[Piper_]

Originally Posted by Mishri Jain

Hello Piper,
First, reading such meaningful and relevant questions, I truly feel you are God sent to me. Forgive me for expressing my feelings, but I had to.
[...]
Piper, please allow me to ask: since it will be because of your invaluable help at this critical juncture that the publication of this book in proper formats and outlets will be possible, could I be allowed to include your name in the "ACKNOWLEDGEMENT" section of the book when it is ready to be uploaded to however and whatever outlet(s) we finally decide upon?

You're so kind, Mishri, I fear I won't be able to earn so much gratitude. I do promise to help you reach your goal as painlessly as possible, as far as I can. I'll probably learn some things along with you.

No need for an acknowledgment, but if you wish to add one, I would love to see it given to Kovid Goyal for all his development and support of calibre for us all.

Now to your questions and comments.
As to the 'Cover Page', I would like to have that page appear as the book's cover.


However, the book has been reviewed by a scientist-physician (M.D.) at NIH; by a research scientist (M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A) at Haifa, Israel; an assistant professor at University of Illinois at Chicago; and by a Yogi at Rishikesh,The Himalayas, India. Is it advisable to make this blurbs page as the 'Cover Page'? Or will it be unusual, even unprofessional?

If I am understanding what this ebook will be, I can see why you don't want an artistic image as a cover.

But I do think you should have an image file you can define as the cover in the metadata when you submit the ebook to retailers.

What you could do would be to use Word to make a very nice cover page - something like the cover of a medical journal...? You may include blurbs, etc., in addition to the title, author, subtitle, etc.

Then, you can just save that nice cover page as an image. (You'll need to consider dimensions, but we can get to that later.)

You want it to look as professional, attractive, and readable as you can for people who are browsing for ebooks like yours.

The reason for external hyperlink was the suggestion made by some Ebook publishers to allow a prospective reader/purchaser to click on the hyperlink and be able to review a sample of the book's content immediately so as to be persuaded to obtain/buy a copy of the book. I do not know whether, alternatively, one could simply provide an email address somewhere in the book (probably has to be at or near the opening page, I guess), said email address entirely dedicated to and automatically linked to a sample chapter of the book? I do not know whether this is even possible. Or, just provide an internal hyperlink for a sample chapter associated with the 'Table of Contents' (not so called TOC, but typewritten and made by me and placed in the book immediately after the Copyright page) and simply not worry about the external hyperlink? I do not know how best to approach this issue.

No, I do not intend to make this ONLY .mobi book. As noted in your remarks, I certainly would like to make it in EPUB version as well so that e-readers who do not use Kindle or Kindle applications could also read/get it. In other words, I would like the book to be available on all reading devices. I do not know whether only Mobi formatted books are readable on Kindle. Can EPUB books also readable on Kindle? I should think so (otherwise how will Amazon sell so many Kindle?) But am not sure. In short, yes I would like to have the book available on all e-reading devices (iPAD, Kindle, etc.).
Kindest regards..........Mishri.

Thank you.

OK, then. Here are the most important points to consider now:

Regarding Formats:

No, Kindles don't read epub, but most other ereaders do. So you will need a good epub version of your book as well.

In fact, my advice would be to format the book in epub first, and then convert it to mobi.

It's more simple to edit and get an epub book just the way you want it, using a wonderful, free program many of us here use, called Sigil.

Download here.
See the support forum for it just below this calibre forum.

There are many people who are much more experienced with this than I, so they may pipe in with better workflow advoce, but what I do is this:

Follow all the steps I gave you in post #6, but when you get to Step 7, make sure the output format on upper right says "epub" - not "mobi."

Now you will have an epub version of your ebook that's easy for Sigil to open and edit just the way you want it. I can give you some tips and steps to get there, if or when needed.

Once you have an epub fixed up and ready for epub ereaders, you would convert the epub to .mobi for the rest.

Whether or not a simple calibre conversion is all you will need to get that epub into a good and Amazon-ready mobi will depend on a few things; in particular, how much formatting your book requires. (Are there many tables, footnotes, etc.?)

Regarding links and sample chapters:

Yes, you should add your email address and website address to the ebook.
I wouldn't worry too much about making them clickable, though, because so many ereaders either don't have internet access, or they won't open a browser or email ap from a click within a book, even if they do.

But that's ok, because once you get your book on the retailer's web site, most (if not all) of them handle the free sample part.

Look at the listing of any ebook on Barnes and Noble or Amazon (who both have wireless ereaders), you'll see a link to "Download a free sample now."

At the end of those samples, you'll see that they add a "click here to download the rest of the book" link for you.

I'm not sure how it's done at sites like Sony or others, but when it comes to that end, I think you will find a lot of valuable information on this thread:
How and Where to Publish Your Ebooks

You might also want to familiarize yourself with the Writer's Corner and the mobi and epub sections of the Workshop.


I know this doesn't give all the answers you'll need to get your book out there, but I don't want to swamp you with too much at once, or explain steps you won't need to take. If you aren't sure about anything I've said, or if you want to investigate other options, just let me know, ok?