DIY with Kindle in 10 Steps

Amazon has a free Kindle download for anyone looking to self publish, Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform. If you’re an Amazon user, it’s easy to set up your account, complete your author information and upload your JPEG-formatted cover. Remember, you don't need a Kindle to sell your books on Kindle. Amazon has several Kindle applications for various platforms, listed here.

It took me several tries, but I also found steps to ensure a successful upload of my novel on Kindle. Here's how I did it:

1) Open up your manuscript in Word and save it preferably under another name, differentiating it from the original document.

2) Format your new document to standard one inch margins, with single spaced lines. You may have to try several times with the indents; 0.4 - 0.5 inches were best preserved.

3) Remove and/or replace any fancy symbols you’ve used in the document for section breaks. I replaced mine with a simple diamond shape from the Wingdings font.

4) Remove the page numbers, which will not be preserved on a Kindle.

5) Turn on the formatting to view your paragraph marks. It will help you find any errors in the document; weird spacing, blank pages, etc.

6) Now, save the Word document as type: Web Page, filtered (*.htm, *.html).

7) You will receive a popup, “Saving in this format will remove Office specific tags...” Click Yes to save.

8) All formatting, including page breaks, will be invisible because Word displays the new HTML document in Web layout. Go to View, and then click Print Layout to ensure the page breaks are preserved.

9) Sign into Amazon DTP. Follow the steps to enter the product details, confirm rights etc. if you haven’t already completed this process.

10) At the Upload & Preview Book webpage, upload your HTML document. Don't forget to preview online.

That's it! Good luck with your Kindle publishing.