This post covers the setup for an ebook on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform.

Theoretically, the ebook format is simpler to create and upload to Amazon. Ebooks do not have the physical limitations of the print format. You don’t have to worry about headers, page number placement, and paragraphs orphans (a single word or line). However, the ebook format does require some modification of content, especially in tables and images.

Paragraph Styles

Paragraph styles are helpful in the setup of the print format. Styles are essential for the ebook format. Below are my primary styles for the ebook version of Story Secrets from Scripture. I copied the content from the print version and pasted without formatting into a new document. For the print version I used different files for each chapter, but for the ebook I used one large file for the entire content.

Once the unformatted content was imported into the file, I applied the paragraph styles. You can compare the simplified styles of the ebook (today’s post) with the print styles (yesterday’s post). Once of the reasons that styles should be used for the ebook is that readers can customize the reading experience. Fonts, font sizes, justification, and spacing can be adjusted.

Amazon provides a handy setup guide for this process.

Kindle Create Application

When my daughter turned 18, I wrote a short ebook which I titled Adulting. I used the information in the ebook From Word to Kindle. The author, Aaron Shepard, provides up-to-date information on converting Word documents into ebooks. Part of the process I followed for Adulting was to save the Word file as an HTML file.

However, Amazon has created a variety of ebook applications that facilitate the creation of ebooks. Applications exist for comic books, children’s books, and traditional ebooks. In preparation for publishing Story Secrets from Scripture, I downloaded the Kindle Create application. Kindle Create imports a Word document and converts it to the correct file format for the Kindle platform. The current recommended process is to start in Word and finish formatting in Kindle Create.

Kindle Create also provides previews for tablet and phone, so you can see how the screen size (as well as the customization mentioned above) affects the book content.

Kindle Cover

Unlike the print format which requires design for the front cover, back cover, and spine, the ebook only needs the front cover. Since I already had a full cover for Story Secrets from Scripture, I simply duplicated the file and cropped the image to size.