# ebook formatting



## Harbinger (Nov 28, 2012)

Alright so converting my story into a azw3 or mobi might actually be more aggravating than writing the story itself. Anyone have any advice on the best way to go about doing this? I downloaded the kindlegen and previewer and got it to work but the formats look different on the various kindle previews.


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## Steerpike (Nov 28, 2012)

All I did was save the file as a filtered HTML document, then manually stripped out what was left of the HTML formatting code until the document was pretty much a bare HTML file. This doesn't take long to do. Then you can go in and add hard page breaks and whatever other HTML you need. It seems to me the less HTML you have in there, the more likely it is to preserve the same look across devices, so use the least you need to make it look right. I was able to get exactly the look I wanted this way, and it didn't take a whole lot of time to do.


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## Leif Notae (Nov 28, 2012)

If you want to, Scrivener can do it pretty well too. I haven't tried it myself, but many others swear by it.


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## Steerpike (Nov 28, 2012)

Leif Notae said:


> If you want to, Scrivener can do it pretty well too. I haven't tried it myself, but many others swear by it.



Does Scrivener do Kindle format now? They used to do ePub, and then you'd have to convert from there (like with Calibre). I use Scrivener for Linux, though, and it doesn't always have the most up to date features of the Windows and Mac versions, so sometimes I am out of the loop on what they have.


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## Zero Angel (Nov 28, 2012)

I just let Amazon do the work for me after following their guidelines. They converted page breaks and the like fine. 

One issue I had with my math book was having to convert every equation into a gif and also that paragraphs that were not indented were automatically indented in the basic kindle, but looked normal otherwise. I just let it go in the last case. So the basic ones have indented paragraphs. 

I don't understand how Kindle 8 format is supposed to be able to do all the extra stuff for PC and Fire when we don't upload more than one version of the file though -_- Do we just subscribe to having the non-PC/Fire versions look bad?


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## Harbinger (Nov 29, 2012)

Thanks to everyones advice. Im gonna try to upload it to amazon and see how that conversion goes. I have to have a description before it can be uploaded though so i guess i ll have to stop putting it off and write one now lol


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## Zero Angel (Nov 29, 2012)

Harbinger said:


> Thanks to everyones advice. Im gonna try to upload it to amazon and see how that conversion goes. I have to have a description before it can be uploaded though so i guess i ll have to stop putting it off and write one now lol



You do not need to have a description to get the preview file. You just can't publish. There's a "save as draft" option.

...or at least, you can just enter nonsense into the description until you are actually ready to publish if there is a requirement for it to get the preview file...but from what I remember, they're on the same page, so there shouldn't be any callback to the server to check if the description is empty or not...


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## Harbinger (Nov 29, 2012)

Oh I must have missed that I'll go back and check it again thanks.


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## yachtcaptcolby (Nov 29, 2012)

Mobipocket Creator works reasonably well. I had to clean up some of the HTML it generated, but I'm not sure there's a converter out there that gets that part perfect. It's also free.


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## lawrence (Nov 30, 2012)

I can relate to your opening post, Harbinger. I spent ages getting my book formatted, in the end I used Sigil and Calibre. At least now I have a good level of experience and it will be much quicker next time around. I'd recommend Sigil if you are not happy with other methods. Loads of control, but if you don't have graphics in the text, like I did, you can probably save yourself time by using the Amazon KDP.


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## Harbinger (Dec 2, 2012)

I finally had success using sigil to calibre. Uploaded epub to kds and the preview looks good. Should be online soon.


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## psychotick (Dec 3, 2012)

Hi,

Why? I find that a simple document in word (2000 in my case) with only minimal formatting crosses into kindle perfectly. It seems to cross into the Smashwords stuff as well. It's when people use other programs and more complex formatting that things come undone. And at the end of the day it's about the story and the words, not the program you use.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Dec 4, 2012)

Hey Greg. 

Basically, when you upload a file to a retailer, they will run it through some form of conversion unless it is the precise file they sell. So Amazon converts the mobi/ePub/DOC/PDF to AMZ, for example. Mobi files convert best. ePub, being close to mobi, converts next best. DOC files are fairly good but can have huge issues if they used a lot of specialized formatting. The more closely a DOC conforms to the Smashwords "meat grinder" rules, the better odds of it doing well through Amazon conversion. And PDF files are known to often have issues with Amazon conversion.

So it really depends on your file. The more heavily marked up a file is with extra tags, font changes which were made but not deleted, bold or italic words you changed around, etc., the more issues it can have. MS Word has a bad habit of retaining tags for things it no longer uses, so if you look at a heavily edited Word DOC in a program that sees tags, it can often look like a mess. That's bad for conversion. A clean file will generally work fine though.

Of course, without a mobi copy of your own, you can't sell it from your website, send it to reviewers, and other bits... So I like to convert to mobi and ePub using Jutoh, then send the mobi files to Amazon (best practice anyway) and ePub files everywhere else.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Dec 9, 2012)

I know exactly how to convert Pages to ePub (and I'm glad I researched that after finishing chapter 1, rather than the whole book).

So, Kevin, you're saying that ePub can convert to AMZ? This is great news! I don't plan to use bold, italics, etc. since Pages has an ePub-friendly template with styles set up for chapter names, headings (which I use), the body, block quotes, and styles I need for the title page. I will not deviate from the styles at all, and I don't need to manually enter page breaks or table of contents, so I think this will result in "a clean file."

Assuming I'm not terribly mistaken, the only formats I need are *AMZ* and *ePub*? Plus *mobi* for reviewers (or to sell from my site when I have one)?


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Dec 11, 2012)

You can't convert a work to AMZ. That's Amazon's proprietary format; only they do that, for books they sell from their website. AMZ is basically a MOBI file with some tweaks.

You want EPUB, for upload to Kobo, Apple, and B&N; and you want MOBI, for upload to Amazon via KDP. You can upload EPUB to KDP, but in general MOBI is a little more reliable to upload there, and it's nice to have the MOBI file so you can sell it from your own website, or give it to reviewers who prefer a Kindle-readable format.


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## Zero Angel (Dec 11, 2012)

Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> You can't convert a work to AMZ. That's Amazon's proprietary format; only they do that, for books they sell from their website. AMZ is basically a MOBI file with some tweaks.
> 
> You want EPUB, for upload to Kobo, Apple, and B&N; and you want MOBI, for upload to Amazon via KDP. You can upload EPUB to KDP, but in general MOBI is a little more reliable to upload there, and it's nice to have the MOBI file so you can sell it from your own website, or give it to reviewers who prefer a Kindle-readable format.



I usually buy my book as a gift for reviewers. I get a, not insignificant, boost in my rankings and they get the "Amazon Verified Purchase" tag to their review. Also, I only pay ~31%-65% of the list price depending on the work (although the 35%-69% isn't refunded for two months -_-). Some reviewers insist on this if they care about the "Amazon Verified Purchase" tag and others will actually buy your book themselves (which is always quite nice). 

It's no different than the days gone by where you had to pay for galleys/review copies of your paperbacks/hardbacks along with postage.


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