Do It Yourself Kindle Conversions - Word to Kindle Books

With more and more content becoming published in digital format, if you want to self-publish you need to make your books and content available in ebook form. The King of the eBook Market right now is clearly Amazon's Kindle.

For many of us who self-publish, cost is a major consideration. Learning to create our own Kindle books that look as good and function properly like Kindle books designed and produced by professionals is a valuable skill to acquire.

Aaron Shepard, one of the industry leaders in the field of self-publishing, has released the third book in his series on Kindle Publishing using Word to create Kindle books. 

The third, and probably final, book in the series is HTML Fixes for Kindle. Here is the book description in Aaron's own words:

According to Amazon, the simplest way to publish your Kindle book is to upload an HTML file you've saved from Microsoft Word or another word processor. By itself, that method can bring you maybe 80% of the way to a well-formatted ebook. But what about the other 20%?

In this follow-up to his bestselling From Word to Kindle, Aaron Shepard takes your exported HTML as a starting point and tells how to quickly tweak and tune it to avoid common problems. Assuming no knowledge of HTML, he introduces the basics of the language, then reveals how to use find-and-replace and macros to touch up an entire book in seconds!

If you’re serious about Kindle publishing and you’re technically inclined—but not a full-fledged geek—Aaron provides the tips you need to bring your Kindle book to the next level, making it something truly to be proud of. 

The second book in the series is Pictures on Kindle. 

Kindle Comic Creator - An Opportunity for Non-Fiction Authors! (Creative Fiction Authors as Well!)

I have no intention of becoming a comic book author or illustrator. I do however see the potential in this new Kindle format for me as a non-fiction author. Here is a way to illustrate a book, provide detailed information in captions and sell the finished book, albeit a "comic," to my readers. As they say, a photograph is worth a 1,000 words. Many of the concepts covered in my books are difficult to describe clearly in just words, but one photograph with a short explanation provides great clarity for the reader.

If you are interested in using this new type of Kindle book, the software can be downloaded for free by visiting the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1001103761

So far the only drawback I can see is for the time being the finished product can only be viewed on a Kindle HD or the Kindle Cloud. For the readers who purchase my non-fiction books, this limits the number of potential readers. Still, with the rapid advance of technology these days, I hope Amazon makes the finished product created by Kindle Comic Creator viewable on an ever increasing number of devices, including the older eInk Kindles.

For authors who desire to create children's books on Kindle, this may very well be the way to go about it!

I have downloaded the software and plan to play with it and try to learn how to use it and the various possibilities it might have for non-fiction use. 

When I will find the time, I have no idea. I am still slowly trying to learn how to use Scrivener in what free time I can spare. This might have to take priority.

Amazon claims Kindle Comic Creator will aid the author in image placement by automatically placing images in the ideal location. It allows for easy previewing of the comic while in progress, allowing the author to determine if the viewed page is what he or she desires. 

Kindle Comic Creator accepts the most common graphic file types, so authors are able to create art in their preferred photographic design tools. Kindle Comic Creator can import single or multi-page images in jpg, pdf, tiff, png and ppm formats.

Anyone who has already tried this new software and has anything to say about it, good or bad, please comment.