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What's the best format for an e-book?

11/6/2011

1 Comment

 

Here's a question from the Ebooks/Epub Technologies group on LinkedIn.

I think the answer depends on how you plan to make your e-book available.  The general rule is: the simpler your design is, the more likely it will be to display correctly on any ereader that uses it.

If you plan to use Smashwords.com, I would suggest you pick up their style guide at:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52

From what I understand,if you can get the format right you can publish on a number of different devices. However, I haven't used Smashwords, so I can't say that with any certainty.  (I'm concerned about the lack of digital rights management capabilities.)  I will be happy to yield the floor to anyone who has used Smashwords.

I have published a book for the Amazon Kindle.  The formatting wasn't too tricky.  The best information is on the Kindle Direct Publishing Website.  Here's a brief overview:

- Start using Microsoft Word. Save your document as a .doc or .docx file.
- Do not use bullet points, weird fonts, headers or footers.
- Put page breaks between chapters.  Other than that, page breaks may not matter because they will be dependent on the font size the reader is using.
- Use JPEG images that are high contrast. Insert them as pictures.
- Each body paragraph will be justified.
- The first line of each paragraph will be indented automatically.  Do not use the tab key.
- Use Word's table of contents feature to create a table of contents where the reader can click and be taken to a particular area of the book.
- Save your .docx file.  This way you can make changes to the text later.
- Save your .docx file as "Filtered HTML".  This is what you'll upload to Amazon.
(The page I'm working from has several additional steps, but I don't think I did them -- but then I don't have any pictures in my ebook.)

Best of luck to you!

Gregg

http://brokentoys.weebly.com

1 Comment

    Author

    Gregg Greer grew up in Ranger, Texas and currently lives with his family in Lubbock, Texas, where he teaches at one of the small universities in town.

    Gregg met the love of his life in college -- and it only took three more years for him to figure that out. Together, Gregg and Karen have five children who love nothing more than to sit around and tell stories.

    But the most important part of the story of Gregg's life is the same as your story: redemption from past mistakes and salvation by a sacrifice that boggles the imagination.

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