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Best way to format a book for Kindle
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I know people shake their head when I say this, but I put all my books on a notepad file, write the book as html and CSS, and then convert it to a MOBI file in Calibre. I have 100% control over my output file. It is not a quick process, and it takes work and there is a learning curve to master it. I usually charge my clients $50 to do it for them and it takes me about two days. There really I no shortcut that I know of for quality.
You can upload your book to smashwords and their meat grinder will create several different files including Mobi and epub (the two most common ways for people to read online.) Once you get the file where it will go through meatgrinder (Pretty easy, because Smashwords provides a comprehensive guide.) go into the original doc, change "Published through Smashwords" to "published through Kindle direct" and then upload. Easy peasy.
I use Pages (Mac) and use the epub export feature. Then I use Sigil to clean up any formatting and make my personal tweaks. Then I upload it and see if there is anything else to change. As Morris said, Calibre is a great tool for converting book formats. I use it all the time.
I actually create my own epub files from my Word doc which I then convert to mobi using Kindlegen. I can send you my templates and the instructions if you want.
Thanks, guys - this is all helpful. I appreciate it!
Anne wrote: "What do others publishing to Kindle do for formatting? So far I've just used the KDP tools (and a lot of trial and error). Downloading to my phone in the Kindle app, even with multiple efforts to m...""Typesetting" is not controlled by anything KDP does. It's all in the hands of the device the eBook is being used on and/or the app being used, and the settings the user selects. The key to creating a decent looking document is to not think of it as a print document at all. The biggest problem with eBook formatting I've seen results from formatting in the document fighting with settings in the reader. Amazon has a short publication on this: Building your book for Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007...
We found it quite useful. Even if you choose to do things a different way, it explains what's going "behind the scenes" with an eBook.
You are not alone in not wanting to to deal with HTML -- far from it! But it helps to realize that an eBook is HTML, gussied up with a few bell & whistles. Because of that fact, the only completely reliable way we've found to get an eBook that looks exactly the way we want is to export a filtered HTML file from Word 2010 and manually edit it in a text editor.
Again, I realize that's not for everyone, but all other solutions I've seen represent some form of compromise, with potential drawbacks. But as has been suggested here, people do have good luck with some of them.
Heidi wrote: "You can upload your book to smashwords and their meat grinder will create several different files including Mobi and epub (the two most common ways for people to read online.) Once you get the file..."I'm not sure it's totally legal to do that though. Copy paste of terms of services one accepts when using SW and Meatgrinder:
5. Formats of Digital Conversions. Author shall submit their Work as a Microsoft Word .doc file. Smashwords shall utilize its proprietary Meatgrinder technology to convert the book into multiple ebook formats, and publish the work for use in sampling, distributing and selling the work. The author/publisher is not authorized to independently sell or distribute Smashwords-generated file conversions outside of the Smashwords site or Smashwords distribution network without first receiving written permission from Smashwords (in other words, you cannot use Smashwords as a free file conversion service so you can sell the files elsewhere). You acknowledge that if you violate this requirement, you may forfeit any accrued earnings at Smashwords, and your account may be deleted without notification.
(See here for full terms or services: https://www.smashwords.com/about/tos )
Justification and hypehenation is going to change depending on the size of the device, font selected, margins, etc and varies from device to device. If you want your book to look exactly the same on every device, there is a text book creator that will make a PDF. Understand though, that this means your page will not reflow for the size of the device or reader's preferences, which can hinder their experience. As for how to format in Word, all I do is set my paragraph indents to three spaces, set the text to 'justified' and use an 11pt font. My chapter titles are set using the heading format. I don't mess with it. I don't take out any html code and I upload the docx file. Yes, on some devices, specifically the smaller ones like my phone, there are the occasional large gaps, but the kindle seems to know to put them at the end of the line instead of evenly spacing the words across the whole line. I don't use hypenation in my document, so kindle does that too, however, I've been told that if you set your own hyphenation, you get a *little* more control over how thr device reflows the text.
G.G. wrote: "Heidi wrote: "You can upload your book to smashwords and their meat grinder will create several different files including Mobi and epub (the two most common ways for people to read online.) Once yo..."GG. You are right, if I were taking the Mobi file from smashwords and putting it on Kindle, I would be breaking TOS. I am not taking the Smashwords mobi file. I am simply taking the word doc I created, knowing what it will look like on kindle because I reviewed the mobi file. That word doc I created. I take the Smashwords publishing info that I put in out, and put in Kindle verbage. It doesn't break TOS.
oh ok.. sorry I guess I read too fast. /blush
Anne wrote: "What do others publishing to Kindle do for formatting? So far I've just used the KDP tools (and a lot of trial and error). Downloading to my phone in the Kindle app, even with multiple efforts to m..."I compile my own ePub files using Sigil (free), and "hand-code" the HTML and CSS. That's what works for me, because it gives me the most control over the final product.
