BellaOnline Forums Computers Desktop Publishing I have just got a Kindle!!

Just received a Kindle for christmas.

It is amazing!!

Now I want to convert my Lulu published book into a Kindle edition.

Um, "for Christmas"? I'm thinking somebody unwrapped a little early this year...

You should definitely look into getting your work onto the Kindle, and maybe for the Nook, too. Be sure to check out my articles on self-publishing your ebook, but while you're at it, go find some nice free ebooks to load up on that thing, too!

Publish Your Book for Free
Sell your Book on Amazon

--Maria

The link at the foot of the Free eBooks article -

Search Free Non-Public Domain eBooks at Amazon

- doesn't find a single free book


I spent most of yesterday trying to save my book in MS-Word to HTML Filtered - without any success, Word crashed or came up with File Error....

Hmmm, it works for me...will someone else try this and let me know what they get? The link is at the bottom of this article: Find Free Books Online.

Two things:
1) Have you tried the export with a simpler document to see whether it's a software/config issue or a specific document issue?
2) You don't have to have the book in HTML format to upload to Amazon. Their system accepts all of these formats:
� Zipped HTML (.zip) (Sample)
� Word (.doc) (Sample)
� Adobe PDF (.pdf) (Sample)
� ePub (.epub)
� Plain Text (.txt)
� MobiPocket (.mobi and .prc)

You will probably have the best results with HTML, ePub, or mobi, but I initially used a Word doc, and it wasn't bad. I was able to tweak and get more of the exact look I wanted with the HTML file, however.

--Maria

The Amazon site recommends saving the Word doc as HTML then converting it with Mobipocket Creator.

Today I copied the MS-Word document to my old PC which has an older version - MS-Word 2002 - installed.

And the HTML save worked immediately on the old version.

I have now downloaded Mobipocket Creator, converted the HTML document using it and copied to my Kindle.

Now I am doing some tweaks, and I am delighted that my 230 endnotes have been converted and work, also the photo's are there.

So I am aalmost ready to upload to the Kindle site!

(I really dislike the new MS-Word)

Wow, it's a shame you had to go through all that rigamarole just to get what you should've gotten out of your first effort, but as long as you have a doc that will upload and look good on the Kindle, you're on your way!

Very cool Peter! I got a Kindle for Christmas too :::shhhhh::: I'm not supposed to know yet LOL.

I bet you two were the type to sneak into Mom & Dad's closet looking for hidden gifts, huh?

Maria

I bought myself a kindle a couple of weeks ago - I love it!

I find the public domain books on Amazon by looking for authors whom I know are likely to be public domain. There are some surprises though and you can buy collections of 50-80 Kindle books for very little if you are so minded.

Project Gutenberg's web site is useful in that line as well, as is baen books.

Yes, Gillian, you have discovered the secret! Once you fork over for that electronic reader, you could keep yourself busy reading for years, spending less than $5 or even $2 per book, or as you point out, finding plenty for FREE.

I wrote an article with some tricks on finding the freebies here:
Find Free Books Online

--Maria

My goodness you provided me with a few new resources to go and hunt over! I shall have fun with those!

Thank you for sharing them.

I confess LOL!!!!

Now my next project is to learn to import ebooks I've downloaded off the computer that simply went into my adobe program.

[quote=Dreams/Inspiration EditorNow my next project is to learn to import ebooks I've downloaded off the computer that simply went into my adobe program. [/quote]

Dead easy.

Use the Kindle's supplied USB cable to copy them from your PC to the Documents folder on the Kindle.

Kindle can read PDFs

If its difficult for you to read the print on the Kindle because the PDF shows too small, just run it thru the free Mobi programe downloadable from www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp

If they are Adobe Digital Editions books, though, it won't be so easy. In fact, you might not be able to get them converted. Amazon doesn't support that format. They only support PDF & Mobi. It also depends on whether the books are protected with DRM (digital rights management), which is like copy protection for documents.

If your books are in unprotected PDF format, however, Amazon has an easy conversion system, if you want to be able to read them in the native AZW (Amazon Kindle) format with the reflowable text.

Email the file to yourself at your Kindle email address (something like DeannasKindle_at_kindle.com). Use the single word "convert" as the subject line. You will be sent a download link to download the converted file from (it will happen almost immediately). Then just transfer the converted file to your Kindle with the USB cable. Put it in the "documents" subfolder, and you should be good to go!

--Maria

Correction needed to above.


If you use email address as shown above the converted document will be auto sent to your kinlde and if 3G is used to deliver you have to pay a delivery charge based on size of the file.

Use @free.kindle.com and you get the email with the link.

But I really think it is easier, if you intend converting more than the odd word or PDF document, to use the free Mobipocket converter, on your PC rather than emailing the doc to Amazon, then having to go there and download the conversion.

Ahhh.... okay, thanks Peter and Maria. I've downloaded three books so far from the Kindle store - it's been fun reading on it. I can say that I actually get into the reading and forget about the device.

I'm still getting used to not knowing the pages LOL. I'm so used to reading a book and knowing "okay, I'm on page 85 and there are 236 pages in the book." Kindle shows the percentage I've read, and some other numbers that I've yet to figure out. But I'm really just getting into the flow - reading an eReader is different, and that's okay LOL!

Ha—I know just what you mean. It drives me crazy! I know it has the percentage at the bottom, but it's just the visual that's missing. Maybe they will add some sort of percentage completion image that looks like a real book. Something like that would really help.

--Maria

Well, I figured it out! But it still takes getting used to. I've never read a 4,899 page book LOL! And I have to stop seeing them as pages. They're sections, darn it!

I have never checked the number of pages in a book before starting reading. I just know when the opened book is fatter on the left half than the right I am more than half way through. Its the size of the book and thickness of what I've read that indicates how much to go.

What irritates is when I am reading a book I'm enjoying and I think I've got 30 or so pages left than the book ends and the last 30 pages are an excerpt from another book.



At the bottom of the screen there is a bar that goes the width of the screen. That has a dark fill that moves across indicating what percentage of the book you have read. Plus the end of the dark fill has an arrow head above it with the actual percentage.
At the far end of the bar on the right is the �location� number of the end of the book. In the middle is the location number of where you are.
On the book I am looking at I am at locations 117-30 of a 1489 size book and I am 7% of the way through it.
That seems to me to give a good visual indication.

Also � when you are on the home page and looking at the books listed there, under the title are a row of dots which indicate where you were last in the book and thus where the book will open. Darker dots go from left to right, so if half the dots are dark, the book will open half way through, If none of the dots are dark the book hasn�t been opened, if just the left dot is dark it�s been opened and is at the start.