8. Formatting Your Book For Kindle

8. Formatting the Book for Kindle If sending your book to Kindle then save it as an html file for the web. If you are going to print, export or save as a pdf file. Also export your cover file.

A. Decide where and how your book is going to be published. Local, ebook/Kindle/Amazon, paperback/CreateSpace/Amazon, pdf

B. Format the book insides for the appropriate platform or platforms

C. Format the cover for the appropriate platform or platforms


Kindle Formatting Guidelines

Basic Guidelines for Kindle Books
• Keep your formatting simple
• Produce a clean, basic document
• Use Paragraph Formatting for global layout and spacing
• Work in a standard 8.5 x 11” document

Formatting Guidelines
• Avoid tabs and spaces for indenting paragraphs
• Use Paragraph Formatting to adjust indents
• No headers or footers
• No page numbers

Formatting Guidelines
• Do not use Returns between paragraphs
• Use Space Before and Space After for spaces between paragraphs
• Use Page Breaks between chapters
• Insert images “from file” do not paste

Formatting Guidelines
• Format Chapter Heads with MS Word style features. Use H1 Head and H2 Subheads
• 12 points for text, 14-18 points for heads
• Use Arial/Helvetica, Times Roman or Georgia for fonts

Formatting Guidelines
• Bold, italic or underline use format font menu, the format palette or the tool bar
• Turn charts and graphics into artwork
• Add live http web links to your book

Image Guidelines
• Every Kindle is a different size
• Use color images
• Author pays for download, be efficient with images sizes
• Avoid charts and tables, turn them into .gif graphics

Image Guidelines
• Amazon recommends a picture ratio of 9:11
• Pictures 900 x 1100 pixels, 9:11, old standard was 600 x 800 pixels, 3:4
• Kindle Fire HD 8.9 display 1920 x 1200, 16:10
   • At 72 dpi 12.5”  x 15.77” inches
   • At 300 dpi 3” x 3.66” inches
• Kindle processes, .gif, .png, .bmp, jpeg files
• Kindle book format suports .jpeg and .gif
• 300dpi or 72dpi or 96dpi image resolution
• Up to 5mb per image, I find this way to big, keep under a megabyte

Bottom Line for Picture Sizes
• Pictures 900 x 1100 pixels, 9:11
    Old standard 600 x 800 pixels, 3:4
    300dpi or 72dpi, gif format

At 72dpi, 12.5” x 15.75”
At 300dpi, 3” x 3.66”
Color
.gif or jpg format

Cover Guidelines
• Longest side must be minumum of 1000 pixels, shortest side 625 pixels, or 13.8” x 8.7” at 72 dpi and rgb jpg format.
• I like building covers at 6” x 9” at 300dpi or 1800 pixels x 2700 pixels

Click Here to Read Chapter 9: Publishing Your Book, Three Options: Print, eBook, PDF