Easy, Attractive, Low Cost Kindle Book Conversion For Do It Yourself Authors!

In my never ending quest to find ways to make my self-publishing efforts more profitable I have tried to learn how to do as much as possible myself in order to save costs. At times that approach has been costly due to the amount of time lost or wasted. Other times I have spent money to have work done and, while the work was worth what I paid for it, it was money I could at times ill afford to spend.

Since eBooks appear to be the future of self-publishing, I have been struggling with how to convert as many of my titles as possible into Kindle editions. As I have often mentioned in this blog, if you are willing to pay to have conversions done, I recommend eBook Architects.

But, if you're like me and need to save money and are willing to do the work yourself, converting your print edition file to Kindle is a hugely daunting task.

I am happy to say, I no longer feel that way. 

I spent over $100 on books telling me how easy it was to convert my Word document into a Kindle file. The only one I ever understood was Aaron Shepard's book on inserting photographs and diagrams into a file for Kindle. I don't want to add up the number of hours of frustration I spent trying to convert files that would look reasonable, just reasonable, in Kindle or ePub format.

What's changed?

After using one of Joel Friedlander's new Book Design Templates for my latest non-fiction book's POD release and being so pleased with not only how the interior of the book turned out but how easy it was to use after about 30 minutes of playing around with the template, I decided to give the ebook template a try.

I spent the money to purchase a multi-title version of the ebook template I wanted to use. I spent two long days cutting and pasting the book I was converting into the ebook template. Don't let this statement discourage you. I had to learn a little about using the template, remove formatting that got transferred and correct the format in the template (very easy to do, just time consuming) and position the 200+ diagrams the book contained. The big time consumer was the diagrams.

I then converted the file to HTML. Uploaded it to the FREE program Calibre, converted the file and uploaded it to KDP.

When I previewed the file before publishing it I was stunned. For the first time I had created a book in the Kindle format that looked like I wanted it to!

Of course, I plan to purchase a copy to make sure the Table of Contents and the links in the book work. But, the interior turned out great! It looks just like it did in template form as a Word document before starting the conversion process!

If you have books you want to convert to Kindle editions and desire to do the work yourself, take the time to investigate these templates. Joel offers a lengthy guide on using the templates for both POD and eBook file creation and offers customer service via e-mail if you have a question concerning the use of the template.

I have already started converting another book using my template and the process is going much faster as this book does not have diagrams. 

You owe it to yourself to investigate these templates!

Low Cost Self-Publishing

Sounds like one of those adds for the many "author services" or "self-publishing" companies that advertise seemingly everywhere on the internet. Some of these companies are reputable and deliver what they promise and charge for. Others in the "author services" industry are simply sharks preying on authors desperate to get their book published.

Sounds grim. 

If that's not discouraging enough, getting published the old fashioned traditional way is not only getting harder, but the industry is changing so fast it is nearly impossible to keep up with the changes.

Take heart though.

Self-publishing is also becoming more and more accepted and common place, and with good reason. The barriers to publish quality books are becoming lower and lower for the average individual.

Here in lies the dirty little secret. Traditional publishing offered editing, book design services, marketing and most important of all, distribution - access to the reading public. If you did not have a traditional book deal, you had no access to any of the above necessary items.

Technology has leveled the playing field. The internet giant Amazon does not care if the book is from a traditional publisher or a self-published author. Print-on-demand technology allows authors, and publishing companies, to make their books available to customers without having to tie up capital in inventory sitting in a warehouse.

Digital books such as Kindle and Nook have further leveled the playing field, lowering costs for the consumer and allowing authors to keep a higher percentage of each book sold. Authors can self-publish and actually earn some money.

While it has gotten easier to get published, it still is not an easy way to earn money or make a living. There are still obstacles in the path of the author who desires to publish his or her work and earn an income from that work.

First, authors who are considering self-publishing MUST understand this is a business. That means you have to worry about legal issues, copyright, taxes, record keeping, marketing, sales, editing, book design, cover design and a host of other things the publishing companies took care of the old days. All of these things cost money. Something most of us have too little of.

Still, it can be done. Your prized manuscript can be published successfully and without breaking the bank to do so. If you are willing to roll up your sleeves, work hard and learn the skills you'll need to self-publish your book.

The first step, develop your marketing plan while your writing your book. It is never too early to start building an audience for your book. For non-fiction authors part of your marketing research needs to include whether or not there is even a market for your book. How many people want to know about the effect of earthworms on soil in a desert? On the other hand, how many amateur Civil War historians and reinactors are there? Fiction authors need to start recruiting and building an audience for their stories.  How to do either of these is not the subject of this post.

The legal stuff such as copyright, taxes, etc, is also beyond the scope of this post nor do I want to stick my neck out legally by giving advice on these issues. You will need to do the research to learn the necessary information.

What else do you need to do to successfully self-publish? First, write a good book. That step somehow seems to get forgotten in the process at times. Second, have your manuscript edited by a professional editor. It will dramatically improve your manuscript.

What about cover and book design, the interior layout of the book? If you have an eye for design and are willing to learn to use, and possibly invest in, software such as InDesign and master the steep learning curve and pay the hefty price tag, you can do your own covers. Or you can have covers done professionally for a reasonable price. 

Finally, the good news is even if you have no clue about book design, typesetting and all the nuances that go with designing and producing a quality, attractive and readable book interior, you can do it yourself at a very reasonable cost if you can use Microsoft Word.

For those who need to spend zero money, other than the price of a book, to produce the interior of their self-published book, obtain a copy of Aaron Shepard's Perfect Pages. It is a guide on how to produce a reasonably good interior file for use with print-on-demand services such as CreateSpace or Lightning Source.

If you can spend around $100, I strongly suggest you investigate the range of interior book design templates from Joel Friedlander's The Book Designer. If you can use Word and take the time to read the detailed PDF format instruction manual provided, you can produce an outstanding book interior. For more information about these great templates click here or just below the Book Design Template below.

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