THE KINDLE FORMATTING
BOOK TEMPLATE (TITLE)
S UPER E ASY F ORMATTING T EMPLATE F OR K INDLE
(S UBTITLE )
T OM C ORSON -K NOWLES (A UTHOR N AME )
Copyright © 2012 by TCK Publishing
Get the free video training course on how to become a
bestselling Kindle author at:
EbookPublishingSchool.com
WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
I wrote my first book at age 19 but had no way to publish it...
until 11 months ago. That's when I published my first book
on Amazon's Kindle platform. Since then, I've self published
over 15 books and am blessed to earn a fabulous income
from my ebooks on Kindle.
I don't want any other aspiring authors to go through the
struggles I went through! I created this Kindle Formatting
Template just for authors like you who want an easy, stepby-step solution to formatting your book for Kindle.
This book itself is a template you can use to format and
publish your own books using Microsoft Word without
having to spend a dime on expensive Kindle formatting
services. You can literally just download this file and start
writing your book inside of it. As long asyou don’t change any
of the Heading or Style settings, your book will be formatted
perfectly.
Note: All the text is justified. All the text in your ebook
should be justified just like in a professionally published
paperback except the title page and any quotes you wish
to add in. However, some authors don’t like to justify
their text as a personal preference and if that’s you then
simply change it.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK
You have several options as a self published author in order
to publish your book on Kindle.
First, you can try to format it yourself. The problem? It's
going to take hundreds of hours of research and trial-anderror before you get it right. The cost? Well, it's free... except
for all the bad reviews your book will get and the lack of sales
due to the unprofessional formatting until you finally get it
right.
Second, you can hire a professional to format your book for
you. The problem? It's going to take several days for them to
format it for you. And should you ever decide to edit or
update your book, you're going to have to pay all over again
to format it. The cost? This will cost anywhere from $75 to
$200 per formatted book. For anyone who wishes to publish
multiple books, the cost will add up quickly!
Third, you can buy ebook formatting software. The problem?
None I've tried ever worked without significant formatting,
not to mention all the time wasted in researching a reliable
vendor (good luck finding one! I haven't). The cost?
Anywhere from "free" to $199.
Your fourth option is to use this template. The problem?
You're going to have to either copy and paste your book into
my template, or write your book using my template, or
simply follow the instructions and format it yourself. You will
also need a student, home, professional or business copy of
Microsoft Word on your computer (not just a free trial
edition). The cost? It's free other than the cost of this book!
And the good news is that every Kindle ebook you publish
from here on out won't cost you a dime for formatting.
It's much easier to earn a profit as an author if you can
reduce the cost of publishing your book. Ebook formatting is
one of the biggest costs you will face other than possibly
cover design (which I'll show you how to save hundreds of
dollars on) and professional editing (sorry, can't help you
there!).
This Kindle Formatting Template will save you
thousands of dollars in formatting and cover design
expenses in your ebook publishing career – I
guarantee it!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Why I Wrote This Book
Why You Should Read This Book
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Basic Formatting And Chapter Headings
Chapter 2. Inserting Images And Cool Stuff
Chapter 3. How To Create A Clickable Table of Contents
Chapter 4. Insert Chapter 4 Here, etc.
Kindle Publishing Bible Excerpt: How To Choose Your Book
Categories
About The Author
Other Books By Tom Corson-Knowles
CHAPTER 1. BASIC FORMATTING AND
CHAPTER HEADINGS
EVERY Chapter in your book should be using "Heading 1"
font. To change your Chapters to Heading 1, simply select
your chapter title and click "Heading One" at the top right of
the Word Quick Access Toolbar.
It's important you use Heading 1 for your Chapter titles
because that will make it a) look good and b) format
correctly with your Table of Contents so that readers can
easily click to your chapters using the Kindle reader TOC
navigation. I also recommend using Heading 1 for your "Why
I Wrote This Book," "Why You Should Read This Book,"
"Other Books By The Author" and any other Bonus Sections,
Appendices, Introductions, Preface, or other sections you
choose to add to your book.
