Formatting on Amazon and KDP

[Micah]

Luke wrote: "8) Conversion in calibre produces no "extraneous junk". Everything present in the output document will have been present in the input document."

It doesn't produce extraneous junk in the HTML, but it does in the metadata. It leaves its own fingerprint on the .opf file. I'm sure none of that is of any real importance...it won't break anything. And maybe that's just a pet peeve of mine. It would be like Microsoft putting its own name in the metadata of every .txt file you produce with it.

[[deleted user]]

I had trouble with Calibre changing some of the font to italics in the "Look Inside" feature. The downloaded full version was okay. I found that after I ran the Calibre output through the Kindle Previewer, and uploaded that converted file to Amazon, everything was perfect (as long as it looks perfect in the Kindle Previewer).

[Robert]

I used Scrivener to write my book, and with the KindleGen extension (free from Amazon) I was able to generate a complete .mobi-formatted book myself. Granted, I'm keeping things simple, but it's a great tool for both the creative process and for generating final product. I can also produce Word, ePub and PDF formats.

[R.]

I simply loaded up the supplied template into Libre Office, pasted in the contents, made a few minor tweaks and hit the PDF export button.

The result is at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Run-Stars-1-A...

Hit "Look inside" to see the formatting.

[L.J.]

I published my book on Kindle, mid December, and yesterday finally made the time to finish off the draft blog article I used to record my experience as I stumbled through the process. I've directly quoted from many of your helpful replies from this discussion - please tell me if you'd like me to change any of those parts, or even delete them if you'd rather. Though in the end, after a couple of initial missteps, I found the Calibre route quite to be quite smooth. My probably too wordy article is here: http://toeinthebookocean.blogspot.com...

Thanks once again for all the help/advice!

[L.J.]

(I also wanted to Reply to R's message above, but I can't because the "Group Rules" pop-up is blocking his message's Reply button, and it won't go away.)

I just wanted to say that it looks like your book is a paperback edition, so yes, PDF is an excellent choice for that format.

Looking Inside at the preview gave me quite a scare though: I thought "My god, I'm developing a glaucoma!" - but then I realised the sharply-focused text really was running down the centre of the page, and the outer edges really were slightly blurred. Bizarre: Amazon must scan the printed book, if they're generating that distortion. I suppose they must have just the single process, that works for any printed book (even the ones for which they don't have the electronic original).

[[deleted user]]

Luke wrote: "(I also wanted to Reply to R's message above, but I can't because the "Group Rules" pop-up is blocking his message's Reply button, and it won't go away.)"

The pop-up seems to appear if you put the cursor into a comment box, but sometimes it sticks and won't move. When this happens I've found that I can refresh the page to make it go away. (Just a little tip from a guy with waaaay too much time on his hands.)

[L.J.]

Thanks, Ken, good tip - I'll try that next time it happens!