Tech Journal: How to Publish Your Own Book on Kindle
By Amit
Agarwal
I have been writing my tech blog Digital Inspiration for about eight years, and in that time I
have come across hundreds of websites that provide information as well as solve
actual problems.
Some of these sites, or web apps —
like Pixlr (image editor), Creately
(diagrams creator) and Home Styler (3D designer) —
are almost as powerful as their desktop cousins, such as GIMP and
Visio.
I wanted to put these “gems of the
Internet” in a reference book and was faced with two choices: I could either go
down the traditional route and create a print version of the book, or take the
other less complicated option of self-publishing in digital format. The latter
made more sense because e-books can be updated anytime (Internet related books
are otherwise outdated very quickly) and second, the only investment required in
creating an e-book is time. There are no upfront costs.
Here’s some advice for any wannabe
authors looking to do likewise:
Where to publish?
There are several platforms for
publishing and distributing eBooks. The most popular is obviously Amazon’s
Kindle store, but there’s also the iBookstore of Apple, Barnes & Noble’s
NOOK store and the Sony Reader Store, among others.
The iBookstore requires a U.S. Tax
ID even for international publishers, but you can still get your book listed in
Apple’s marketplace through third-party aggregators like Lulu or Smashwords, who take a
commission per sale. The iBookstore is still not widely available in India — for
instance, you can only download free books from the iBooks app but none of the
paid titles are available. Kindle, on the other hand, is global and, best of
all, offers reading apps for all platforms, so even non-Kindle users can enjoy
the book on their desktops and mobile phones. I decided to go the Kindle
way.
Step 1: Prepare
Preparing the book is easy using
common tools like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. It’s just like writing a
regular document, but avoid complex styles. Stick to common fonts like Arial or
Times New Roman, don’t experiment with colors, keep your images centered (don’t
align them left or right) and don’t add headers or footers as they’re not
supported by the Kindle. Even tables and bulleted lists may not look right, so
avoid them if possible.
Once your document is ready, save it
in HTML format (Word offers that option) and then use the free Mobipocket Creator tool to convert your document into a Kindle
file. You should also create a 600×800 image that will act as a cover for your
book. Remember to use big fonts because the Amazon store will only show a
thumbnail image of the cover and the book title should still be readable at that
reduced size.
Step 2: Test
Next you need to test the layout of
the eBook. If you have a Kindle device, it’s possible to simply send the file to
your Kindle email address or transfer it manually using a USB cable.
Alternatively, use the Kindle Previewer
software to test the eBook on your desktop.
Step 3: Publish
If things are looking good, it’s
time to hit the publish button. Go to kdp.amazon.com, sign in using
your Amazon credentials and upload the eBook files (if your book has images, put
everything in one zip file.) You need to set the price of your book at this
stage: Amazon will pay you 70% if your book’s price is $2.99 or higher, but for
anything cheaper, the royalty rate is only 35%.
The overall workflow is extremely
user-friendly, but it’s disappointing that Amazon charges international
customers a $2 Whispernet tax even when they use Wi-Fi (and not 3G) to download
the book. Thus, if you have set the book price at $2.99, customers outside the
U.S. would have to shell out $4.99, which is a damper for lower-priced
books.
When I first uploaded the raw files
to Kindle Publishing, it took a few hours for the book to appear in Amazon’s
store (someone probably manually reviews the book but the process is super
quick.) I made a few corrections, re-uploaded the book and the updated version
also became available in an hour or two. It doesn’t get much
easier.
Source | http://blogs.wsj.com
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