Review: Simplest Kindle Formatting Guide With Clear Directions
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 17, 2011
I stumbled on Derek Canyon's blog recently and saw he offered this straight-forward guide for anyone who wants to take the plunge into DIY Kindle ebook formatting. It's a well-written, clear guide to preparing all the files you'll need in order to upload your ebook through Amazon DTP.At a Kindle location ending at 189 (most Kindle novels end at a location between 3,000-6,000), "Format Your Ebook For Kindle" is short and to the point. A wonderful thing.This guide will show you how to:*Save necessary files to a folder on your computer*Convert a manuscript in Word (.doc) into HTML format*Format Chapter headings with page breaks and line breaks*Replace placeholder text in the HTML file*How to include a clickable Table of Contents (TOC) which is optional*Compress book files into zip format to upload through Amazon DTPCanyon says the first time you format an ebook novel, plan on several hours to get through it. But once you know what to do, it should only take about AN HOUR for subsequent books. Who knew?For more complex and advanced Kindle Formatting, say for a book heavy in graphics, take a look at Joshua Tallent's Kindle Formatting ebook. Joshua also offers an excellent formatting service for ebooks on his Ebook Architects website at a reasonable price.But for a fiction work, or text-only ebook, Canyon's "Format Your eBook for Kindle" is just the ticket -- esp at this price. That'll save you $100 to $200 in formatting services per book and give you a good feel for DIY Kindle formatting.