tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post7927127087035873535..comments2024-03-18T06:16:18.802-05:00Comments on A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: How To Format For KindleJA Konrathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778324558755151986noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-61780737423738535802013-08-26T11:08:53.617-05:002013-08-26T11:08:53.617-05:00Thanks a bunch for the advice! I was just getting ...Thanks a bunch for the advice! I was just getting started to format my draft and, let's just say, was getting a little frustrated, when I came across your post. That is one stressor I can live without. <br /><br />Thanks again,<br />MargitAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00684688585563968282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-1084190256243705442012-11-12T01:58:47.338-06:002012-11-12T01:58:47.338-06:00Great blog, just wanted to suggest www.EbookHowTo....Great blog, just wanted to suggest www.EbookHowTo.org - A guide on how to write an ebook and also as far as formats go www.HowToFormatforKindle.com is helpful as well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-22656089208125146232012-06-18T10:42:29.770-05:002012-06-18T10:42:29.770-05:00After trying different advice from different books...After trying different advice from different books and authors online I found No Bull Guide to Kindle For Non Techies - Format Books For Kindle in Microsoft Word 2007 - 2010 so much easier. i did everything in word which was so simpleAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-5398433964732856622011-07-26T17:33:08.699-05:002011-07-26T17:33:08.699-05:00Thanks for this great interview! It inspired me to...Thanks for this great interview! It inspired me to write a free tutorial on how to make an ebook for Kindle using Sigil, the open-souce epub editor:<br />http://avisolo.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-make-and-sell-your-first-ebook.htmlAvihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05659677755136116933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-46804162331297454962011-07-26T00:08:27.093-05:002011-07-26T00:08:27.093-05:00Huzzah! This post saved me from hurling my laptop...Huzzah! This post saved me from hurling my laptop across the room in frustration! Thank you so much!Adam Randall Russellhttp://desiresplace.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-89481189589064462702010-04-27T07:42:40.927-05:002010-04-27T07:42:40.927-05:00I come here and read your blog and I direct others...I come here and read your blog and I direct others to come read. Yet, I forget to tell you how much I love your blog, your advice and your straightforwardness.<br /><br />Thanks,<br />Helen<br /><a href="http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Straight From Hel</a>Helen Gingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09794759602654727110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-47273693894694687812010-04-26T13:43:27.864-05:002010-04-26T13:43:27.864-05:00I could kiss you for publishing this. Thanks so mu...I could kiss you for publishing this. Thanks so much! I'm sending you my 7500+ followers on Twitter.Christina Katzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14877586168135936638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-88304863290347522872010-04-25T14:01:59.495-05:002010-04-25T14:01:59.495-05:00Yep Rob, that's what I meant. It will be much ...Yep Rob, that's what I meant. It will be much easier for Joe as he's writing things directly for the Kindle, because he'll start bare bones with a word processing program (Open Office if the wants it to be really easy.)<br /><br />He can also set parameters early on with styles which will prevent a lot of later formatting clean-up. (This is something I should do, but I don't yet. Man, formatting would take me under an hour for Kindle and Smashwords if I'd do that, but I always forget.)<br /><br />One thing that can help too if you start out with convoluted formatting is to copy and paste everything into Notepad where it's a text document, then C/P it back over into your word processor. That will clear all previous formatting from it and you have a clean slate to work with.<br /><br />When it comes to kindle formatting to just text, most of your formatting work is "removing" previous formatting rather than adding formatting. The formatting parameters that you're adding just aren't very complex at all.Zoe Wintershttp://www.zoewinters.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-18573298974423138392010-04-24T23:35:24.609-05:002010-04-24T23:35:24.609-05:00Not a single one has been "a snap".
