Tags
Books, Fiction, Kindle, Publishing, Self-publishing, Writing
Well, I’m still working at it.
I finally found some software that does a pretty good job of formatting the book for a Kindle… Calibre. It was easy to download and install, and the GUI (Graphical User Interface) is intuitive enough that even I can do it.
When I finally went this way, I started doing trial builds to see how it went. The only thing I wasn’t totally pleased with was that the table of contents doesn’t seem to be reliable and text that I want centered on the page doesn’t end up that way. I’m still playing with it to try to overcome those problems.
Meanwhile, I’m still dinkin’ around with the book, changing section names and locations, and generally peein’ away time. Pickin’ at lint on the rug. I was up until three, and back up at six this morning. Gettin’ a little psyched.
Right now, it’s coffee time.
T. W. Dittmer 
I’m certainly not one would consider “experienced” on this, but I use Sigil to do the initial formatting of my book, then save it as an epub file which I upload into Calibre and tweak things from there. As a guide, I use this link -> http://cameronchapman.com/ebook-formatting-the-easy-way.htm
I, too, can’t seem to get a working table of contents within the book itself with this method. But my books are novellas, so I wasn’t too worried about it.
Good luck with everything!
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Thanks. I’ve taken a look at Sigil, but I’ve always done all my formatting in good old Word… the program I love but would like to throw stuff at. 😛
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In Calibre, you need to create commands that tell it to center your copy. There’s a good tutorial for Calibre at Guido Henkel’s blog: http://guidohenkel.com/2010/12/take-pride-in-your-ebook-formatting/
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Thanks. I’ll take a look at that.
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In Calibre you need to create the code that will tell it to center the lines. There’s a good tutorial explanation at Guido Henkel’s blog: http://guidohenkel.com/2010/12/take-pride-in-your-ebook-formatting/
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Word has ‘behind-the-scenes’ things going on that need to be removed to prevent interference with your epub or mobi files. I use the free open source jEdit software for that. I import my Word document into jEdit, and create the commands that tell Calibre what to do with the copy. Guido’s explanation…a bit too wordy somethimes…does a good job of taking you step-by-step. I used it for my novel that’s now on Amazon and Barnes&Noble: “Reichold Street.”
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