What is the best document format for publishing ebooks that can be released online and to Kindle?
At the end of the day, the only document format is XHTML as that is the content format ePub uses. Granted, Amazon uses their own format but it is so identical to ePub that you can literally just extract an ePub file, run the Amazon Kindlegen.exe file on it and you will get your eBook in Kindle format in a matter of minutes.There are some things you cannot do with Amazon, such as scripting (quizzes, interactive maps, etc.) but for regular text content and images, think of ePub and Amazon’s Kindle formats as being identical.If you are writing a purely text-based book (fiction, usually), you can use Scrivener, Google Docs, Pages, iBooks Author (and many more products) to create pure ePub documents.If you want to use Microsoft Word, you can technically do the output yourself but it is best to use a tool to do that. Calibre (calibre - E-book management) and the eBook Toolkit (eBook Toolkit Basics) are good choices. Full disclosure: I am the author of the eBook Toolkit.. I created it because it was too painful to manually output my Word content to ePub and Kindle.
$20 for an 80-page self published book?
Printing in color and via print-on-demand (POD) is very expense. It is not the paper quality that drives up the pricing, it is the cost to print in color. Createspace will be a little less expensive, but I can tell you the print quality is a little better at Lulu. I would recommend that you also publish an eBook version of your book, so you offer an option for potential readers/buyers. That version of the book can be priced less. I would price your eBook around $4.99. Also, don't fret over your $21 retail price-point, it is not that bad. If you want the distribution, I would publish with Lulu or Createspace. Make sure you've selected a trim size that qualifies for distribution to Amazon, etc. There are limitations going POD for distribution when you're printing in color. Good news is that there is a new digital print technology that is available and companies like Lulu, will be offering this in the very new future, so the cost to print in color is going to be extremely reasonable. You can publish now and in the next 6-12 months, you'll be able to drop your retail price because the cost to print is going to go down. Best of luck to you!
How do I self-publish my own book and ebook?
Once you have written your manuscript you need to find an editor. You can find one on the website, Fiverr. I would recommend investing at least $100.00-$200.00 for a good editor.Once the final draft is ready you will need to get it converted to Kindle and can get a conversion to Kindle/MOBI format for $25.00 - $50.00 on Fiverr. In addition, you can also have the files converted for paperback for around the same cost.You can also find a Kindle book cover designer on Fiverr. The freelancer that I have used for many of my books is named Vikiana (www.fiverr.com/vikiana) and you can get a really good book cover for as low as $10.00. I also recommend having the same designer design the same cover for audiobook format ($10.00) and paperback format ($25.00) for CreateSpace should you choose to want to have multiple revenue streams.You can record the audiobook yourself and you will need to buy a microphone and a pop filter. Both should cost around $50.00 - $60.00 on Amazon. The program I use for recording is called Audacity and is free. You can convert your manuscript to paperback for CreateSpace for free if you do it yourself. Look up India Drummond on YouTube for her free tutorial.At minimum, I highly recommend having both a Kindle and paperback edition of your book. You will also need to market your book once you have uploaded it to Amazon. Marketing will run you $200.00 - $300.00 but it is a great investment.
Is smashwords publishing any good?
I want to hear opinions by people who have published on this site. Do they pay you the percentage they say they will? Do they show you all the purchases? Do they try to claim any rights to the book once you have published it on their site? Information like this would be very helpful. Thank you in advance for the info!
If you self-publish a print book using Amazon's CreateSpace platform, is it possible and easy to convert it to Kindle format and other ebook formats?
My recommendation is following:Have a source material in HTML (AFAIK, CreateSpace prefers that input, too). See Supported HTML5 tags and CSS elements and Kindle Format 8 OverviewUse Sigil [1] to convert it to ePub. Tweak it until satisfied.Use Amazon’s own KindleGen to convert to mobi / azwAt any point after first use Kindle Previewer to preview your creationYou can skip second step and use HTML as direct input to KindleGen. However, you will then have to create opf and ncx files with metadata manually.KDP will also accept MS Word, if I remember correctly. You can use Calibre - E-book management to convert from format to format, as many posters recommend. For my first efforts I used Mobipocket Creator . All these ways might work for you, but I find that the steps I outlined offer the best control over the results.Also see http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.co...Edit: I forgot: if your ToC, index, cross-references, foot/endnotes etc are not hyperlinked, you have not created an e-book.Footnotes[1] Sigil-Ebook/Sigil