Kindle & eBook (ePub) Formatting Services
Recently, with the dramatic increase in the number of people using portable computers—whether they be iPhones, Blackberries, iPads, Amazon Kindles, Barnes & Noble Nooks, Sony Portable Readers, net books, "clunky" laptops, or other media which read ePub and other eBook foramts, there has been a press on publishers to produce their publications in a format that is easily readable by these varied technologies.
The most accepted method for producing consistent formatting on mobile readers is the same as the best method for producing consistent web formatting—by hand-coding the material at a text-only level, just like HTML. Automated software applications just don't provide the same level of quality as work done by a careful, meticulous human.
eBook Publication & Conversion Services
I offer eBook publication and conversion services for a wide variety of formats. I endeavor to create all publications in such a way as to be legible to the most platforms possible. Generally this involves creating the file in HTML format first, which is my specialty—I've been hand-coding HTML since 1994.
It is important to be aware that portable reader-compatible publications may not look exactly like your original book or website—especially in the case of graphic-heavy originals. The reason for this is that early generation (and we're still in the early generations!) readers have just as much trouble with graphics as the first web browsers—color support is limited to a few shades of gray, formatting is extremely limited, etc. However, as with the first web browsers, there is a difference between "thrown together" and "well done."
It is important to keep the limitations of the various readers in mind when converting a document to digital reader format. While I do not own all of the various hardware platforms, I do check them with emulators to ensure functionality. It is important for anyone doing development to do this and especially important for you, as a publisher, to check your developer's work!
These are some of the steps I take in the conversion process:
- Convert all apostrophes, single quotes, and double quotes to the appropriate HTML codes for curly quotes, taking care to convert opening apostrophes as apostrophes and not as left single quotes (e.g. 'Tis should appear as ’Tis and not as ‘Tis
- Convert all em-dashes (—) and en-dashes (–) to the correct symbol codes. Replace any double hyphens with em-dashes.
- Remove any extraneous line-breaking hyphens from the original formatting. Because a Kindle book can be viewed at several different font sizes, line-breaking hyphens often appear incorrectly (as with HTML documents) and should be eliminated.
- Convert ellipses (…) to the appropriate symbol codes.
- Remove any paragraph-starting tab characters or multiple spaces, replacing with appropriate formatting.
- Format chapter headings appropriately.
- Make new chapters start on new pages.
- Reformat images for the Kindle, including any original color for Kindle-compatible devices which use color.
- Convert any tables in the original to Kindle-friendly formats.
- Create a Table of Contents with links to the appropriate chapters, figures, etc.
- Add up-caps (drop-caps don't work on the Kindle) to the beginning of chapters (if desired by author) with either formatted text or an image.
- Add graphical flourishes between sections (if desired by author).
- Add "front matter"—separate title page, copyright page, etc.
- Add links (front of book, back of book, or both) to the author's website and to other published books in the Kindle store.
- Make any in-text references to websites actual links.
My rates for eBook conversions for single books start at a $50 minimum and generally run between $0.50 and $0.75 per page plus a surcharge for images. This is just an estimate! If you have a very simple all-text book with no very little formatting I may be able to assist you for less. On the other hand, if your book involves extensive formatting or is graphic-heavy, the rate may be higher. If you have several books which require formatting at once, I offer bulk pricing.