I first published Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino on June 25th on createspace.com. It took just a few hours to prepare the book for Kindle format using the Building Your Book for Kindle guidelines. Since I wrote the book using styles, this part of the preparation was easy. I wanted a functioning Table of Contents so the reader could use the 5-way controller on the Kindle to navigate to sections within the book. I created the TOC and set the bookmarks as instructed. I converted the book to HTML, zipped the output file and images, and uploaded the book. So far, the process was easy.
I then downloaded the Kindle Previewer to view the .mobi file that Kindle Direct Publishing furnished after the conversion. The “Go To” function did not work; it could not find the TOC. I read the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines: How to make books available for the Kindle Platform version 2012.4. I followed the instructions, uploaded the files and — the book failed to have a functional “Go To.” I checked the CSS in Kompozer, a free wysiwyg HTML editor. I made changes, cleaned up the file by removing unused links that were inserted by MS Word, uploaded the file and retested, only to be disappointed once again.
Finding the KPD documentation to be not only poorly written but also not resulting in a working file, I searched the Web for help. After trying several suggestions without success, I found Helen Hansen’s post on Kindle Formatting and CJ’s Easy as Pie Kindle Tutorials to be the most helpful. Helen even sent me templates for the .ncx (navigation control file) and .opf (Open Packaging Format) files that are needed to produce a functioning Kindle book.
Now I zipped the .html files, the images, the .ncx and the .opf files and uploaded those to KDP. The resulting .mobi file was still not functioning when using the Kindle Previewer. By chance, when opening the mobi file using the Kindle Previewer, I noticed that the previewer could also open the .opf file, so I tried it — with success. At last, I loaded the file onto KDP and my e-book soon became available on Amazon.
I hope that KDP will simplify the uploading process and improve its documentation. No one should have to spend a frustrating week massaging a file for the sole purpose of getting all the Kindle functions to work.