BASIC NORMAL WRITING FONTS
Any regular reading text in your book (like these words
you're reading right now) should be written with the
"Normal" formatting option selected. Just highlight your text
and select "Normal" at the top to the left of "Heading 1."
Make sure all your regular text uses this normal format. But
even if you do make a mistake here, most of the time it will
be corrected by Amazon when your doc file is converted to a
Kindle book (as long as you don't use a Heading).
HEADINGS INSIDE YOUR CHAPTERS
You'll probably want to insert headings inside your chapters
to discuss various aspects and break each chapter into
separate sections. Use Heading 2 (It's right next to Heading
1) in your Word Quick Access Toolbar. Again, it both looks
good and helps readers navigate using your TOC.
WHAT ABOUT SUBHEADINGS?
To get a subheading under a Chapter heading, use "Heading
3." You guessed it – right next to Heading 2!
Note: You can use up to 3 "layers" in your TOC. Meaning you
can have your chapter (1 layer), then your chapter headings
(layer 2), then subheadings under your chapter headings
(layer 3) in your Table of Contents. You can choose 1, 2 or 3
layers when you insert your Table of Contents. Regardless of
how many layers you choose for your TOC, I recommend
using Heading 1, 2 and 3 throughout your book anyway.
“This is a quote.”
Want quotes to stand out in your book? Then put them in
italics and center them just like that.
"Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will
be times in this business when you will be the only one who
does. Take heart from the knowledge that an author with a
strong voice will often have trouble at the start of his or her
career because strong, distinctive voices sometimes make
editors nervous. But in the end, only the strong survive." - Jayne
Ann Krentz
PAGE BREAKS
Page Breaks should be used at the end of every chapter and
every major section of your book. You must NEVER add in
extra spaces or hit the enter key at the end of a chapter.
Why? Because when your word doc is translated into a
Kindle book, it will then have extra spaces where there
shouldn't be, leading your reader with a horrible reading
experience.
EDITING WITH SHOW / HIDE PARAGRAPHS
You should always edit and format your book using the
"Show/Hide" option on your quick access toolbar. It's just to
the left of the Headings and looks like a backwards P
paragraph symbol (called a pilcrow).
When you hit the Show/Hide button, you will see the large
paragraph symbols at the end of every paragraph and
heading. You should ONLY see this symbol at the end of a
paragraph or heading, never at the beginning of an empty
line! If you see it at the beginning of an empty line, there will
be a blank space in the Kindle book version. You don't want
big blank spaces!
This is the end of this chapter so I'm going to insert a page
break...right here after this period (and make sure to delete
any extra pilcrows to avoid big blank spaces!).
CHAPTER 2. INSERTING IMAGES AND
COOL STUFF
You've probably heard that inserting images in your ebook is
very challenging, difficult, awful and expensive. "Oh no! You
have 7 pictures in your ebook? That's going to triple the cost
of formatting!"
That's bogus! Bologna! Lies, all lies!
It's very, very, very easy to insert images.
STEP 1. CLICK "INSERT"
The insert button is at the top of the Toolbar just right of
Home.
STEP 2. CLICK"PICTURE"
The Picture button is between Table and Clip Art.
Then just select your picture file on your computer and voila!
You're all done! Guess how much it just cost to insert
pictures into your ebooks? NOTHING! IT'S FREE NOW!
You're welcome (I'd insert a smiley face emoticon here but
Amazon doesn't have any yet (sad face)).
Note: Although you can copy and paste an image into your
Word Document, don't do it! It can cause problems with
Kindle formatting and your pictures disappearing altogether
when the file is converted. Always use the insert image
button instead.
If your picture is too wide or tall, Amazon will resize it for
you automatically. The only thing you have to worry about is
having a picture that is too small, has a very low DPI (poor
definition, creating a fuzzy picture) or a color picture that
renders poorly on a black and white Kindle.
Note: Amazon charges a "delivery fee" for every ebook and
it's based on the size of your book file. The cost is about 15
cents per Megabyte right now. Therefore, inserting hundreds
of large images could increase the cost of these delivery fees
and reduce your profit per book. If you have a lot of images, I
recommend you compress your files. Supposedly, you can do
it in Microsoft Word but it doesn't work well in my
experience.
