After my struggle to get the book into the Kindle format, I was dreading preparing the manuscript for Smashwords. That dread was needless.
I used Mark Coker’s The Smashwords Style Guide rev 6.16.12. Because I had created my book using styles, I did not purge my manuscript of hidden Word corruption by using “the nuclear method,” which involves pasting the file into a text editor and thereby stripping away the formatting. My thinking was that if my efforts failed conversion or if I had a lot of EPUBCHECK errors, I would then resort to this drastic approach. Fortunately, everything worked well.
Based on the Smashwords style guide, I made changes to the manuscript that enhance the-book reader experience.
- I reworked all the images, resizing them for maximization. They are now centered and sized to fill the screen
- I removed the tables, allowing the information to display on any e-reader
- I linked the endnotes back to their reference in the book
- I linked the appendix links within the manuscript back to the appendix
- I made all the links to outside reference live, eliminating the reader’s having to type the URL into a browser to see the referenced page
- I added an About the Author section and linked the contact info
Once the manuscript was properly formatted and the images correctly sized and compressed, I created a linked Table of Contents and then uploaded the file into the “Meatgrinder”, Smashwords’ automated e-book formatting technology. After correcting a few errors, I had multiple e-book formats ready for publication.
The process flowed well and was relatively simple. Kindle could learn something from Mark Coker’s style guide and Meatgrinder.
My recommendation is to first publish the e-book on Smashwords, or at least prepare the manuscript using the Smashwords style guide before publishing to Kindle. You will have a better product.
