Building Your Book for Kindle Kindle Edition

When I decided I wanted to publish on the Kindle, I went to their very extensive information pages on self-publishing. So much information! I combed through a lot of it but still hadn't found everything I needed when this e-book popped up in my recommendations.

This is a short and precise explanation of all a writer needs to know to publish onto the Kindle. It is all for Microsoft Word users - I don't know if they have another version for other word processing programs or if you could extrapolate from the Word instructions. I haven't actually published my book yet, so I can't say for sure how correct all the instructions are, but they are extremely exact: "Click 'Insert' at the top of the screen in Word...." etc.

The book starts with a "Before You Write" chapter that tells you exactly what not to do while you're actually writing your book - things like, "Avoid using tabs and spaces to indent paragraphs and icons." It then proceeds to tell you what exactly how to form your paragraphs (using Word's Page Layout feature).

There's also a very good synopsis of how to form your cover art. It took me a long time to even find references to this issue on the Amazon website, but this book very clearly and succinctly tells you everything you need to know. (The picture needs to be a jpg or tif file, at least 1000 pixels on the longest side, and the height-to-width ratio should be about 1.6.)

Also included are info on how to create your table of contents, how to insert illustrations into the main book, etc. Then on to how to convert your Word file into html and how to upload it onto Amazon.

The whole thing is very well written. Very clear and doesn't waste your time. Excellent technical writing.

Downloading this "book" (really the length of a magazine article) is a no-brainer since it's free. But don't just download it for future reference -- read it before you look at the Amazon Self-Publishing page information and indeed before you start typing out your book.

Update: I am now uploading various short stories, with and without pictures, to see how everything works. The only part of "Building Your Book" I didn't understand was the "Books with Images: Creating a zipped file of your book contents." The writer said, "1) Go to the folder where you saved your book..." I thought, how in the world does he know whether or not I put my book in a folder? It turns out, though, that, when you convert the file to "Web Page, Filtered" (which he explains very clearly beforehand), and then make a zip file (which he also explains), Word will automatically form two files, just as he describes them. He just doesn't tell you that Word will do this. Also, if your book has pictures (other than the cover art), I would highly recommend "Pictures on Kindle" by Aaron Shepard. It's technical, but if you want to insert pictures into Kindle properly, this book is a great help.

Length: Print, 31 pages.

Amazon Kindle Sales Rank: 1,909.

This nonfiction how-to booklet is targeted to writers who want to self publish their work using Microsoft Word.

Building Your Book for Kindle is written in a straightforward manner in plain English, absent any swearing or humor. As other reviewers have stated, although this brief discussion is not especially different from the advice at KDP, it is organized in a bit more user friendly manner.

EXCERPT

Finishing Your Book

Once you have completed your book and edited it for Kindle, there are a few basic steps required before you can publish your book. These are outlined below:

Copyedit Your Manuscript

* Be sure to run a spell check on your manuscript. Kindle readers expect a professional book; a few misspelled words can make the difference between a four-star review and a two-star review
* Re-review the formatting tips from this guide's "Before You Write" section and verify you have not made any of the common mistakes. Using the show/hide [¶] feature in Word is the best way to make sure there are no tabs, repetitive carriage returns, and other formatting errors that will impair the formatting of your Kindle book
* If you have not done so already, have a friend proofread your manuscript. A fresh pair of eyes always helps, and it is easiest to fix any errors and make any required adjustments before proceeding to the next step.

Convert Your Manuscript to HTML
* Save your manuscript as a "Filtered HTML document" on your computer at a location you can easily find (such as your desktop). To do this, just follow these steps:...

Overall, Building Your Book for Kindle is a useful booklet for self publishers. Further, this could be a great selection in audiobook format at Audible.

I never knew that there were specific formatting guidelines for writing a Kindle / ebook. I always assumed that you could simply write your book in Microsoft Word, convert the file to PDF and upload it as an ebook. That however is NOT the case.

This book is a PERFECT beginner's guide for writing an ebook on kindle. It explains step-by-step instructions on how to format the book, the titles, images, table of contents, embedding links throughout your text, and so much more.

What is most helpful about this book is the instructions on how to upload your ebook's information into the Kindle program. There is more info than just the file of the book itself that needs to be completed (such as metadata and descriptions). This book walks you through all of it.

There are pictures included throughout the book to visually explain what you need to do in Microsoft Word to create an ebook that is easy to read.

I'm looking forward to using this resource for when I create my ebooks soon. It's excellent!

I received this product for free in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I have been reading several "build for Kindle" type books lately, hoping to improve in that area. This one has been very helpful because it reminds me to do the little things like think outside numbered pages, which you don't use, and also using the style tool for title and headings and such, which I generally forget to do as I write. It's a great idea to make your chapter headings all the same even when you are preparing for createspace publishing because then you'd be able to simply change the font once. That is useful in the extreme in a 40 chapter work. It also made me think again about how the reader might wish to use a table of contents as a navigation tool, and best of all it told me how to do it. I'm thinking of resubmitting all my kindle books using these guidelines.