Mister Nobody...

[Mr Nobody]

Hiya Folks. My friend's call me Leo. I come from Liverpool, England. I've just self published a novel. You can see a review of the book here... http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/...topic=295671.0

It's going quite well, thanks to some good friends on the RAWK wesite. I must say, they gave it a nice little push for me. But I'm getting requests for ebook versions now, and, as an aul fella of 55, they might aswell be speaking in Martian to me. I'm still having trouble setting the clock on me VCR. So you can imagine me predicament, when people start talking about any technology beyond an abacus.

So, in a nutshell... HELP... I'm not messing, any advice or help greatly appreciated!

[Valmore Daniels]

Welcome to the boards

[Mr Nobody]

Thank you Valmore. A friend on the RAWK website directed me here. After a quick look around, I'm sure it's going to be a great help. I really am stuck in the stone age when it comes to technology. I'm learning though. In fact, I'm rather chuffed with meself after building my own website.... misternobody.co.uk

I'm not touting for business by putting up the url. I'm just still amazed that I was able to build my own website. You'd only laugh if I told you how long that took, especially if you look at how simple it is. But me point is, I can get round these obstacles with a bit of direction and I'm determined to crack this e-thing too.

[desertgrandma]

Welcome to MobileRead, Mr. Nobody.

I"m sure you'll find lots of help in our Writers Corner:


https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=75

and Author Self Promotions forums;

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=226

Enjoy the site, and don't hesitate to ask questions in the appropriate threads!

[Mr Nobody]

Thank you Grandma. I'll definetely be using the site quite a bit now that I've found it. I'm sure it will be a great resource

[MickeyC]

Hi Leo and welcome to MobileRead

[StoryEnthusiast]

Hello and welcome Leo. Please stick around and you'll eventually find what you want here on this forum. I only joined last month but I enjoy it tremendously. It's very lively.

You are still young in this age, and I believe you can still learn and be able to produce your ebook in no time. You have built yourself a website after all, so a little bit of study and experiment and I'm sure you'll be on your way to success.

[44reader]

Hello Leo,

I've come across this thread - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=184598 - and there's some good stuff in there. I've taken out just the bits that I think are relevant to you and am posting that condensed version here. I'd recommend reading all the below before clicking any of the links I've quoted, because some people say one thing and then others say, "Don't bother with that, try this first."

Originally Posted by kipling

I'm desperate for any advice you can give me, I've written my first book in a word 2003 doc it was finished in November 2011 After visiting various forums and asking questions mainly about getting it on kindle, at the moment I'm practicing but am just afraid to take the final step and finding it hard to get to grips with converting it to kindle. So much conflicting advice out there

Just need something that is not in gobble de gook, I'm a visual person and find it hard to read and do, great at being shown then doing it, watched calibre but no good. I've promised myself to just do it and have given myself a date of the Sunday 15th July 2012 or give up.

Rosalie

Originally Posted by kennyc

Rosalie, you can self-publish/upload a Word Doc directly to the Kindle publishing system. That's what I've done with mine. When you do you can preview it to make sure the format is correct before releasing it for sale. My only issues were getting the front and back matter right (copyright page, table of contents, acknowledgements, about author, etc.) Ton of info here: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

Originally Posted by Suzanna

There are a couple of guides available on Smashwords that I've heard others recommend highly.

How to Format Your Manuscript for Kindle and Nook

The eBook Formatting & Publishing Guide For The Broke and Stressed

Originally Posted by kipling

Hi everybody who as put good advice on this thread, last Sunday I was ready to call it a day. However I slept on it and have now moved forward, I had tried the way you are saying Kenny to many issues or me, I read through more posts than I care to remember and found an email address in another post on another forum. I'm a sucker or emails you can really find gems, anyway this one was a lifesaver. The email gave me directions in writing and shows how it should look each step of the way 8 steps in all

I'd heard about Sigil and Calibre two bits of FREE software, Sigil to turned my word doc into epub took me a full day because had 34 chapters to redo indents, bold, and the toc which was done in one click and placed my pictures all 23 of them looks great. I've made extra copies just in case of an accident when I take it across to Calibre tomorrow it will be then a mobi and they say it should be easy to put onto kindle.

Had a practice and it looks OK that's was before the pictures where added
hopefully they will not create a problem. Anyway hopefully will be back tomorrow to let you know how I've got on.

If anybody thinks the email address would help them let me know, send me a pm and I'll send you it and you'll be able to get them to send you the course.

Once again thanks for all your help and advice, will be back with good news with luck.

Rosalie

Originally Posted by MichaelSullivan

Rosalie - making kindle format books is REALLY easy. Here is a link that should walk you through it.

MichaelSullivan is the successful author who wrote the OP offering advice. I like the sound of his advice - "really easy" sounds encouraging - so I'd start there. His link is talking about converting to Kindle (MOBI). Don't worry it's very very easy to then convert to ePub. I don't think it really matters whether you start with ePub or MOBI, the Calibre software will convert both ways with one click.

Originally Posted by MichaelSullivan

I've never done it this way - so I don't know how well this works. But if has worked for you then that's good to know. One thing to be weary of. Amazon charges a deliver fee based on file size and I'm not sure what sized file that approach will result in. In general a word file will generate .html files with a lot of additional formatting code in them that can make them bloated.

In the most simplest terms. You need a "flat text file" with <p></p> surrounding your paragraphs and <i>,</i> surrounding your italics and <b></b> surrounding your bolded text. This is easily accomplished by doing some global search and replaces within word THEN (and this is the important part) copying that out of word an into something like notepad so the word formatting overhead is eliminated from the file.

Personally, I'd click on MichaelSullivan's link first. This one: http://www.ruzkin.com/?p=1478

All the best.

[ImogenRose]

Welcome to MR!

Imogen

[Mr Nobody]

Thanks everybody. I'm looking through all the suggestions and I really appreciate the help and information. Readers are such nice people. A friend has stepped into the breech and he's giving the formatting a go. It's nice to see there's still nice people left in the world. What with all the economic woes, it's getting sort of nasty out there. So, I can see myself spending a lot more time in here. I'm not a doom monger, but it's so nice to escape it all now and again.