It's been a few weeks since "Sam" first became available on Kindle and I thought I'd post here what I've learned about formating, both for your reference and mine.
- I used standard margins - whatever comes up when Word starts up.
- It's recommended to use a "standard" font as they transfer best - any of the Courier's, Times New Roman etc. I used Bookman Old Style - that's what I type my stories in in general - and I think it came out ok.
- Font size 11 was recommended by a blog I stumbled across and have since lost unfortunately - and again, that's what I type my stuff in anyway. Technically, a reader can adjust the font size on their device but you want your story to be simple to access and not need unnecessary customizing.
- Set the line spacing to 1.15 and remove the spaces before and after paragraphs.
- Remove all headers, footers, and page numbers.
- Page breaks - I love this feature. Before I learned how to use it, I was trying to space pages apart manually by hitting the ol' enter key repeatedly. Which does not work - different devices have different spacing and what looks fine on one has a chapter starting in the middle or bottom of a page on another.
I tried using page breaks a couple different ways and found it works best to move your cursor to the end of the last sentence of your chapter. Hit delete until the first sentence of your next chapter (or chapter number) is
just a space away from that last chapter's last period. Hit enter. Move your
mouse over to the top left of your Word screen. Click "insert", then "page
break." This will start your next chapter at the top of the next page. Then, if
you have a chapter number you want centered, center it.
Besides using this on the couple of pages I wanted the reader to pause for a minute, (can't quite call them chapter breaks in such a short story, but you get what I mean, right?) I did this for the copyright page, the title page, and my dedication page of Sam - it keeps everything right where I want it regardless of the device used to read it.
Page breaks added indenting to my paragraphs. When I transferred the file, I had everything left margin aligned.
- I saved it as an RTF file. I know Amazon's help thing says a doc or docx works, but I went with RTF and had no gobble de gook or anything else weird crop up.
- Once you've uploaded your book, you can preview it. Kindle offers two options for previewing. The first one is rather generic and easy to use, but it only shows how your book will look in standard Kindle format. I recommend the second one. It does require you to download the previewer, which takes a couple minutes, but it's very much worth the time to be able to view your story in the various formats your readers may possibly download it to. Skim through the story - paying attention to the chapter endings/page breaks and make sure things line up where you want them to.
If you want to make changes, make them on your RTF document, save them, then upload it again, and preview it again.
And again.
And again.
Okay, well, that was me.
Oh! Before you upload your story, there's a form to fill out regarding the details of your story - the description, contributers, etc. Don't forget to
list your first and last name as a keyword - this will help others find your work just by Googling your name. It's rather cool (and kinda weird) to see your story come up when you key your name into your browser's search window.
- L
- I used standard margins - whatever comes up when Word starts up.
- It's recommended to use a "standard" font as they transfer best - any of the Courier's, Times New Roman etc. I used Bookman Old Style - that's what I type my stories in in general - and I think it came out ok.
- Font size 11 was recommended by a blog I stumbled across and have since lost unfortunately - and again, that's what I type my stuff in anyway. Technically, a reader can adjust the font size on their device but you want your story to be simple to access and not need unnecessary customizing.
- Set the line spacing to 1.15 and remove the spaces before and after paragraphs.
- Remove all headers, footers, and page numbers.
- Page breaks - I love this feature. Before I learned how to use it, I was trying to space pages apart manually by hitting the ol' enter key repeatedly. Which does not work - different devices have different spacing and what looks fine on one has a chapter starting in the middle or bottom of a page on another.
I tried using page breaks a couple different ways and found it works best to move your cursor to the end of the last sentence of your chapter. Hit delete until the first sentence of your next chapter (or chapter number) is
just a space away from that last chapter's last period. Hit enter. Move your
mouse over to the top left of your Word screen. Click "insert", then "page
break." This will start your next chapter at the top of the next page. Then, if
you have a chapter number you want centered, center it.
Besides using this on the couple of pages I wanted the reader to pause for a minute, (can't quite call them chapter breaks in such a short story, but you get what I mean, right?) I did this for the copyright page, the title page, and my dedication page of Sam - it keeps everything right where I want it regardless of the device used to read it.
Page breaks added indenting to my paragraphs. When I transferred the file, I had everything left margin aligned.
- I saved it as an RTF file. I know Amazon's help thing says a doc or docx works, but I went with RTF and had no gobble de gook or anything else weird crop up.
- Once you've uploaded your book, you can preview it. Kindle offers two options for previewing. The first one is rather generic and easy to use, but it only shows how your book will look in standard Kindle format. I recommend the second one. It does require you to download the previewer, which takes a couple minutes, but it's very much worth the time to be able to view your story in the various formats your readers may possibly download it to. Skim through the story - paying attention to the chapter endings/page breaks and make sure things line up where you want them to.
If you want to make changes, make them on your RTF document, save them, then upload it again, and preview it again.
And again.
And again.
Okay, well, that was me.
Oh! Before you upload your story, there's a form to fill out regarding the details of your story - the description, contributers, etc. Don't forget to
list your first and last name as a keyword - this will help others find your work just by Googling your name. It's rather cool (and kinda weird) to see your story come up when you key your name into your browser's search window.
- L