Professional eBook Formatting
Before you can sell your book as an eBook, it must first be converted to a format that can be identified by digital readers. There are currently two main formats that the industry uses: ePub, which works with almost every reading device, and .mobi, which is used by Amazon’s Kindle. Empire Publishing takes your MS Word doc and converts it to both formats.
You are going to find a wide range of pricing and services on the Internet for eBook formatting. Some publishers have automatic conversions for MS Word and PDF files. These do not work. What happens is your ebook ends up looking as if it was puked onto a reading device. Words are sized incorrectly, tabs begin halfway across the page, chapters start mid page, photo’s, text boxes and bullets are out of place, and then there are multiple blank pages. In other words, it’s a total mess.
To properly format a manuscript for eBook publishing, it takes several hands-on hours by a professional. Don’t be misled by someone offering to do the conversion for $30.00. Remember the old saying, “You get what you pay for.”
Most other companies that offer this service simply run your manuscript through an automatic conversion program. Empire Publishing scans every single sentence during the process and makes all the necessary changes. When complete, we send you a PDF proof and both file formats.
This is a manuscript formatted for print in an MS Word doc
In this photo, you can see what happens when an Automatic conversation tool is used or if you were to pay someone $30 to convert your manuscript to an ePub format. Common conversion errors are changes in paragraph alignment and loss of paragraph justification. Chapters begin mid-page, improper Heading chapter size, and shifts in first line indents. Drop caps tend to move into another position, blank pages appear, and Table of Contents does not link correctly which makes a book look like a jumbled mess. Empire Publishing corrects any issues and perfects the conversion to digital format.
It takes many hands-on hours to properly format an eBook. Above is a correctly formatted eBook conversion from an MS Word doc. Empire Publishing not only correctly formats the book, we run tests on eReaders to check for inconsistencies in formatting between devices.
Save money on this service by ordering one of Empire Publishing’s Combo-Publishing packages.