I recommend using IrfanView software, it's free at
www.Irfanview.com. Just open your picture with IrfanView
and then save it. When you choose to save as a JPEG, it will
give you a range of quality options from 0 to 100. I suggest
selecting 50 here, which is in line with KDP file size control
guidelines. If you choose a smaller amount, the colors of the
image will start to bleed into one another. Anything more
hardly changes the observable quality of the image in the
Kindle but increases the file size.
CHAPTER 3. HOW TO CREATE A
CLICKABLE TABLE OF CONTENTS
This is where your Table of Contents (TOC) goes. Some
authors prefer to put it at the back of the book but all
Nonfiction authors should always put it in the front as many
readers will look at your TOC before buying.
When your book is converted into an ebook, it actually uses
HTML similar to a web page. Luckily, Microsoft Word allows
you to quickly and easily insert a Table of Contents.
First of all, you have to use Heading 1 for chapter titles or
else create bookmarks for your Chapter Titles instead. It's
much easier to simply use Heading 1.
Step 1. Click "References"
Step 2. Click "Table of Contents"
Step 3. Click "Insert Table of Contents"
STEP 4. UNCLICK "SHOW PAGE NUMBERS," AND CLICK
"USE HYPERLINKS INSTEAD OF PAGE NUMBERS"
STEP 5. CHOOSE YOUR LEVELS
You can choose 3, 2 or 1 levels. 1 level will only show
Heading 1 lines in your TOC (Just Chapters and Important
Book Sections). Level 2 will show Heading 1 and Heading 2
(Chapters and Chapter headings). Level 3 will show Heading
1, 2 and 3 (Chapters, headings and subheadings).
STEP 6. CLICK OK
And you're done! Your clickable Table of Contents will now
work in your word document as well as when the file is
converted to a Kindle book.
CHAPTER 4. INSERT CHAPTER 4 HERE,
ETC.
Kindle Publishing Bible Excerpt:
How To Choose Your Book
Categories
This is an excerpt from my book The Kindle Publishing Bible
which covers all the free marketing strategies you will need
to succeed as a Kindle ebook author.
Very few authors ever really think about the categories in
which they place their Kindle books. Amazon only allows you
to choose two categories for your book so you ought to
choose wisely. The good thing is that you can change your
category choices any time you want (hint: if you want to sell
more books, try changing your categories!). Your category
choice will have a HUGE impact on your sales!
In fact, choosing the right categories has helped me take
books that were only selling 10 or 20 copies a month to over
100-200 copies a month! That’s a 10x increase in sales, just
by choosing different categories.
Is category selection the magic element to success in Kindle
publishing? No – there is no silver bullet or “one magic
secret” that will make you successful. It’s a combination of
several factors – most importantly, the quality of your book
and book title! No matter how good your marketing, if your
book sucks I doubt you’re going to achieve much success
with it (although I’m sure we could all find exceptions to this
rule).
But all else being equal, choosing your categories correctly
can dramatically increase your sales.
How is it possible that such a small thing like changing a
category can have such a huge impact on book sales?
First of all, you have to realize how most Kindle readers find
books in the first place. They generally browse and skim –
and categories are the most common way readers browse for
new books after using search. The problem, though, for new
authors and new books especially is that readers generally
only browse the top 10 or 20 books in a category. This means
that if you’re #87 in your category, you’re very unlikely to get
any sales because of your category listing. On the other hand,
if you choose a category that you don’t even rank in, you
won’t get any sales from your category!
Okay so think of it this way. Let’s say your book now sells 30
copies a month. Your book is about investing in stocks and
it’s listed in the Business & Investing category. The problem
is that book #100 in that category is ranked #5,027 in the
paid Kindle store books, meaning it sells about 30 copies a
day! Therefore, your listing in that category is completely
worthless because Amazon will not show your book in that
category listing, meaning you won’t get any sales from it (If
you’re not in the top #100 in your category, Amazon won’t
even list you in that category).