I d...<i>Not a single one has been "a snap".</i><br /><br />I don't doubt this for a moment, Joe. But, as you said, the Blue Leaf OCR scans aren't what anyone would consider straight text... there's still a lot of formatting going on behind the scenes. And, trust me, the current version of Word is still Satan.<br /><br />What I assumed Zoe meant "straight text" was a barebones Word doc: little to no formatting, no section breaks, default margins and line spacing, and so forth. Tests I've done with these have yielded decent results.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-11138186668032091012010-04-24T19:04:39.220-05:002010-04-24T19:04:39.220-05:00Joe,
It might be easy for me with straight text b...Joe,<br /><br />It might be easy for me with straight text because I don't use Word. I use OpenOffice. I haven't had nearly the formatting headaches with OpenOffice that I hear from people with Word. Plus from OpenOffice you can easily save as HTML when you're done.Zoe Wintershttp://www.zoewinters.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-77809605207407132842010-04-24T15:51:00.673-05:002010-04-24T15:51:00.673-05:00I just published a book on the history of ice crea...I just published a book on the history of ice cream parlors replete with images and recipes. I thought I was going to go nuts. Even the spaces between the lines (0.7) was wrong. There was no part of The Ice Cream Parlor that I didn't have to reformat multiple times in order to suit Smashwords and Kindle, and that includes the cover. But I'm a better woman for it. Advice? Pay someone else to do it if you can.Robin O'Neillhttp://www.robinoneillebooks.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-85371054838056114552010-04-24T12:36:06.965-05:002010-04-24T12:36:06.965-05:00@Rob in Denver - Thanks for the answer. I was figu...@Rob in Denver - Thanks for the answer. I was figuring it was insane considering all the material that had to go into it and the special formatted areas (like bullet points). Have a hot cup of relaxing tea on me! ;)<br /><br />It was worth it, though. The output looks great!<br /><br />With my Mac I use a program called <a href="http://www.tex-edit.com/" rel="nofollow">Tex-Edit</a>, which I love. It can do document clean-up to clear out curlies of any sort, strip out high ASCII and a whole bunch of other things. Plus, it has a really powerful search and replace feature that I use to change formatting across an entire document. I don't use Word regularly, but because I'm an Associate Editor for <a href="http://www.visionforwriters.com/" rel="nofollow">Vision: A Resource for Writers</a>, I sometimes have to clean Word files. I default to this program to bring the files down to plain text level. Sounds like I'll be bringing this program out to work if I decide to do any Kindle conversions!J.A. Marlowhttp://jamarlow.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-61346064632965213202010-04-24T11:23:59.578-05:002010-04-24T11:23:59.578-05:00If you don't mind tackling raw HTML code, I...If you don't mind tackling raw HTML code, I've put together a <a href="http://eugenewoodbury.blogspot.com/2009/11/creating-kindle-ebook.html" rel="nofollow">template</a> that illustrates the basic tags required to compile a Kindle-ready PRC file using MobiPocket Creator.Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03182644885948983861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-46844794454161500752010-04-24T09:50:56.801-05:002010-04-24T09:50:56.801-05:00I came across your blog today. Thanks for the info...I came across your blog today. Thanks for the info. Formatting seems to be getting more and more difficult. My books were doing fine on Smashwords but now Apple has all kinds of formatting requirements so back to the drawing board again.<br />Ann<br /><a href="http://www.annsummerville.com/" rel="nofollow">Ann Summerville</a><br /><a href="http://www.cozyintexas.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Cozy In Texas</a>Ann Summervillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13300190648788509096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-78800852339767413982010-04-24T01:23:10.521-05:002010-04-24T01:23:10.521-05:00Absolutely... straight text is a snap with Kindle....<i>Absolutely... straight text is a snap with Kindle. If someone's inclined and can follow directions, they certainly don't need my help.</i><br /><br />I've uploaded over 60 books to Kindle.<br /><br />Not a single one has been "a snap". Probably because I wrote them in early versions of MS Word, which I truly believe is Satan. Plus, I did a bunch for Rob Walker (43 of them) and he got those from Blue Leaf, which sends you files that are NOT simple text.<br /><br />This isn't an exaggeration: I could have written a novel in the time it has taken me to format all of the ebooks I've formatted.JA Konrathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08778324558755151986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-50305315158910056352010-04-24T00:32:59.142-05:002010-04-24T00:32:59.142-05:00Hi everyone!
