Kindle, Nook, iBook, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, pdf
Copyright ©; 2012 Barney Schwartz.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Version 2.5
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Getting Started
Prepare Your Book for Kindle
Upload Your Book to KDP.Amazon
Prepare Your Book for Smashwords
Publishing Your Book to Smashwords
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Nevenka Sladoljev for the inspiration to complete this book.
I must mention the following people whose work drove me to write this book:
Buzz Murphy’s Formatting a Kindle eBook for Non-Techies. The first book that I purchased read and could actually use to construct a useful eBook.
Elizabeth Castro’s EPUB Straight to the Point, a comprehensive, concise trek through using Word and/or Adobe InDesign to compile your eBook for Apples iPad and a dissection of the inner construction of the ePub format.
Mark Coker’s Smashwords Style Guide, the definitive guide to writing for the Smashwords Publishing System.
CJ’s Easy As Pie Kindle Tutorials, the single website I have found that completely leads ou through the construction of a successful Kindle book.
Introduction
Building an eBook is no longer the domain of computer geeks, html experts, php gurus, or the major publishing houses. Now in a few easy steps anyone with a computer and access to the internet can build their own eBooks. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. You just need to follow these easy instructions to get your eBook published and available to the widest audience.
In this book I will lead you through getting the software you need. I will step you through installing that software on your home computer, formatting required so your masterpiece complies with the various requirements of the different eBooks formats, and finally transferring your work to the two major distributors of the eBook world (Amazon & Smashwords). Amazon for their Kindle and Smashwords because in one fell swoop once your book meets their specifications they distribute to; Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Diesel, Sony and soon Amazon.
This book is especially for people who use Windows driven computers and Microsoft Word or Open Office. I, and others mentioned above have found that the best tool to write your book is Word. Now that writer2Epub has been released Open Office provides a satisfactory method for you to convert your odt file directly to Epub format. In this update of my original book I have added all you need to use Open Office for this purpose .
I maintain a website to support this book since e-books are still NOT good at presentation graphics. Please feel free to browse to:
There you will find supporting files for my books, helpful hints and tips, links to my other works, and eventually a blog and a discussion forum.
Getting Started
If you don’t already own Microsoft Word then you will need to get it in order to follow this book.
If you are a starving artist, and therefore use Open Office, then download and install the add-in “writer2ePub” by Luca Calcinai. Once you have installed “writer2ePub” you will notice three new icons in your menu bar. All of the information about setting up a template is valid for Open Office once you have installed writer2ePub extension.
You will also need to following freely available software:
MobiPocket Creator; to build the files necessary for upload of your book to Amazon.
Kindle for PC to view your book on your home computer and allow you to make changes prior to uploading to Amazon.
Kindle Previewer; view exactly how you eBook will look if you don’t own a kindle.
A text editor. I prefer WinEdt, but you may use Wordpad or notepad.
A screen capture program if you will be including pictures or other graphics. I prefer SnagIt, but you could use Windows snipping tool.
Calibre, to translate your work between various formats and view in those formats.
Just click on the links to go and get these programs. Then install them on your computer. If you need help setting them up you can find step-by-step instructions at my support site. (See the link in the introduction).
You will need accounts at kdp.amazon.com to publish for Kindle and at Smashwords.com to publish for Nook, iBook, Sony, Diesel, Kobo and pdf.
The next chapter deals with preparing your book for Amazon’s Kindle.
Prepare Your Book for Kindle
We will build a template in Word and store this template in a separate directory saved for later use to ensure a smooth upload to Amazon.
Build a Word/Open Office Template
Open Microsoft Word. Click the paragraph symbol to show formatting marks as shown below:
This action will show all formatting marks as you work on your document. Microsoft Word has a habit of inserting hidden formatting without your knowledge and clicking the circled formatting icon turns this function off or on so that you are aware of all formatting.
The next frame shows an Open Office document where you can follow similar procedures to achieve similar results Notice the three writer2ePub icons in the top left of your menu bar. Click through these icons just to become familiar with their operation. The most left launches the conversion process. The middle icon allows you to establish required entries for ePub metadata. The most right icon allows ou to set your preferences. Clicking through these icons will not damage your work so go ahead and try them all.
Out of the box, Open Office (OO) does not have a toolbar icon for Styles and Formatting (F11). If you feel a need for this icon you may easily install it in your toolbar. I simply use the F11 key. Where Word uses “normal “ for regular text style OO uses text body. So press F11 and follow instructions below to set regular text style same as in MS Word.