Therefore, for a book selling less than 30 copies a day,
choosing the Business & Investing for one of your two
categories will add a grand total of 0 sales a month. This
means one of your most effective marketing strategies (your
book’s category) isn’t doing ANY marketing for you at all!
That’s when you know it’s time to do a category change
(assuming you already sell at least 1 or 2 books a month).
You won’t be selling any additional books in a category if
you’re not in the top 100. So what can you do instead of
leaving it in a category where you can’t yet rank in the top
100?
The answer is simple: Choose a category in which you CAN
rank in the top 100 (or preferably top 10!) so that you can
attract more browsers and buyers for your book in that
category.
AN EXAMPLE
As an example, my book The Blog Business Book wasn’t
selling nearly enough copies to reach the top 100 in either of
my preferred categories: Web Marketing and Blogging. So
what to do?
I chose a related category instead which was much easier to
rank for:
Kindle Store > Kindle books > Nonfiction > Business &
Investing > Marketing & Sales > Marketing > Direct
Like I said earlier, I’d rather be #60 in Direct than not have
any ranking at all in Blogging. When sales increase and the
book joins the top 10 in the Direct Category, I’ll switch it over
to Blogging where it will then rank well in that category. This
is how you can “jump” from a smaller category to a larger
category to sell more books – but don’t even try it until you
get into the top 20 in the smaller category!
THE AMAZON CATEGORY NIGHTMARE!
For any of you who’ve already gone through the process of
picking categories for your book, you know how incredibly
confusing it can be. First of all, Amazon organizes their
categories with little if any logic. To make matters even more
complicated, the categories you choose when you’re
uploading your book to Amazon don’t even match the
categories Amazon shows on your book page!
Furthermore, Amazon changes their categories and listings
very often. Because of this, I’m not able to tell you the best
category for your specific book even though I would love to
be that helfpul. Unfortunately, if I compiled such a list, it
would be out of date by the time it was uploaded to Kindle!
Categories change frequently over time and you need to be
able to figure it out on your own. Just use the guidelines in
this chapter and you’ll do fine.
To make things even more complicated, Amazon will change
your book category in an instant if it thinks it has a better
match for you. Like it did with this book! For some reason,
Amazon thought my book on Kindle marketing should be
placed in the Accounting category:
Also notice how my book is now in two different
“Advertising” categories. How does that even work?
Amazon can and will change your categories at any given
time. I had original chosen different categories for my book
but, Amazon, in its infinite wisdom has changed them. So
what can you do about it?
Just login to Amazon KDP at kdp.amazon.com, scroll down to
the very bottom of the page and hit the Contact Us link at the
bottom right of the page next to Conditions & Use. Then, click
“Product Page” and type your email in the box. They’ll get
back to you within 24 hours and are always very helpful in
my experience.
Here’s a sample email to write asking Amazon to change a
category to a more appropriate one:
“Hello,
My book [insert name of your book] is now listed in [insert
category name you’d like to change] and I feel it would more
appropriately fit in [pick your ideal category] – can you
please tell me why this change was made and help me fix it?
Thanks!
[Your Name]”
The KDP Help box above is how you will contact Amazon
support for any technical issues with your Kindle books.
Also notice that my book appears in three categories even
though Amazon only allows you to choose two categories
when you upload it. Well, Amazon has larger, more
competitive general categories and it will lump your book
into those if it is selling well. It auto-assigns them based on
unknown factors. So, if your book is selling well, you might
get three category rankings instead of two.
This is actually the reason I contacted Amazon, because if I go
back and manually change my categories again, Amazon will
remove the third listing sometimes and I want my book to
stay in three categories to improve sales.
FREE PROMO CATEGORIES
During a KDP free promo, it’s best to choose your IDEAL
category first and foremost, regardless of the competition.
There are separate category rankings for paid and free
Kindle books and even the most competitive paid Kindle
book category has a corresponding free Kindle book category
that is much, much easier to rank for.
So when you’re doing your KDP free promotion, choose your
ideal categories and see how your free downloads do. If
you’re not getting enough downloads to rank in the top 10 in
any category, change your categories so that you can rank in
the top 10 during your free promotion.
