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New to Kindle: DTP or HTML?

5K views 26 replies 11 participants last post by  Edward C. Patterson 
#1 ·
Lasses/Laddies,

I'm new to Kindle, and I have read the Publishing on Kindle: Guidelines for Publishers, v1.1, 72pp. guide, and I must admit I'm confused. If a lad has a breathless manuscript on interstellar travel, 100,000 words, and figures to publish on Kindle, why would the lad not use Digital Text Platform with a Word document instead of thrashing his way through an HTML realization through Mobigen or similar? I am sure I'm missing something, because it looks like anyone would simply use the DTP and not bother with HTML. So there must be a reason that 60 pages of the Guideline are dedicated to HTML. Though I'm sure this has been covered before, I'd appreciate some links.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-Captain Rob
 
#2 ·
Welcome to KindleBoards Rob, I'm not an author, and have no idea what you're talking about... however I bet the other authors on the board do. You should post again over in the Book Bazaar. I believe there is an Author Support Thread over there.

Good luck! =)
 
#3 ·
Like Jason, I'm not an author and have no answer for you. 
But I would like to welcome you to KindleBoards. 
I'm sure someone will pop in later today and steer you in the right direction.
Looking forward to more of your posts.
deb
 
#4 ·
Captain Rob,

Having just gone through the somewhat confusing and arduous process myself, I can tell you that HTML is worth it. If you have any background with HTML, and can manipulate your manuscript's formatting using tags, it makes for a far more controllable and cleaner outcome...

Secondly, whether you upload an HTML doc, WORD doc, PRC file (Mobipocket) - the DTP has a mind of its own. It is not a fool-proof simulator, unfortunately, though it does serve its purpose well!!! It seems that the DTP ultimately takes whatever you give it and turns it into a PRC file, so using Mobipocket Creator is a good second step.

Most importantly, I cannot recommend Joshua Tallent's book _http://www.kindleformatting.com/book/ _ highly enough. He has some tips and tricks in there that first-time Kindle authors may never know, regardless of which format you choose. It's well worth the $10.00 d/load.

HTH.

Wishing you success!

NIS
 
#5 ·
Personally, I use word .doc when I upload my stories to DTP, but it does have its drawbacks.  The biggest I have found is that you cannot have a proper, linked Table of Contents with a word document but you can with HTML.  For my short stories and novellas, that is not a big issue but for a full size book, it could be. 
One of the benefits I have noticed with using word .doc is the formatting when it gets to the kindle page is fairly consistent albeit basic.  Good luck.
 
#8 ·
You should start with a MS Word format.  Upload it to the DTP, and then take a look at it with the preview screen.  Don't bother tying to step through their viewer.  Instead, download the HTML to your computer.  Then use MobiPocket Creator to convert the HTML into a book, so you can view it with MobiPocket Reader (they can both be found online and are free).  You will probably see quite a lot of format errors.  That's because MS Word likes to do things for you, like paragraph indents.  Unfortunately, it doesn't pass the paragraph indents on to the DTP converter every time.  So some of your paragraphs will be indented, and some won't be. 

You don't have to be a programmer to straighten the HTML out, but it does help.  If you do have formatting issues with the DTP conversion, you will need to fix those issues with Word Pad.  All you have to do is open the HTML file with Word Pad, and take a look at it.  You can find your text quite easily, and then see what the HTML looks like.  You will notice that each paragraph is separated in the HTML with format instructions.  It's those instructions that get confused.  All you have to do is find the instructions that work, and copy them over the instructions that don't work.  I can give you some examples, if you need some more help.  It's really not that hard; it's just very time consuming.

But maybe you will get lucky, and not have any formatting issues.  But if you do, and you need help, just let me know.  I jut went through all that, and will be glad to help you.

Chris J

 
#9 ·
Hi and welcome! 

Your question has a few answers--the main answer is that it depends on whether or not you used a lot of formatting.  Replace all smart quotes and em-dashes with regular quotes and two dashes.  Replace smart apostrophes with regular ones.  Then, I'd advise going to HTML rather than uploading as a doc.  For one, it will be closer to the end result.  For two, it will expose irregularities with formatting such as double spacing going to single--or single to double.  Do not spend a lot of time getting your headings into "just so" because the formatter is going to to take the "Great American Manuscript" and turn it into "We pick one header and that is what you get." 

