First
off, why are you doing this?
Have
you just finished the next great American novel or short story? Were you forced
to write a college essay and it turned out so good you want to cash in by publishing
it?
Maybe you just like to let your creative juices flow and will enjoy the
thought of telling your friends that you have an ebook for sale on Amazon.
Whatever
your desires, let's get started and see what you'll have to do in order to get
your project going.
Getting
started.
First you will
need to open an account with Amazon so Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) will be
available to you.
KDP lets
you upload and convert your final draft from several formats:
Word (DOC or
DOCX) HTML (ZIP, HTM, or HTML) MOBI (MOBI) ePub (EPUB) Rich Text Format (RTF)
Plain Text (TXT) Adobe PDF (PDF) Kindle Package Format (KPF).
First
time out.
One of the
easiest first time approaches is to have your ebook laid out using Microsoft Word
or OpenOffice so we'll talk about that method.
KDP will convert your DOC or
DOCX file, as they would the others, to an HTML format that is ebook friendly.
There
are restrictions, but Amazon will help you to understand what they are, and they
do change - Check
Here.
Using Word.
When
you make up your Word Document do not use the copy/paste function for images,
use the 'Insert' function.
Bold characters, italics and headings will carry
over, but bullet points, special fonts, headers, and footers will not.
Your
page numbers, font sizes and margins do not apply. Kindle readers set their own
preferences.
You should use Word's "Page Break" feature (click "Insert" at
the top menu bar and select "Page Break) to create intentional page breaks.
Did
I mess up?
You'll be
able to use their preview to check on how your conversion worked out.
If something
doesn't translate well, review the link we mentioned above for help.
Your
Cover
Amazon will tell
you that adding a high quality cover image is an effective way for you to inspire
customer confidence and boost sales.
Now don't fret if you're not a photoshop
wiz. You can use their Cover Creator which allows you to upload pictures or use
one from their Image Gallery.
Hint: Look at what they have to offer and use
it as a guide as to what you may want to upload.
Table
of Contents
This gets
a little tricky. All Kindle books with chapters or sections need to have a working
table of contents.
Luckily you can make one using Microsoft Word. Essentially
each of your chapters should have a header name or number.
Use the Styles
feature to apply a style to each chapter or section heading using the same Style,
and let Word build a table of contents by detecting the styles.
Click "Table
of Contents" In the References menu and choose one of the Automatic Table options.
This will place your working table of contents on the blank page. -
Exact How-To-Details.
If
you need some inspiration
22
Lessons From Stephen King On How To Be A Great Writer
25
Insights on Becoming a Better Writer
15
Practical Tips: A Guide to Becoming a Better Writer
10
Fast Ways to Become a Better Writer
7
Simple Ways to Make a Good Story Great
Just
remember this one important point.
While you spend time reading all these
hints, you're not writing, so get busy.