Using Apache OpenOffice to publish on Kindle.

[Dragonrider]

Does anyone know if it's ok to use Apache OpenOffice to publish on Kindle? I have seen a list of all the text formats that are best to use, but Apache OpenOffice wasn't on it. I would be willing to use Microsoft Word, but it sure is pricey if you want to only pay for it once. It would be worth it I'm sure, though. Please help.

 

[Butterfly]

To publish on kindle you need to be able to convert files to pdf to be able to open them in the kindle textbook creator. I think that so long as you can do this with Open Office you should be fine. With word (2007), I had to download an extra patch to be able to do this, but it was free.

Visit https://kdp.amazon.com/ and click on 'Learn how easy it is' it will tell you all you need to know about creating kindle e books and spend some time reading up on all you need to know.

 

[Dragonrider]

Thank you Butterfly! Good advice!

 

[Steerpike]

You can definitely use Open Office, though Libre Office is better.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I use Apache OpenOffice as well. To create a kindle file I save the document as an html file and then convert it to a mobi file in Calibre (which is free too). It doesn't publish the book on Amazon, but at least you have a version of the book that can be read on kindle.

 

[kennyc]

I create my books in .docx format in MS word, upload to Amazon, done.

 

[BWFoster78]

I create my books in .docx format in MS word, upload to Amazon, done.

Same for me. Other than one issue with a style that I never did figure out (had to do a work around), the .docx worked super easy. Since I used the work around for the upload of my second book, everything worked perfectly on the first try.

 

[Ankari]

For those of you who do not use Sigil to clean up your formatting, what sizes are your final product? Give me a word count and MB total. I'm curious.

 

[Steerpike]

I will upload MSWord files as well, these days. I use to save them as unfiltered HTML files then strip out any remaining extraneous HTML with an editor, but I'm not sure it is worth it. I haven't done a direct comparison in file size difference.

 

[BWFoster78]

For those of you who do not use Sigil to clean up your formatting, what sizes are your final product? Give me a word count and MB total. I'm curious.

MB = megabyte?

Sorry, this wasn't clear to me. Assuming that's what you wanted:

Rise of the Mages

Word Count - approx 120,500. MB = .73

Abuse of Power

Word Count - approx 30,000. MB = .43 (NOTE: WC included excerpt from RotM. MB includes the cover image for RotM to go with the excerpt.)

 

[Steerpike]

MB = megabyte?

Sorry, this wasn't clear to me. Assuming that's what you wanted:

Rise of the Mages

Word Count - approx 120,500. MB = .73

Abuse of Power

Word Count - approx 30,000. MB = .43 (NOTE: WC included excerpt from RotM. MB includes the cover image for RotM to go with the excerpt.)

Sounds about right. I think Ankari is wondering what the MB count is if you strip out all the excess crap that MSWord embeds in a document, which you can do by saving as unfiltered HTML and using an editor, for example, or by editing in Sigil. I did that with my first book. It's not hard, but again I'm not sure the savings in file size is significant. The longer the work, the bigger the difference will be.

 

[Ankari]

Exactly. Those numbers look good. When I formatted my first novelette, it weighed in at 33.0 MB. That was with 10K words. Since using Sigil, I'm 100% ePUB compliant and the novelette was less than a MB. I'm glad to see ylur formatting came out light.

 

[Steerpike]

Exactly. Those numbers look good. When I formatted my first novelette, it weighed in at 33.0 MB. That was with 10K words. Since using Sigil, I'm 100% ePUB compliant and the novelette was less than a MB. I'm glad to see ylur formatting came out light.

I think Amazon's platform has improved quite a bit. When I first used it, it was highly recommended that you strip out all the excess code. Smashwords recommended the same. Maybe the automated system takes care of a lot of that now.

 

[BWFoster78]

I think Amazon's platform has improved quite a bit. When I first used it, it was highly recommended that you strip out all the excess code. Smashwords recommended the same. Maybe the automated system takes care of a lot of that now.

I did a tiny bit of research right before I uploaded, and none of the articles advised any kind of stripping of excess code. I'd guess that you're right - the platform must have eliminated that problem.

 

[Steerpike]

I did a tiny bit of research right before I uploaded, and none of the articles advised any kind of stripping of excess code. I'd guess that you're right - the platform must have eliminated that problem.

Yep. I did one in maybe 2010? Here's an article that was typical of what was suggested at the time:

Kindle Formatting - Formatting Tips

The Kindle platform software was pretty bad at the time. You basically had to clean everything up yourself, and I even manually loaded files onto Kindle devices to check them because Amazon's preview in their KDP platform was pretty much useless. They've come a long way.

 

[BWFoster78]

Speaking of formatting tips ...

I'm going to put out a paperback version of Rise at some point. Anyone got a link to a good step by step guide on how to do that formatting?

Thanks.

Brian

 

[kennyc]

Speaking of formatting tips ...

I'm going to put out a paperback version of Rise at some point. Anyone got a link to a good step by step guide on how to do that formatting?

Thanks.

Brian

Good question. I've considered using the Amazon partner/sub Createspace but have not done anything other than set up an account.

Info here: https://www.createspace.com/Author.jsp

 

[Steerpike]

I've used CreateSpace. I recommend using one of their templates. It's not hard to make the book after that.

 

[BWFoster78]

I've used CreateSpace. I recommend using one of their templates. It's not hard to make the book after that.

My issue is that I have absolutely no idea where to even start. Whenever I'm completely unfamiliar with a situation, my preference is to follow some sort of How To guide. Even when the process turns out to be intuitively obvious, I find that having detailed instructions really helps me get over the barrier of getting started.

 

[kennyc]

A Step-by-Step Guide to Publishing with Createspace by Lyn Horner — The Book Designer

other possiblilities here: https://www.google.com/webhp?source...UTF-8#q=How+to+create+a+book+with+createspace