Best Tools To Create Ebook For Amazon Kindle Publishing?

Question

I'm planning to self-publish my first novel on the KDP platform and feel overwhelmed by all the digital publishing software choices. Need advice on formatting tools for Kindle ebooks that won't mess up my manuscript's layout.

RO MIYOUNG · Answer

When it comes to Kindle publishing, I recommend using the direct tools provided by Amazon such as Kindle Create for formatting, or Calibre for converting between formats and managing your eBooks. Sometimes, however, an eBook needs a bit of extra polishing and so authors use Vellum, though it’s Mac-only and costs $199.99/yr. The source material for Naked Pages began as a series of raw and often unedited daily writings posted online, and so the eventual eBook had to be formatted to preserve the immediate feel of the online version. Consequently, the process of converting web-native text to eBook form for Naked Pages involved specific considerations with regards to the overall layout and design.

Sabrina · Answer

If you want to create ebooks for Kindle, you’ll probably need a combination of applications, just like I do. For writing the actual manuscript, I really can recommend ‘Scrivener’ enough. It’s great for outlining, writing and then re-arranging scenes as needed. For formatting the finished manuscript into an ebook, ‘Atticus’ is a brand new tool I’ve recently started to use which is now rivals Vellum, and is a Mac-only app no more.

For converting from Microsoft Word to an eBook for sale on Kindle I use ‘Calibre’ for tweaking metadata, correcting errors in the eBook and generally ‘tidying up’ the eBook file. For creating covers I use ‘Canva’ but recognize that the full range of options available in ‘Adobe InDesign’ would be worth learning. Proofing tools such as ‘Grammarly’ and ‘Hemingway Editor’ are also used to ensure that all text in the eBook is 100% correct before publishing to Amazon KDP.

Finally, to see how your book will look on different Kindles and reading devices, you’ll want to use Amazon’s Kindle Previewer. This goes hand-in-hand with KDP Rocket, which is a tool for finding keywords for your Kindle book to help you dominate the Kindle publishing scene.

Gemma · Answer

I rely on quite simple but effective tools. For my writing and organization I use 'Scrivener'. This program is ideal for longer manuscripts and can export to all Kindle formats without problems. For formatting I use 'Vellum'. This program can create a perfectly formatted e-book from your Word document in a few clicks. The chapters are created professionally and can be styled as desired. If you are on a tight budget then 'Calibre' is a good alternative for converting between formats and for making basic changes. Also 'Kindle Create' from Amazon is a tool that you should not miss. It makes it very easy to create an e-book and there are also many options that are especially useful for beginners. Finally 'ProWritingAid' helps me to find any typos and poorly worded sentences before I upload my finished work. The tools mentioned mean that I can work efficiently and my e-books look great.

Violet · Answer

I try to do everything to make Kindle eBooks as efficiently as possible. I use Google Docs for writing (backed up in the cloud, what more could you want?) and Reedsy Book Editor for formatting (free, exports clean EPUB files).

For covers I use templates from BookBrush for the most common Kindle sizes. For more complex editing I use GIMP, the free alternative to Photoshop. And for the more technically inclined there’s Sigil, with which you can edit the EPUB code of your ebook as required. I also use PublishDrive to distribute my ebooks, besides Amazon.

I use ProWritingAid to catch errors the e-book’s spellcheck has not found. These are pretty straightforward, simple-to-use tools that most indie authors will find adequate, without the need for additional complexity.

Susan Bradez · Answer

I can only imagine that for most novels, the difference between a tool like Vellum and a very well-prepared Word document that has been converted using Kindle Create to AZW/KF8 is quite negligible. Most readers don’t care about the color gradient of the chapter number and related subheadings in the margin. They care about consistent left margin for indented paragraphs, no blank pages in between, a correctly functioning table of contents and such. All of that can be achieved with free tools. The high-end tools only bring their user tremendous amounts of time and possibly some eye candy that signals professionalism on a subconscious level. But as far as I can tell, the experience of the reader does not change in any fundamental way.

If you’re on a very tight budget then don’t feel that you need to purchase expensive software to be ‘legitimate’ writers. Learn the basic manuscript setup and use correctly heading to ensure that your manuscript is easy for others to read. Test, test and test again. A great story published in poor quality Vellum files will get poor reviews. A great story published in a simple Word document will get great reviews. Invest in a quality cover and get your manuscript edited first. The fancy formatting is the last 5% of polishing up.

Marzh Mijares · Answer

I compared file sizes of the final books I created with Vellum and with Sigil manually and the Sigil version is less than half the size of the Vellum created book (it was a normal size novel with no images except for the chapter headings which were embedded fonts). The reading experience on my basic Kindle was identical for both of them. From what I understand this could be a problem for readers in areas with slow internet connections and even worse for readers with data caps as a large EPUB file can count towards their limits even though the reading experience is identical.

This is a minor issue but it relates to the efficiency of the process. If your book is mainly text then a simple file is better for your readers especially if your book is image heavy. You can check the file size when you export the book from your tool in Kindle Previewer. You can also test downloading the book on a slow connection to see if it takes ages to download. Simple tools or ways of doing things can result in a more efficient, streamlined end product for your readers.

Charlotte Gann-Parker · Answer

If you publish widely (not just on Amazon), you need a tool that creates clean generic EPUBs. While Kindle Create creates Kindle-optimized KDP files, many authors will wish to avoid Amazon’s closed ecosystem. For wide-friendly authors, therefore, books created with Vellum, Atticus, Reedsy or Scrivener can be uploaded to Apple Books, Kobo, B&N etc. as generic EPUBs. If you ever expect to go wide, don’t choose a tool that only creates MOBI or KDP-specific files.

That file is your digital book’s source code. Everything else is derived from it. A tool that creates a validated EPUB is investing in the long-term portability of your work. Kindle accepts EPUB now, so there’s no need for the old MOBI format. A good, wide-friendly toolchain starts and ends with a high-quality, standard-compliant EPUB. Check that your chosen tool’s output passes the EPUB validation check.

Richard Mallison · Answer

Accessibility is something that most indie authors fail to consider when crafting their ebooks. In fact, making sure that your ebook looks great is the same as making it accessible. This means that all images should have alt text, that the ebook will still be readable when read out of order, and that the chapter headings are tagged with H1 not just made big and bold. Many of the tools available today for creating ebooks automatically create accessible ebooks because they are using proper HTML and that HTML is semantic.

An accessible eBook means that people who are visually impaired can read your eBook using a screen reader. This is not something that you should look for in an eBook creation tool as an optional extra, it is something that you should expect as standard. In order to evaluate the tools available to create eBooks, you need to look at whether the tool is creating visually correct files, or whether it is creating structurally sound files. In this case, a tool that creates clean, semantic HTML is doing the right thing for all of your readers.

Best Tools To Create Ebook For Amazon Kindle Publishing?

8 Answers

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