Making a Kindle Book

I always like playing around with new technology, so when a friend bought a Kindle e-book reader recently, I investigated the process involved in making a Kindle e-book. For those not in the know a Kindle is one of the new e-book readers that are appearing on the market - this one is put out by the large online book seller Amazon.

Firstly I checked if they took any rights, and it appears that the rights are retained by the author (as it should be) - so you can publish your book on other websites and other platforms as well - according to Amazon's Terms of Service -
"you retain all ownership rights in and to the copyrights and all other rights and interest in and to your Digital Books. We retain all ownership rights in and to the copyrights and all other rights and interests in and to the Program and the Amazon Properties"

It's not actually necessary to own a Kindle to turn your book into their format, or to buy their digital books, as you can download the Kindle application for free for a variety of platforms (eg PC, Mac, Blackberry etc) from the Amazon website -
Kindle Applications

You do however have to create an account to use the Digital Text Platform which is the e-publishing interface - however if you already have an Amazon account you can use that instead of creating a new account.
Digital Text Platform

Once you have logged on you come to the "Bookshelf" page which allows you to enter the book details and upload your book.

By clicking the "Add a New Title" button (at both the top and the bottom of the screen) it allows you to enter your book details such as title, author and information about publishing rights and upload an image that will be used on the product display page (make sure it's a good image and is the correct dimensions, or it may get distorted).

To upload the book you need an HTML file or a word document - there are hints on formatting in the help section - I filled in the details and uploaded a simple word file in about five minutes. Once this is done you can preview your book - a new window appears which simulates how the text will look on a Kindle screen and you can flick through the pages.

 If changes need to be made to the formatting, you can save as a draft and when you have uploaded the tweaked version you can press "Save and Continue" and enter the "Rights and Pricing" information. They offer different options of 30% or 70% royalties based on the list price you have chosen, with different conditions on each of these options.

Once that is done you can click "Save and Publish" and the book will be sent to published status. It take approximately 48 hours after you "make it go live" to get approved, and then it's in the Kindle store. This means it has a product page and the book details are added to the search index and anyone can buy it - when i tried it out I initially made the list price $1 (the minimum) but Amazon adds $2 for a wireless delivery charge making it $3.

If you go back to your "Bookshelf" page all the titles you have uploaded will be there and you can add new books, or by using the "Actions" button you can make changes to your details or "Unpublish" a book.

So very easy to publish - unless you get a lot of buyers you aren't going to make a huge amount of money, but you aren't risking money either and it gives a book an instant worldwide availability.

Written for Book Coasters