However, plenty of authors use Word files without apparent problems.
Morris wrote: "I know people shake their head when I say this, but I put all my books on a notepad file, write the book as html and CSS, and then convert it to a MOBI file in Calibre. I have 100% control over my ..."Similarly, in the past I've written and edited in Word (I'm using Scivener for that now), then move the completed work to Notepad++ and then convert it to HTML and CSS, building my own .opf and ncx files.
To convert it to Kindle format, though, I use Kindle Preview using the .opf file. I like this option better than using something else (like Calibre) because Amazon has kind of been on again/off again about files generated in programs like that. It's not much more work to create the .opf and .ncx files once you're working in HTML anyway, and the Kindle Preview program does a good job of telling you what and were there are issues with your file.
The learning curve for me to figure out how to do the HTML stuff was kind of steep, but the advantage was that once I learned to do it, as Morris said, I have total control over the end product.
Plus, once I had a working set of files, I don't have to completely reinvent the wheel with each book. I just copy what I did before and use it as a template for the next book.
Lisa wrote: "I actually create my own epub files from my Word doc which I then convert to mobi using Kindlegen. I can send you my templates and the instructions if you want."Kindlegen, BTW, is want Kindle Previewer uses to do its conversion. You can use Kindlegen by itself, but it's an MSDOS style command line tool (get your Geek on!).
Previewer will convert from ePub as well as .opf and various html. I've heard that some people who use Smashwords to generate their ePub files and then Kindle Previewer to convert ePub to Kindle formats.
Micah wrote: "Lisa wrote: "I actually create my own epub files from my Word doc which I then convert to mobi using Kindlegen. I can send you my templates and the instructions if you want."Kindlegen, BTW, is wa..."
It's very simple to use, but you have to have an epub to convert. If anyone wants instructions, I can provide them.
(yes, I'm a geek, lol)
How can I take my mobi file and make changes to it in an easy fashion? Is it a simple process or a maddening one?
Owen wrote: "...it helps to realize that an eBook is HTML, gussied up with a few bell & whistles. Because of that fact, the only completely reliable way we've found to get an eBook that looks exactly the way we want is to export a filtered HTML file from Word 2010 and manually edit it in a text editor."Agreed.
With one exception: eReaders are indeed simply glorified HTML browsers with a few "bells and whistles" ... but all of them also subtract a lot of other bells and whistles. None of the existing eBook readers fully support HTML/CSS. You can try to put tables, for example, into your code, but don't expect them to work in the eReader (even if they don't set off red flags during the file validation process).
You have to kind of know what they will and won't accept. Kindle eReaders default to justified text, for example. You don't have to have that programmed in your code. But I think you can actually turn off that default if you want to (in HTML).
Interestingly enough, I've also found that even though justified text is the default in their readers, if you don't justify text in your HTML, then the Look Inside feature displays your book without justification. Load it into a Kindle reader and--hey, presto!--justification's back on!
FYI, you may not like how justification looks, but it's still the standard in both print and eBook publication. So, having no justification in the Look Inside feature can actually make some readers look poorly on your work. Go figure.
There are ways around having ends of paragraphs display weirdly (three words stretched across the page) when justification is on. Like I think if you put in a line break or something at the end of the paragraph it can readjust it...I forget how I've fixed that before.
But as Christina pointed out, you can't tell how it's always going to look on eReaders. Some people will be using large font sizes, some will be using small. So you have to be careful what you do. You can end up causing more issues than you solve.
The problem I have with copying a book into notepad to strip all coding is that you lose your italics. Italics are important to me! Of course they can be added back in afterward, but...
Personally, I use Word.I did download this (free) and found it very useful:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0...
One lesson learned; paragraphs are longer than they appear!
Keep your paragraphs short in Word, as they appear to last for pages on Kindle if you're not careful.
Mod
The books are exactly as I want them to look, colours, boxes, and all, but people reading them cannot change the settings... so... there is that.
P.D. wrote: "I compile from Scrivener."yay!!! yippeee!!! another scrivener fan!!!
P.D. wrote: "I compile from Scrivener."I also compile from Scrivener and honestly it is the easiest way I've found to have complete control over my mobi and epub files.
If you want custom fonts for chapter headings etc. you have to insert images and format them accordingly but that's really pretty easy to do with a program like gimp.
And I do this for my professional formatting services, so it's not just a "best you can do for cheap and easy" but I find it delivers excellent results.
Virginia wrote: "P.D. wrote: "I compile from Scrivener."I also compile from Scrivener and honestly it is the easiest way I've found to have complete control over my mobi and epub files.
