Thank you for the reply Doitsu. Very enlightening.
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Originally Posted by Doitsu
Because the built-in image converter does a lousy job...there's an image resizing cutoff size somewhere between 64-128KB.
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That's absolutely maddening. So even though Amazon suggest using massive images to cater for newer kindle devices, the official tool for creating mobi files borks images for older Kindle readers. Nifty!
I wonder if just uploading an epub2 to KDP and letting them handle the conversion achieves better results? I'm guessing not.
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Originally Posted by Doitsu
BTW, you can find out how much KindleGen resizes your image by unpacking your mobi file with the KindleUnpack Calibre plugin
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The kindleGen seems to be reducing my images from 160KB down to 60-70KB. Ouch!
What's even better, a test image I included in the book that was 40KB seems to have been left alone - the image size remains the same. However, It's obviously still doing something with it as it looks just as blocky as the other images.
KindleUnpack produces a folder called HDImages that contains my unmolested images. I'm guessing that on newer Kindle devices like the Fire my images at least look acceptable? Or is that just wishful thinking?
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Originally Posted by Doitsu
Many self-publishers have successfully submitted Calibre-generated Kindle books, however, KDP has been known to occasionally reject Calibre-generated Kindle books.
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I just read a few anecdotes suggesting the same. Doesn't seem like a reliable way to go about it.
So basically my options are:
- Use KindleGen and accept the fact my images will look rubbish on older e-ink readers and potentially newer kindle devices.
- Take my chances with the KDP online converter and have a teary when things look just as rubbish.
- Try uploading the Calibre mobi and watch the world burn
I never knew Amazon was this awesome