@CJ: If you need any help with that ...Hi everyone!<br /><br />@CJ: If you need any help with that TOC, let me know.<br /><br />@Julie: Please keep me updated with your progress... a link to your blog would be great!<br /><br />@Penny: My pleasure.<br /><br />@Dave: Yes. Smashwords makes their process easy. My only beef is they don't yet allow people to upload books already packaged in the ePub format (which is the open source standard that nook and iPad ebooks use). I think it's fine to make for the site to work in Word and convert from there. I'd just like an option for so-called power users to bypass that. I'm told they're working on that.<br /><br />@Zoe: Absolutely... straight text is a snap with Kindle. And the Smashwords guide can help get a book into shape. If someone's inclined and can follow directions, they certainly don't need my help.<br /><br />@Automn: It's always fun to hang out at the Newbie's Guide.<br /><br />@Jude: If you come that point and you need some help, send me an e-mail.<br /><br />@J.A. Marlow: The Newbie's Guide to Publishing was a challenging endeavor for a lot of reasons: I hand coded the table of contents, cleaned up a lot of bloated MS Word HTML, and transformed what seemed like a million bulleted and numbered lists. *shakes fist at Joe*<br /><br />All totaled, it took me about six or seven days --- working a few hours a day --- to get it into publishable shape. Maybe 25 hours... give or take. Remember, it's an 1100-page book with a lot going on in it. It was, for lack of a better term, atypical.<br /><br />@gerryhuntman: Right now, Amazon's uploader doesn't work well with PDFs. Which means you'd have to export to HTML, or take a PDF and convert it to Word or flat text. <br /><br />I'm not too familiar with InDesign, but I imagine it uses Adobe's HTML conversion engine. If that's the case the resulting HTML will likely also be bloaty (as it is when you convert a PDF to HTML).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-373151187461742182010-04-23T21:49:04.035-05:002010-04-23T21:49:04.035-05:00Quick question for Rob - I use InDesign - industry...Quick question for Rob - I use InDesign - industry standard for printing and converting to PDF - can this format be ported into Kindle?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-43928591069285889892010-04-23T20:54:48.071-05:002010-04-23T20:54:48.071-05:00Nice interview with a lot of valuable tidbits. I l...Nice interview with a lot of valuable tidbits. I love how informative this blog is. :)<br /><br />Out of curiosity, how long did it take Rob to format "The Newbie's Guide to Publishing Book"?J.A. Marlowhttp://jamarlow.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-3108287427542176512010-04-23T17:34:04.574-05:002010-04-23T17:34:04.574-05:00What's really scary is I'm just now graspi...What's really scary is I'm just now grasping how transmedia is going to change storytelling and this "e-book era" may not even hit at all, it may get washed completely over by hybridized novel/comic/movie/podcast. And, at that time, HTML coders will be making way more money than Big Six executives.Author Scott Nicholsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09778999586794284457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-37631881316916705742010-04-23T13:11:25.191-05:002010-04-23T13:11:25.191-05:00Bought your ebook, Joe -- my first ever Kindle boo...Bought your ebook, Joe -- my first ever Kindle book! And the best part is, since I don't actually have a Kindle, I can read it right on my PC. Excellent advice! And it convinced me, too. I just published my first Kindle book on Amazon!Laurence MacNaughtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11183421490081237798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-51605945661845633002010-04-23T10:05:15.435-05:002010-04-23T10:05:15.435-05:00I don't see a lot written about this, but Amaz...I don't see a lot written about this, but Amazon has released a software-only product called Kindle for PC that allows you to purchase and read Kindle titles on your PC. I'm about half way through my first book and I must say that the reading experience is very enjoyable.RJ and Marty Archerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12841033785633943022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-5044072388673158302010-04-22T22:16:17.901-05:002010-04-22T22:16:17.901-05:00Thanks, Joe, and Rob. This is a great reference if...Thanks, Joe, and Rob. This is a great reference if I ever decide to load something onto Kindle myself. <br /><br />A lot of authors just don't have the time or inclination to do these kinds of things on their own. It's nice to know that professional help is available at a reasonable price.Jude Hardinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09994813046526310594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-42662084028039472712010-04-22T20:26:40.047-05:002010-04-22T20:26:40.047-05:00Great info. I'm glad I stopped back again.Great info. I'm glad I stopped back again.Autumn Jordonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14168172253998245307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-82825435944094320552010-04-22T15:02:01.089-05:002010-04-22T15:02:01.089-05:00It's ridiculously easy to format a book for Ki...It's ridiculously easy to format a book for Kindle if you're just doing straight text. You just have to use the Smashwords Style Guide and save it as html. It looks perfect on Kindle.<br /><br />The problem comes in when you get into graphics or hyperlinks. Happily, since I write fiction I don't intend to ever have links to different parts of the text or graphics in my books, so formatting for me for Kindle is a couple to three hours tops.<br /><br />I think it's a good idea to get someone to format for you if you've got complicated formatting issues, but if it's just text, you really can do it yourself. Easily, quickly, and without spending money that will take you longer to turn a profit.Zoe Wintershttp://www.zoewinters.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-90672947602298334042010-04-22T13:00:26.667-05:002010-04-22T13:00:26.667-05:00I found very helpful was using SmashWords guide (w...I found very helpful was using SmashWords guide (which is free on their site). Once I followed their instructions and had a word doc that fit their specifications, I used google mail to easily convert it to html, and I was good to go for Kindle. All in all, took about an hour to format the collection of short stories, including the time necessary to read Smashwords guide.Dave Zeltsermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04007736514118297783noreply@blogger.com