If you want custom fonts..."
Curious... Is there a way to insert as a transparent PNG? I have my Kindle set to a sepia tone because it's easier on my eyes and any time someone has used an image to set their font it shows up as black and white.
Christina wrote: "Virginia wrote: "Curious... Is there a way to insert as a transparent PNG? ..."In principle, inserting as a transparent PNG shouldn't be different from any other graphic? But I wonder how eReaders would respond? I see graphics used as separators frequently, and I've tended to assume those are transparent GIFs or PNGs as they would typically be on a web page. Now I wonder.
No, no transparent PNG's in Kindle books. Readers won't generally notice until they change to white on black writing.
P.D. wrote: "No, no transparent PNG's in Kindle books. Readers won't generally notice until they change to white on black writing."I suspected as much, and it's nice to have it confirmed.
I'm working on my first novel, written in plain text, then imported it into Libreoffice. From there, I used Calibre to convert from one format to another. Wonderful stuff, Calibre.
Whatever you do, don't put a Word doc straight up! While it worked for my first two books, it ruined my third - the first edition was horrendous. Luckily I was able to sort it out but worry that bad first impression has permanently damaged the book.
P.D. wrote: "The problem I have with copying a book into notepad to strip all coding is that you lose your italics. Italics are important to me! Of course they can be added back in afterward, but..."There are ways around that.
From http://guidohenkel.com/2011/01/take-p... (I've replaced the < and > with [ and ] in the quote below because GR uses HTML tags...):
Try to find all instances of italic text and wrap them with [i] tags now. Using wild cards, you can pretty much automate this process and save yourself hours of manual work with just a few mouse clicks here. In Word, for example, go to the search box and hit Ctrl-i to select italic, and in the replace box enter [i]^&[/i] and then hit Replace All and you should be all set.
Good article. Leads me to another question—what are people's thoughts on em-dash and ellipses? I have not used them in my ebooks because they do not always get translated correctly. You don't want people ending up with an empty box or some other placeholder character in their place which detracts from the reading experience. With so many different ereader options out there, it is impossible to test for them all.
Mod
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P.D. wrote: "Good article. Leads me to another question—what are people's thoughts on em-dash and ellipses? I have not used them in my ebooks because they do not always get translated correctly. You don't wan..."
In our eBooks, we replace the em-dash character with the HTML em-dash code, using a global search & replace. It renders properly on every device I've been able to check. For ellipses we use 3 periods with hard-spaces between them. Word automatically converts a hard-space to the HTML nonbreaking space code when you export a doc file as HTML.
P.D. wrote: "Good article. Leads me to another question—what are people's thoughts on em-dash and ellipses? I have not used them in my ebooks because they do not always get translated correctly. You don't wan..."
It depends on the document encoding. The safest way is to do what Owen said, and use the HTML entity names.
I format my own ePubs, and I use UTF-8 encoding, which is supported by pretty much all e-readers now, so I simply use the appropriate character "—" or "..."
I use alt 0151: — whatever code that is.
The best way I've found to format for Kindle was to go to Fiverr.com and pay $5 for someone to format it for me. I use the same person each time who will format for Kindle and Smashwords. I'm tired of spending days on this when someone will do it for $5.Hannah
Hannah has the best idea. Get someone to do it for you if you are struggling. Just be aware that some of them charge an arm and a leg so shop around if Fiverr is not your thing.Best Way I have found is to format while I am writing. I studied the style guide and other books, their formatting especially, before I started writing. When the time came to upload it there were 0 errors with converting or any other issues. It was only the Smashwords mobi. converter that removed first line indents, but that is a regular thing.
What I also did was upload it to Smashwords, my already formatted document, then I used the perfectly converted Epub file to upload to Amazon. Works like a charm.
Another "what?!?" I noticed was that the app does still hyphenate, and it does so like a lunatic, breaking words willy-nilly anywhere in the word, rather than by syllables, the way we learned in fourth or fifth grade English.
None of this can be useful to a reader. I look at my book in the Kindle (free) app and I just get sick.
Disclaimer: I have been a technical writer for over 20 years, so I understand how to use Word styles (such as they are). KDP obviously overrides those settings to a degree. Another tawdry confession is that I don't actually own an e-reader. So perhaps these are idiosyncrasies of the free app that are resolved within an actual e-reader?
I do not want to write in HTML. I do not want to hire a service to do something that shouldn't be this hard. Is there a reliable software to use? Or am I still so naive with the process that I missed checking a box? (It isn't that hard; that particular step doesn't really have any boxes to check. It's more or less "Upload file" > Publish.
KDP's last name is Publishing, so they ought to be able to provide some semblance of "typesetting."
Any advice is welcome. Thanks.