Your word processor should convert to HTML for you.  Yes, it is a pain to look at.  But then upload it and see what it looks like.  You care allowed to upload, study the result and reupload many times before hitting publish.  Basically--play in the sandbox.  If you want to upload the .doc to see what it looks like--do so.  If it isn't so great, go the HTML route and try again.  Just don't hit publish until you've scanned through your end result. 

Good luck and welcome to the mysterious world of conversions to Kindle format!

Maria
 
#11 ·
Lads & Lassies--

Thanks one and all for the rousing welcome and the good comments. My take from this is do HTML if you can, and I can, plus I have a few charts to put in, plus some jpegs of radio transmissions and such, so that HTML would be good for specialized formatting. And thanks to NS333 for the steer to Joshua Tallent's book. No reason to reinvent the wheel, and it sounds like he, as well as others on the board including Maria and Chris, have been through the Valley of Formatting and they do indeed fear evil.

So, I'm off to format in HTML. <sigh>Don't you just love HTML?</sigh>

Rob
 
#12 ·
For pictures (JPG)...you have to do something special...I *think* that you have to have them in the same folder and then zipped up when you load. Let me see if I can find the instructions. I had them bookmarked...hmm. Not finding it. Hopefully someone else can tell you about that or you can ask on the forums. I included one very small picture and I had to put the .jpg in the same folder and zip the whole thing up (there's an HTML tag that ends up including the picture in the right spot.)

Here's a link to some HTML tags that amazon supposedly supports:

http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry!default.jspa?categoryID=11&externalID=30&printable=true

It takes some time, but just keep at it.

Maria
 
#13 ·
CaptainRob said:
Lads & Lassies--

Thanks one and all for the rousing welcome and the good comments. My take from this is do HTML if you can, and I can, plus I have a few charts to put in, plus some jpegs of radio transmissions and such, so that HTML would be good for specialized formatting. And thanks to NS333 for the steer to Joshua Tallent's book. No reason to reinvent the wheel, and it sounds like he, as well as others on the board including Maria and Chris, have been through the Valley of Formatting and they do indeed fear evil.

So, I'm off to format in HTML. <sigh>Don't you just love HTML?</sigh>

Rob
That's the spirit Rob, Good Luck!!!



By the way, is that "Captain Rob" kinda like "Captain Jack" in Pirates of the Carribean? I've been looking for an excuse to use that smiley... ;D
 
#15 ·
Well in that case, are you on Facebook? I just found out a (stupid) little trick on Facebook, if you go down to the bottom left corner of your page, you'll see the language listed as English (US), if you click on that you can change your language to Pirate! It's stupid, but pretty funny! ;D
 
#16 ·
Having done HTML programming before it was popular to do so, yes, you have to place all images into a an image file and then point to that image file and image within the HTML code.  It is not that hard.

Try HTML for Dummies.  Microsoft use to have a web designer embedded within it.  I will have to check it out again.  Sorry, tossed all my HTML books when I retired from web publishing.
 
#19 ·
I have used for my 13 published Kindle books a word doc file converted using mobipocket to produce a .prc. Essential for any Kindle author is to OWN a Kindle so you can review the book real-time on the device. Once satisifed, publish it via .prc (non-DRM) as the converter file. I have a free book available on set-up if you're interested. It's on one of the threads or just email me edwpat at att.net, and I'll send you a copy in the format of your choice.

Ed Patterson
 
#23 ·
Edward C. Patterson said:
I have used for my 13 published Kindle books a word doc file converted using mobipocket to produce a .prc. Essential for any Kindle author is to OWN a Kindle so you can review the book real-time on the device. Once satisifed, publish it via .prc (non-DRM) as the converter file. I have a free book available on set-up if you're interested. It's on one of the threads or just email me edwpat at att.net, and I'll send you a copy in the format of your choice.

Ed Patterson
 
#26 ·
Ed,

Thanks for the book.  A lot of hard-learned lessons there, plus some very insightful wisdom in general on writing and publishing.  Congrats on your extensive resume of publishing. One can only hope that your reward is all you need it to be for all those long days and nights over a hot keyboard. 

As for me, this will help as I now wind my way toward a .prc file.  And doing what all writers do, as one famous writer once said, 'KBO'  That would be Winston Churchill, Keep Buggering On.

Thanks again for the book--with the advice.

Rob
 
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