How to publish for Kindle on Amazon

NOTE: since KF8, I no longer use this method. See THIS POST for my latest.

To anyone who hasn't done it, publishing for the Kindle on Amazon can seem a formidable task, so this post is to share my tips on how I published Remix. There are other ways - and you can always pay someone else to do it. JA Konrath recommends the person he uses. Allow about a day to do it my way.

• Prepare your book as a Word document. Remove page numbers and headers. Make a title page; I'd advise condensing the usual front matter to one page. Put the indents to three characters, and start each chapter on a new page using Ctl and Enter. I used a tilde (~) between scenes, as the conversion process can remove line spaces on Kindle for PC. [Update: to add a space between paragraphs use Shift-Return at the  end of a paragraph. Unlike Return on its own, all the Kindles respect these - except the Kindle Fire if the blank lines follow a page break.] N-dashes with a space either side allow the text to flow better than M-dashes. Consider if you should put a bit about another of your books with a link, or a link to your website, at the end.

• Download Mobipocket Creator (free) and from the home page, import your Word document.

• Click on Metadata to the left of the page you are now on, and fill in your book's details and cover. You will need to use Ctl and V to paste. You no longer need to include your cover image at the front of the text - Amazon's KDP now has a box you tick and your cover will be added as the first page of your ebook.

• Click File and Save As, and the document will be saved in HTML form where you choose on your computer.

• Go to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. Register, go to your Bookshelf and click Add a New Title. Follow the instructions carefully.

• Once your HTML file is loaded, you get to the most important part of the process, Preview. Preview gives you an approximation of what your text will look like on a Kindle (don't worry that the page has no margins - it will on the Kindle). At this stage, go through every single page looking for formatting flaws which have popped up, such as passages in bold or italic or incorrect indents. Put these right on the HTML document as you find them. You don't need any knowledge of HTML to do this; it's easy to work out which bit of code is wrong, and replace it with a sound bit of code from a correct passage. Remember to change the code at the end as well as the beginning of a paragraph. Warning: this painstaking process may take hours, depending how much extraneous concealed formatting your original Word document had. But it's essential.

• Reload the improved text, and check again.

• Repeat until your book looks the way you intended.

• Fill in the rest of the details.

• Publish! If you have a Kindle, download a copy to check; if you don't, download Kindle for PC and check on that.

• Sell lots of copies.

For tips on print books' typography, see my post Typography and the self published novel.