Home/Publishing/Amazon KDP/Kindle eBook Formatting
A Kindle file has to reflow when the reader changes the type size. Chapter titles need to be headings, scene breaks need to survive, and a drop cap or a text box is where most Word files break. We build the file and read it in the previewer, not only on a desktop.
The pass
A heading that is only bold 18 point will not enter the table of contents. We use real heading styles, a page break before each chapter, and scene breaks that are a marker, not five empty returns. Italics have to be italics. Underlines that were meant as emphasis become a mess on an e-ink screen.
Images, if the book has them, need to be RGB and large enough that a tablet does not turn them to mush. A full-page image in a novel needs a reason. Footnotes should be notes a Kindle can jump to, not a tiny number that goes nowhere. We check the preview at a large type size, because that is where a line overflows and a table falls apart.
Order of the work
What the reader meets
A contents list that opens on the wrong chapter is a formatting error, even if the sentences are perfect.
What you receive
If KDP changes the converter later, you want the styled source, not only a frozen export.
Decisions
Reflowable, simple, fast. Headings, italics, scene breaks. This is most fiction and most memoir.
Images and tables get extra time. Some tables should become lists. We will say so rather than ship a table that only works in one width.
Fixed layout, not this reflow pass. Say so before we strip the design out of a book that needed it.
House rule
A file that looks fine on the computer it was built on is not the test.
Before the conversion
Yes, if you can export a clean document. We still rebuild the styles. The tool you drafted in is not the ebook.
The interior is this job. A front cover at Kindle size can be added if you have the art. A paperback wrap is not a Kindle cover.
You do.
Send the manuscript
A straight novel and a workbook are different conversions. Call (833) 688-4166 or write [email protected].
The shelf
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