By Dr. Andrew C S Koh
In this article, I will walk you through the process of how to format your word document into an Amazon kindle e-book that is ready to be uploaded to Amazon kindle book shelf for publication. For paperback, please go to our archive and look for the accompanying article for formatting a paperback. For this, you need to subscribe to office 365 so that you can access Microsoft Word.
Type out a clean manuscript
Use the default setting of Microsoft word to type out a clean manuscript. Highlight all the text by pressing CTRL+A. On the top horizontal menu bar of Word, click Home, click Normal and this will clean up your manuscript.
Sections
A nonfiction e-book consists of four sections, front matter, table of content, core matter, and back matter.
The front matter consists of the Title, Copyright, Foreword, Preface, Dedication, Acknowledgment, etc. The core matter consists of the book chapters. The back matter consists of the author’s biography, (about the author), and other books by the author.
Therefore, create the following sections:
Title
Copyright
Foreword: get someone who is prominent, famous, and well-known in your genre to endorse your book by writing a foreword.
Preface: explain why the reader must read your book and why you wrote this book
Table of Contents
Chapters
Biography (about the author)
Other books by the author
Format the front matter
Title Page
On the Title Page, type out your book Title, Subtitle, and author’s name on one page.
Highlight Title, select font size to 28, set alignment to centre, on the drop-down menu, select font style to bold.
Highlight the subtitle, select font size to 24, set alignment to centre, on the drop-down menu, select font style to italic.
Highlight author’s name, select font size to 20, set alignment to centre, on the drop-down menu, select font style to normal.
Setting Normal style
On the horizontal top menu bar of Word, Click Home. Right Click, Click Normal, on the drop-down menu, select modify, select font size to 12, select format, select paragraph, set alignment to justified, set indentation, left and right 0 cm. Special, select First line by 0.5 cm. Spacing before and after to 0 point, Line spacing, single. Select OK, twice.
Apply normal style to the text of copyright, foreword, preface, chapters, biography (about the author), and other books by the author. Do this by highlighting the text, click Home, and click Normal.
Copyright
Apply Copyright to normal style by highlighting the text on the Copyright page. On the top horizontal menu bar of Word, click Home, and click Normal. With the text still highlighted, set alignment to centre.
Below the last sentence in the copyright page, insert the link to your email address, website URL, Amazon author central page URL, Facebook URL, Instagram URL, Twitter URL, etc. This is your call to action. Mark sure that every word is correctly entered. Make sure your URL includes, https://www……make sure that it works by clicking on it!
On the horizontal top menu bar of Word, click Insert and click links. On the drop-down menu, select email address, type in your email address, and select ok. For the website address, select webpage, type in the URL address, and select OK.
Setting Heading 1 style
On the horizontal top menu bar of Word, click Home and right-click Heading 1. Select modify, select font size to 24, select format, on the drop-down menu, select paragraph, set alignment to centre, set indentation, left to 0 cm, right to 0 cm, special, none, spacing before, 60 points, after, 60 points, line spacing, single. Select OK twice.
Applying Heading 1 Style
Apply Heading 1 style to all the headings that you want to be included in the table of contents.
Highlight the Copyright heading. Click Home, click Heading 1. Do the same process for the headings on Foreword, Preface, Every chapter, Biography, and Bibliography.
Other books by the author
Under this, list out all the other books that you have written. As a call to action, insert the URL links to each of your books. Click insert, click links, select link, on the drop-down menu, select a web page, type in the book URL link, select OK. Repent the same process for each of your books. Mark sure that every word is correctly entered. Make sure your URL includes, https://www……make sure that it works by clicking on it!
In the last line of this section, you can also add a line to thank your readers for reading your book, remind them to leave a review, and add a reader magnet as a call to action. A reader magnet is a link where you give away a free e-book when a reader signs up for your mailing list.
Inserting a page break
Insert a page break after every section, viz. title, copyright, foreword, preface, chapter, biography (about the author), and other books by the author.
Place the cursor after the last word of the section. Click Home, click Layout, click Breaks, on the drop-down menu, select Next page.
Format a clickable Table of Content
First, create a blank page before Chapter 1. Place the cursor just before the first word of the chapter 1 heading. Click Layout, select Breaks, select the next page. This will create a blank page before chapter 1.
On the top of this blank page, type in Table of Contents. Highlight Table of Contents.
Click References, click Table of Content, select custom table of content, deselect show page number, deselect Align page numbers to the right, select use links instead of the page number. On Show levels, select 1, click OK. This will create a clickable formatted Table of Content.
Unlike a print book, an e-book format does not require page numbering, trim size, and margins.
Congratulations!
You have successfully formatted an e-book for Amazon Kindle on Word for Mac. Please note that the steps may be slightly different if you are using Word for Windows Upload this formatting e-book into your kindle bookshelf to publish your kindle e-book.