If you go through your entire free promotion without making
a top 10 in any category, you’ve missed out on a HUGE
opportunity to get thousands of downloads very quickly.
You’ll learn a lot more about how to launch a successful KDP
free promotion in Chapter 10.
HOT NEW RELEASES AND TOP RATED BOOKS
There are two special category sections on the top right side
of each category page that will get your book an extra listing
on your category page. They're called the Hot New Releases
and Top Rated section of each category and three books will
be featured in each.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this very book reach the Hot
New Releases section in the Advertising category.
Notice that this book appears in two spots above the fold in
the advertising category – it's #3 in the paid category overall
and it's in the Hot New Releases section. You want to aim for
a category that you can get in the top 10 like this and do it as
fast as possible so that your book also reaches the Hot New
Releases section. This will help you get more sales early on.
This particular book started selling about 10 copies a day on
average for a week before it made the Hot New Releases
section. That's only 70 books in the first week! Although it
may sound like a lot for new self-published authors, when
you follow the systems and strategies in this book, I think
you'll find it much more doable. If you're struggling to sell
copies in the first week of your release, try lowering the price
to 99 cents to make it more appealing to readers and aim for
that Hot New Releases category – you can then raise your
price and often maintain the sales ranking.
As for the Top Rated section, you pretty much have to have a
perfect 5-star rating to make it there. Most books in this
section in major categories have 30-100 ratings with 90% or
more of them being 5-stars. So it's not easy to do! You have to
have an incredibly well-written book and solicit honest
reviews from customers and/or professional reviewers.
We'll talk more about how to do that ethically in Chapter 6.
ACTION STEPS
If you’ve learned anything from this chapter on categories I
hope it’s this:
You can change your category anytime you want.
If you’re not in the top 100 in a category, change your
category to a less competitive one.
So go check your books right now on Amazon Kindle and see
where they rank. If they’re not in the top 100 in both of your
chosen categories, research a less competitive category and
change it!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOM CORSON-KNOWLES is the #1 Amazon best-selling
author of The Kindle Publishing Bible and How To Make
Money With Twitter, among others. He lives in Kapaa,
Hawaii with his fiancé. Tom loves educating and inspiring
other authors and entrepreneurs to succeed and live the
life of their dreams.
Learn more about Tom at amazon.com/author/business
Learn more about Tom’s
www.TCKPublishing.com
Publishing
Company
at
OTHER BOOKS BY TOM CORSONKNOWLES
How To Reduce Your Debt Overnight: A Simple System To
Eliminate Credit Card And Consumer Debt
Rich by 22: How To Achieve Business Success at an Early Age
The Network Marketing Manual: Work From Home And Get
Rich In Direct Sales
How To Make Money With Twitter
Ninja Book Marketing Strategies
The Kindle Writing Bible: How To Write A Bestselling
Nonfiction Book From Start To Finish
The Kindle Publishing Bible: How To Sell More Kindle ebooks
On Amazon
The Blog Business Book: How To Start A Blog And Turn It
Into A Six Figure Online Business
The Kindle Formatting Bible: How To Format Your Ebook For
Kindle Using Microsoft Word
101 Ways To Start A Business For Less Than $1,000
Facebook For Business Owners: Facebook Marketing For Fan
Page Owners and Small Businesses
Dr. Corson's Top 5 Nutrition Tips
The Vertical Gardening Guidebook: How To Create Beautiful
Vertical Gardens, Container Gardens and Aeroponic Vertical
Tower Gardens at Home
ONE LAST THING... (HEADING 2 TO AVOID BEING
INDEXED IN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS)
If you enjoyed this book or found it useful I’d be very grateful
if you’d post a short review on Amazon. Your support really
does make a difference and I read all the reviews personally
so I can get your feedback and make this book even better.
If you’d like to leave a review then all you need to do is click
the review link on this book’s page on Amazon here:
http://amzn.to/WL8VA4 (direct link to the “Create a review”
page on Amazon for your book – you can’t get the link until
you upload your book first. Then, when your book is live, go
get the link, insert it, and re-upload your book.)
Thanks again for your support!