Save Yourself the Formatting Time!

I love looking at EBooks with cool fonts online, don't you?  The problem is, I can spend ALL THAT TIME setting up fonts to look beautiful, then go to upload the books on Createspace and KDP, and its all just straight text.  It looks nothing like I want it to look.

That problem is solved on Createspace by saving your Word file as a PDF and then uploading it.  You will get an error message, but usually when you look at your text in the Proofer, it looks alright for the most part.  This lets me put out an EBook that has an opening page that looks like this one to the right.  I like using different fonts for my Chapter headings.


I used a font I downloaded for free online, I usually go to https://www.dafont.com/ but there are also a lot of online fonts available.  Just download the font, unzip it, open your font book, then import the font.  Some fonts are only available in uppercase, without any symbols, so plan accordingly.  This lets you change your title page, Chapter Headings, etc., so that they stand out to readers.

But, as I said, you do all that work, and then upload it, and it's all basic type, single-spaced, and a hot mess!  I want my EBooks to look the same as my print books, so I began fishing around for a solution.  There are several listed on KDP, but the best, easiest and quickest solution I found just this morning, was Kindle Textbook Creator.  I just scratched the surface of it I'm sure, I plan to go back into it to see how it handles pictures inside of text so I will post that later.

Back to Kindle Textbook Creator.  Download the program, then install it.  Then open your file by clicking 'Create New Textbook From File', then find your file and click open.  Your file should
already be saved as a PDF, you can do that in MS Word.  This way, you don't have to go through that 'Embed your fonts' thing, that NEVER works unless you're some amazing programmer.  I'm not a programmer, I'm an author.

When your book opens, if you have any links it will ask if you want those links converted, then preserved and embedded in your book.  If this is an EBook, YES

you want this done.  It won't take but a second.

Then you go over to the right-hand corner and click the on the little icon that says 'Package'.  That will publish your file as a .kpf file, and you will be able to upload it, keeping your files attributes just as you wanted them to look.  You can go to Amazon and get this Application, do yourself a favor, get it and save yourself some time, energy and frustration.  I want my books to look like what I envision them in my head, and sometimes even when you try to convert a PDF on KDP, it just does not translate.

Many times I open a book and just ooh and aah over the pictures and fonts that are used with Chapter headings, then I try to do something like it, and its 'Blah, Blah, Blah.'

Now, you can make your readers go ooh and aah, without going through a lot of trouble.

Merry Christmas, and I hope this has helped someone who is self-publishing their books and settling for the formatting that KDP shows you when you upload your book.  No more settling, make it look as happy or as scary as you wish!

Just search for 'Kindle Textbook Creator (Beta) on Amazon.com

Be encouraged!