Hi there, Everything ready to go, all i need is a template for my ebook but couldn't find something yet not even for testing. I have tried canva there wasn't what i need. Downloaded few pdf template but didn't work. On Google all i find is blog articles with bad redirect links. I need a nice template allowing me to just copy paste the content... Can you please recommend me something?
Amazon Kindle Create. https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Create/b?node=18292298011 Also Reedsy: https://blog.reedsy.com/romance-book-template/ https://reedsy.com/write-a-book
If you use Reedsy or Kindle, is the format or file-type they create, is it transferable to other e-book formats? What's the advantage of having a "template"? Can one simply submit their work as a PDF or Libre Office ODT file to IngramSpark, Amazon or BN? Is a template necessary for books like novels?
Strictly speaking, there are aspects of e-books that argue against using a lot of formatting. Most e-books are "reflowable," meaning the text adjusts the lines when the reader zooms in or out. Also, most e-book reader devices allow the reader to select the typeface. There are no "pages" to a reflowable e-book, so page numbers are out, and there are no headers or footers. For e-books, Amazon KDP accepts uploads in Word .DOCX format, .EPUB format, and their own .KPF format (which is what Kindle Create creates). Basically, IMHO about the only formatting you would want is hard breaks for chapters. The table of contents (which you don't need for a novel, but it can help readers to navigate the book) should be hyperlinks, not text. A template can't create that, but many .EPUB export tools can automatically create a table of contents from the chapter breaks and headings. I prefer to format the hyperlinked table of contents myself in Word, but that's mostly because I know how to do it and I know that it works. Barnes & Noble Press can accept uploads in .DOC and .DOCX, .EPUB (although you are asking about creating an e-book, so that's no help), .TXT, and .HTML. I do a separate copy of my manuscript for print (fully formatted for conversion to print-ready .PDF) and for e-book (basically unformatted, using Times New Roman 11-point type, ragged right justification, single spaced. I may not be fully up to speed on the file types but, as I understand it, Amazon has their format for Kindle (which used to be .MOBI and has now changed), and everyone else uses .EPUB. There are lots pf programs and apps that export to .EPUB or convert various formats to .EPUB. There are far fewer that convert to Kindle. Fortunately, Amazon's built in converter does a decent job if you just upload a .DOCX file.
I thought it was a hard-n-fast publishing rule that text had to be justified on both sides, not ragged. I would love to use ragged justification on the right. How, in general, would one insert illustrations, pictures, or photos (if you use them). They would require some formatting, seems to me. They don't "free-flow" as easily as text. And then you have to add captions to them, that's more formatting...
I thought the reader devices automatically corrected for justification, but looking at a couple of books in my Kindle library I see that's not correct, so I suppose your e-book manuscript should be fully justified. Sorry I got that one wrong. I just insert them in the manuscript before converting. But a Kindle reader won't wrap text around images, so make all images separate "paragraphs," and just add the caption below. Or, edit the images to include the caption if it's important for the caption to remain with the image. You should resize images anyway. For print, images should be 300 pixels per inch. That means, if your book is 6" x 9"and your inner and outer margins add up to 1-1/2", your usable page width is 4-1/2". 4.5 x 300 tells us that your images (if you want to extend from margin to margin) should be 1,350 pixels in width. For Kindle e-books, you have to balance resolution against file size. The Kindle Basic display screen is 600 x 800. The Paperwhite is 1072 x 1448. So there's never a need to make images wider than 1072 pixels, and many "authorities" suggest that a width of 600 pixels is an optimum setting. Remember that the Kindle reader screen has margins, so a full-width image doesn't actually cover the full 600 or 1072 pixels.
I was writing foreign language learning software on the Amiga computer long time ago, and it was easy solution. The first line of code would be a query to find out if the user had an NTSC or PAL setup (different size screens). Then if it was PAL, my program would proceed with one size graphics, or NTSC, the other size, so there would be no big blank space on the user's screen. With the Microsoft PC, you couoldn't do such a query and I suppose the Kindles and e-books also make it difficult. How much easier it would be for writers if we could query information about the device display metrics and adjust the display/fonts/pics, the contents of our ebook accordingly.
We don't have to query the device. eReaders (unless you have chosen to format an EPUB file as "fixed layout") automatically "reflow" the text to fit the width of the screen and the size of the font selected. For example, I believe Kindle readers offer the user a choice of five fonts, and the size on screen can be dynamically zoomed from too small for mortals to read up to gargantuan. Don't fight the technology. Understand what it is, and learn to work with it rather than fighting it. I don't know what's inside the Amazon Kindle file format. The .EPUB file format is (from what I've read) basically just a zipped .HTML5 file, which can be edited using programs such as Calibre -- if you know how to code HTML. I don't.
