the Kindle Gen to generate kindle editions. Select your compile settings (formatting), push a button, then upload to Amazon. Super easy. I usually upload the book several times to my kindle as part of my editing process, then as a final look before loading to Amazon.

Bronwyn wrote: "I have recently launched a second book on Kindle and it was much easier than the first. You can now submit it as a Word doc, just make sure there are no unnecessary spaces after your chapters, befo..."

Be sure to check out all the device previews if you use the Createspace to Kindle option. Even on the CS community site, it says not to use this option because the formatting is not converted properly. I did it with my first book, and soon realized my justified alignment became left align in Kindle--making it look less professional. I also noticed extra space throughout.

I write the files using the Styles/Formatting tips giving in the Smashwords guide. As someone above said, I insert a page break in the chapter headings's "before" option. This eliminates space. I fought trying to learn the styles/formatting for a long time.. but i soon learned it saved me hours! not only with the ebooks but with the paperbacks.

I save the original plus a PDF for Createspace. Then for kindle I save as html... for smashwords i save as .doc It only takes a couple minutes to save the different formats for all the sites.