Creating Ebooks for the Kindle

Course details

Need to convert an ebook into a Kindle-ready format? No matter what your file's origin—InDesign, Word, Pages, or even a plain text editor—Tony Harmer will show you how to crack it open and convert it to a Kindle-compatible format with your choice of free tools: Sigil, calibre, and KindleGen. Learn about the range of ebook formats and editing tools, get a short primer on HTML and CSS, and see how to build out ebook features like tables of contents, links, and metadata. When you're done creating your ebook, Tony will show how to upload it to Amazon's Kindle Store.

Learning objectives
Reviewing ebook formats
Converting to EPUB from Word and Pages
Converting HTML/XHTML to EPUB
Adding a cover image
Editing metadata
Building a TOC
Adding and editing links
Publishing to Amazon

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome
02 - What you should know before watching this course
03 - Using the exercise files

1. Formats and Tools

04 - IDPF, AZW, and other formats
05 - Why so many formats
06 - calibre and Sigil (where to get them and what they do)
07 - Kindle Previewer

2. InDesign Workflows

08 - InDesign CS4 to CC
09 - The Kindle Plugin for InDesign

3. Word, Text, and HTML

10 - From Word to EPUB
11 - From Pages to EPUB
12 - From plain text to EPUB
13 - Adding images to plain-text conversions
14 - From HTML or XHTML to EPUB

4. Tools of Choice

15 - What tools are out there
16 - KindleGen
17 - What can Sigil do
18 - A tour of calibre
19 - A brief XHTML primer
20 - A brief CSS primer

5. Editing Your EPUB with calibre

21 - Adding a cover
22 - Adding or editing metadata
23 - One file per chapter
24 - Renaming files
25 - Building the table of contents
26 - Adding or editing links
27 - Loading a dictionary
28 - Checking spelling
29 - Validating your EPUB

6. Editing Your EPUB with Sigil

30 - Adding a cover
31 - Adding or editing metadata
32 - One file per chapter
33 - Renaming files
34 - Building the table of contents
35 - Adding or editing links
36 - Loading a dictionary
37 - Checking spelling
38 - Validating your EPUB

7. Publishing to Amazon

39 - Converting with calibre
40 - Converting with KindleGen
41 - Kindle Previewer
42 - Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
43 - Amazon's lending options
44 - Looking inside
45 - Forums

Conclusion

46 - Where to go from here