Preparing a word doc for Amazon!

[Gary Compton]

Am having a practice run formatting a word doc to go on Amazon. Converted doc file to a PDF then to a .mobi and sent it to my Kindle. Got formatting probs, line spaces in the middle of sentences etc.

Anyone got an easy way to do it. I don't want to load anything to Amazon in case it gets published unless someone knows that you can stop it from being published and preview it.

HELP!!!

 

[Ogma]

Try saving the file as HTML first using the 'web, filtered' option and then convert. It was the route recommended by Amazon.


Hope that helps.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Don't. Kindle takes Word 2003 and does all it's own conversions, and that is the software you will have the least problems with since it's the publishing industry standard.

If you do a paperback version of your book on CreateSpace than you'll need to do a pdf version, but that's easy enough. Simply format in Word to the page sizes etc, then do a print as pdf copy to upload. I downloaded a free piece of software called DoPDF which does this perfectly.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[DaCosta]

I had problems with PDF's and uploading to Kindle. In some kindle sizes it was fine, in others it had inserted gibberish (and no it wasn't just my writing!). I don't know if you're able to but I converted mine to an ePub file and Kindle was happy wit that format - I didn't need any tweaks. (I write in Apple pages though and converted it to an ePub through that. I tried word and PDF's but nothing worked for me).

 

[nightdreamer]

I've never liked Word, but wrote for years in Lotus Word Pro. I ran into the same sort of problems. Going through PDF was a total disaster. Through HTML was better, but still not perfect. I've switched to Scrivener, and it does a #@*!&# good job at exporting EPUB. The code still needs some tweaks, but no more random line/page breaks and other crap.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Unless you've got pictures inside (the cover gets loaded separately) it shouldn't be a problem to save as a Web Page, Filtered document and then upload that.

You'll also have the opportunity to check how the formatting looks on various Kindle-thingummyjigs before saving or publishing.

 

[nightdreamer]

Speaking about that, I downloaded their Kindle previewer. I think its software is behind the real hardware, because things will display wrong in the previewer but be right on the actual device. Not sure how much to trust it.

 

[DaCosta]

I've never liked Word, but wrote for years in Lotus Word Pro. I ran into the same sort of problems. Going through PDF was a total disaster. Through HTML was better, but still not perfect. I've switched to Scrivener, and it does a #@*!&# good job at exporting EPUB. The code still needs some tweaks, but no more random line/page breaks and other crap.

Agreed, ePub is the way to go if you can find a programme to export as an ePub file. Scrivener is about £35 isn't it? I know a lot of writers swear by it. You can download a trial of Scrivener - you get a generous amount of usage in days (not just 30 days, but 30 actual days of usage over no fixed time limit). As mentioned I use Apple's pages to export to ePub.

 

[Ogma]

The one thing to be aware of with Scrivener is that the functionality of the ebook options on the Windows version is not as great as that on the Mac version. If you use the Windows version and want to tweak the format of the book, you may need to download something like Sigil.

 

[tinkerdan]

I've never done the amazon thing but have worked with Word and Smashwords. You might try some of the advice they give prior to trying to PDF the file.

I've notice that as far as formating problems go many of the Traditional publishers are having the same problems with amazon and when I complained to one of them they got high and mighty about how their professionals don't make those mistakes but they would be happy to take screen shots of the evidence.

Maybe they thought I wouldn't send it, but I did because I do have the PC software and the Kindle which both display the problem. I didn't hear back from them but they might have updated the book and then they raised the price from 8.99 to 12.99.

One thing you might watch is special characters and multi font sizes and styles. Limiting those often takes care of many problems.