Digital Marketing

Professional E-Book Conversion: Do-It-Yourself Tips

Today, the world is going digital. People now trust digital technologies more than other things. And reading habits don’t go away too. Now people prefer to read novels, books, etc. on devices like Kindle, Nook, iPAD, etc. However, these devices can read a novel, book or magazine in specific formats like epub, epdf, mobi, etc. And the process of creating such a format is called professional e-book conversion.

While the process is known as professional e-book conversion, you can’t just assume that you can’t do it. If you have a good knowledge of tools like MS Word, you can do it yourself too. At least you can for aggregators like smashwords, lulu.com, KDP, etc. because these aggregators accept Word Doc files and convert it into an e-book format, which is available for purchase on their networks. They do have a set of rules though, which you need to follow when setting up your Word document to send to these aggregators, otherwise the Word document will be rejected and you will have to do the job again.

Here are some DIY tips for professional e-book conversion. These are the tips, which if applied in Word Doc will be accepted by all aggregators.

Step 1: Decide which aggregator you will send the Word document to because each aggregator may have some agreement on the duration. And, once you’ve submitted the file to an aggregator and the aggregator has converted it into an e-book, you won’t be able to put it up for sale with another aggregator for a particular period.

Step 2: Once you have selected an aggregator, check if you want it to add any particular copyright notice to the e-book. In case you don’t add that particular copyright notice, the aggregator will reject your Word document. Smashwords is an example in this case.

Step 3: Make sure the Word Doc size is 5.5×8.5 or 6×9.

Step 4: Set the top, bottom, left, and right margins to 0.5 inches.

Step 5: Don’t add a header or footer.

Step 6: Don’t use fancy fonts.

Step 7: Do not use any type of text box or table.

Step 8: Create a clickable table of contents using bookmarks than any other automated way.

Step 9: Add metadata in the document.

Step 10: Don’t use images that have a lot of text.

Step 11: If you want to use images, make sure the text is within the image. You are not allowed to place a text box on the image.

Step 12: Don’t try to use a lot of styles except heading 1, heading 2, and paragraph.

Step 13: Don’t use first line indentation, etc.

Step 14: Add a manual page break at the end of a chapter.

Step 15: The maximum font size must not exceed 16 pt and the font must be Arial, Times New Roman, or Georgia. Elegant fonts are not allowed.

Step 16: There should be no broken links.

Here are the tips for professional e-book conversion. Follow these tips and you can surely get your book published. However, in case you have complex structure in your book or you are not good at MS Word, please contact me. I provide professional e-book conversion services.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *