Self Publishers Kindle Formatting

I had no problems writing anything, but when it came to the formatting, well, that was a whole different story. It took me longer to learn the proper formatting, inserting pictures and cleaning up the mess than anything else.

Because it sucked so much I decided to write a detailed outline on what I learned. Here is the basic step by step information to formatting a Microsoft Word doc for Kindle.

You can also skip doing the formatting yourself and download the Word Formatted Template for Amazon Self Publishers below.

Format A Microsoft Template for Kindle

Most people use MS Word and know how to navigate it fairly well. So far, this is the simplest and most common way to create Kindle books. You can even upload your finished Word doc to Kindle and the Kindle converter will convert your doc into Kindle format. As long as you use page breaks instead of the enter key, you should be fine.

If you want a super fine Kindle book follow the formatting below.

If you have the newest edition of MS Word, 2007, Kindle cannot convert 2007 documents into the Kindle format. MS Word 2007 use the .docx file extension. You will need to convert your 2007 word (.docx file) to a 97-2003 .doc file.

How to do this- Open your 2007 Word document- Save as / Other Formats / and choose “Word 97-2003″ from the drop down box.

Basic Formatting:  Formatting Your Book – setting up your doc for use

Open a new 97-2003 doc. Go to the Page Layout Tab.

1.) Size – You can use either A5 (which will work fine) or you can custom format by going to Size – click / more paper sizes and manually insert these measurements. width: 5.39″ height: 7.91″

2.) Margins – Click on margins / Custom margins / Top 0″ Bottom 0″ Left: 0.2″ Right 0.2″ Gutter: 0″ Gutter Position: Left. If this format seems odd, don’t worry you’ll get used to it. Remember, it will look right on Kindle, that’s what matters.

3.) Headers and Footers need to be removed. Under the Insert tab / Header / Remove header and do the same with the footer.

4) Paragraphs – do not use the Tab to create your paragraphs. The tab won’t format correctly once you convert to Kindle. Beginning on your first Chapter preset your paragraphs in MS Word by going to Page Layout / Paragraph / Indents and Spacing / Special / First Line by: should default to 0.5″ / click OK.

Start Fresh With Your New Formatted For Kindle Word .doc

If your book is already written or at least started, the best thing to do is remove all the previous formatting by coping your whole book into a text file. A text file will remove any formatting that has been created.

Set up a Word .doc with the formatting style outlined above and start over. It’s not that hard and won’t take that long.

1.) Make a copy of your book then open the original. (Make sure it is a Word 97-2003 doc.)

2.) Select all. Copy & paste your whole book into a text document. (images won’t copy, you will have to re-insert them) Close word.

2.) Open a new Word doc from the template you created, *or downloaded. Or if starting completely fresh, use the formatting information above and then save. Select all from your text doc, copy & paste into the new formatted Word doc.

Further Formatting Information:

These formatting tips are not set in stone. Experiment and develop your own style.

Kindle does not support a lot of fancy formatting. Keep it simple. Remove the header and footer, use first line indent for your paragraphs and insert page breaks between your sections or chapters. Do not use bullets or any margins.

*Font type – Times New Roman, Calibri, or Garamond. These are simple common font types that work best with Kindle. You can always test out new fonts as the Kindle improves and is updated. Titles and subtitles – You can use either the normal heading 1 or 2 format or bold and a larger font. (Bold and larger font looks better on finished product)

*Formatting – Kindle owners can change their font size and ‘words per line’ based on their reading styles. With this in mind, it is best to use basic formatting such as Bold, Italics and underline only. The best font size to use is 12 for paragraphs and basic information. Use 18 point for Chapter Titles, 14 point bold for subtitles or special referencing.

If you are formatting a how-to book or guide you can use – bold and 14 point for your main points or features to make them stand out or at the beginning of paragraphs. Bolding your 12 point font for the major features or key points is ok but, it won’t stand out very well on Kindle–

*Page Breaks – It is important when writing your book you don’t use ‘enter’ to separate chapters. Use the page break feature – Insert Tab / page break.– Another way to insert your page break is by holding down the control key then tap the enter key. *Ctrl + enter.

*Images – Use color images at every chance. Even though Kindle displays pictures in black & white the millions of people using the Kindle apps can see color on their PC’s or Blackberries. I imagine with all the updates and enhancements Amazon is making with Kindle, color is just around the corner. Just make sure your pictures look good in black & white for now.

Insert Images from file – do not use copy and paste for adding images. Use the MS Word Insert / picture feature. Supported picture formats are jpeg, png, bmp and gif. Once inserted you can size your pic to fit the page. Kindle will automatically re size it to fit the screen.

*Book Covers – need to be colorful and compelling. The world still judges a book by its cover, no matter what anyone says. – jpg and tiff are the best formats. Amazon wants your cover size at least 500 x 2000. I’ve found the best looking book cover to be apx 800 wide x 1200 high. Insert a smaller picture of your book cover into the first page of Kindle, apx 600 x 800 pixels.

Book Layout: The major parts you want to include in your book are:

Title and Subtitle
Your Book Image
By: Author info and link to your site if you have one
All rights reserved & copyright information
Table of Contents – TOC – Very important to your readers.
Introduction or Prologue
Chapters
Conclusion
About the author

You may not need all of the above book information. It will depend on the type of book you write. You may not need to have an introduction if writing a how=to book or prologue when writing a novel. Introductions are nice, but not necessary. You can look through your favorite Kindle books and see how they are set up.

Keep the MS Word copy of your book in case you need to update or make any changes to it in the future. The great thing about publishing digital is that you can make changes when necessary.

If you would like the Kindle Formatted Word Template for Self Publishers, enter your information in the form below.
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In the future I will send you some more formatting information as well as other information related to Self Publishing on Kindle. You can cancel at anytime. This is a free service.
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Most people are familiar with MS Word and not so much with HTML so instead of taking a crash course, MS Word would be the way to go.

If you are familiar with HTML you should write your book in an html editor and skip word altogether. There is  information for supported html tags for Kindle Publishing on the Amazon site.