Susan Arnold's Blog, page 6

Kindle: Page Size / Layout / Formatting

I just recently published my debut novel, Blue Vigilante, with CreateSpace (a post on the self-publishing journey to come!). Actually, I just published yesterday. The last 24 hours, after the physical copy of BV was done, I’ve spent frustrated over trying to make a Kindle edition of the book. So, after hours (yes, hours) of searching the internet for an answer, I’ve decided to compile my knowledge into one post with everything on it for anybody else who struggles with what I went through.

HOW TO FORMAT YOUR BOOK TO PUBLISH ON KINDLE*
PAGE SIZE

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what your page size is. Go with whatever you’re comfortable with. This was the first mistake I made. I tried to resize my entire book, which is 375 6×9 inch pages, to fit the size of a Kindle screen. DON’T do that. Kindle isn’t just a device, it’s also an app which means that the size CHANGES depending on the device used.

Don’t fit your book to the Kindle, fit Kindle to your book.

FORMATTING

Format your book however you would normally. For me that just meant putting my chapter headings in the center, for example:

One

Or making sure that my little section separators were centered as well.

*****

Each book is different and unique, so each format will be different and unique as well.

CHAPTERS/SECTIONS

This is where I struggled the most. No matter how many times I clicked “return” I could not get my pages to be correctly spaced in the preview (ALWAYS check the preview). I struggled so much here because I was too busy focusing on the page size, rather than the tricks I could use to outsmart technology.

If you want to separate one page from the next, do not hit the “return” button, always hit page break. This is located under the “Insert” tab at the top of Word. I have both a PC and a Mac and I checked; it’s located in the same area on both devices.

It will look weird and you will question the formatting. I did. Several times. But trust me, once it’s uploaded onto Kindle Direct Publishing, it will look fine in the previewer. I went through all 375 pages of my book, just to be sure. (I recommend you do the same and double check that your computer listened to you.)

Good luck publishing! Let me know in the comments if you found this article helpful at all.

*This post is not made for image-heavy books, I would search the internet specifically about images.

View more on Susan Arnold's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 03, 2016 21:03

BLUE VIGILANTE available now!

My debut novel, Blue Vigilante, has just been published and is available here!

Here’s a synopsis:

In a rash, revenge-fueled decision, Marybeth decides to join the most feared gang in America, Black Bullet. During her initiation, she proves herself to be an amazing fighter, the best that the gang has ever seen and she quickly works her way up the ranks to third in command. Black Bullet and Atomic Bomb, the rival gang, always fight for dominance, which never phased Marybeth–Bat, as she is known in the gang–until she witnesses a ruthless murder during a gang fight. Faced with her morals, she decides to stop fighting for Black Bullet.

As third in command, she knows too much to simply stop fighting and she isn’t old enough to drop out of the gang, so the leader, Trigger, decides that the only way to solve the problem is to kill Bat.

As the building explodes with Bat inside, secrets come to light and the truth is found out; a truth that will rock Black Bullet, Acco City, and the whole world, all the way to the core.