How to Format an eBook for KDP | Free Self-Publishing Course | Video #13

About this video

Sean shows how to format an ebook for Kindle Direct Publishing after receiving it back from a ghostwriter. He lays out the options: format it yourself in Microsoft Word, use Amazon’s own Kindle Create tool, or outsource — via 100 Covers for premium formatting, Fiverr for basic formatting, or Vellum, which he says costs around $270, noting a contact named Edward who formats with Vellum for ebook and paperback. He stresses formatting is significantly less important than the book cover: basic formatting has never earned him a bad review, while bad formatting — hyperlinks or a table of contents jumping to wrong locations — will. His Word workflow is: turn on the show-formatting marks, style the title page (he likes the Georgia font), use page breaks instead of strings of spaces so each new page starts at the top, mark every chapter title as Heading 1 (modifying the style once to Georgia 16, bold, double-spaced and centered), use Heading 2 or 3 only for sub-chapters, set body text to Normal and justified, and repeat chapter by chapter. Finally, he adds a table of contents page after the copyright page via References > Table of Contents > Custom Table of Contents, unchecking ‘show page numbers’ for a Kindle book and keeping hyperlinks instead — which works because the Heading 1 styles make the entries clickable.

Key takeaways

• Formatting options range from DIY in Microsoft Word or Kindle Create to outsourcing via Fiverr, 100 Covers, or Vellum, which Sean says costs around $270
• Formatting matters far less than the cover — basic formatting is fine, but broken hyperlinks or a table of contents jumping to wrong locations draws negative reviews
• Use page breaks, not repeated spaces, so each chapter starts at the top of a new page when previewed on Kindle
• Mark every chapter title as Heading 1 and modify that style once (Sean uses Georgia 16, bold, double-spaced, centered) so the whole book stays consistent
• Build the table of contents through Word’s References tool with page numbers off and hyperlinks on, so Heading 1 entries become clickable links

Episode details: published March 30, 2020 · 13:37 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Sean Dollwet’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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