Putting out In No Particular Order the way I did — on the cheap — has inspired me to add a new service to my Indie-Scribable menu. EZ manuscript formatting for Amazon KDP.
In my early indie experience, ebook formatting scared the crap out of me. It looked like it required some coding skills, familiarity with HTML at least. Not to tip my hand, but getting a nice clean (and simple) file onto KDP doesn’t require the services of an HTML expert. And let’s face it, most fiction manuscripts are super simple, with nothing more detailed than chapter headings and a clickable TOC.
So have a look at In No Particular Order — and/or Fascination, which I did the same way — and see if its formatting would suit your upcoming novel or story collection. I’ll bid $50 for the privilege of getting you a MOBI file for uploading to Amazon, as well as an EPUB version for use with other platforms. Most formatters out there charge $125 and up.
(One caveat: I haven’t tried this method with a Smashwords project yet, so I don’t know if it passes their stringent formatting requirements.)
Also, if you like the cover of In No Particular Order, I’d be happy to do something similar for your book. We’ll agree on a flat fee so you don’t have to worry about how much time it might take.
Let’s talk!
Good to know you’re doing this, in case I don’t want to do my own formatting for future books. I published most of my existing books on Smashwords first, so have managed to appease their “Meatgrinder” several times. Those documents were perfectly acceptable on KDP (copied and with the references to Smashwords deleted, of course). Formatting a Word doc for print publication, as in CreateSpace — now that’s a challenge. I’ve done it four times, and each one involved hair-pulling, teeth-grinding and one-syllable words. Headers, footers, page numbers and section breaks — those innocent words make me break out in a cold sweat.
I’m working on the Smashwords requirements, but that Meatgrinder is pretty sensitive! KDP is a breeze in comparison. As for CreateSpace, I wouldn’t want to tackle that on my own … at least not yet. You have true grit!
I too am glad to see you throwing this into your bag of skills.