Thursday, August 16, 2012

Formatting your book for Kindle

Last night I decided it was time to get my current work formatted for the Kindle format. Having done this just over a year ago with my first novel, I thought I had it nailed. Boy was I wrong. I just couldn't get it to work, no matter what I did. I went to the KDP site and read the instructions, which didn't really tell me a lot. So, I hunted and hunted on the Internet and finally found some good information. I thought I'd pass it on, so those who haven't had this pleasure yet don't have to go through what I did. Enjoy!

This is an example of how to format your manuscript into Kindle eBook format.

If you need to insert a line break between chapter headings or scene breaks, use the Format Paragraph tool.















I always use 18 pt as it seems to work the best. (But play around with it to see what works best for you.)

For breaks between chapters, use the Page Break feature at the end of a chapter.







To view your manuscript in Kindle format once you have it formatted, go to:


Download the program and install it on your computer, if you haven’t done so already.

Before using MobiPocket Creator, save your Word file as a Filtered Web Page. For some reason, this format converts better in MobiPocket Creator.

Once you have saved the file, open MobiPocket Creator and select, Import HTML file.

Follow the steps as outlined on the Kindle Direct Publishing page.

** Note: You will have to sign up for a KDP account, if you do not already have one.


















On another note, I found that if you "build" your eBook using encryption, for some reason you are not able to view it using Kindle for PC. To get around this, save it the first time with "No Encryption" so you can view it. Once you are satisfied, you can always go back and "build" it again using the DRM Encryption.

I hope that this article has been of some help.

Please note that these screen shots for Word were taken from Office 2003, and it will be somewhat different in Office 2007 or 2010.

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