You’d be surprised how many differences there are in an eBook vs a paperback! I wanted to post this to help other indie authors who choose to format themselves. It’s doable but will certainly be a learning experience. Below I will list out the differences I encountered while formatting and why it’s important to keep yourself flexible while doing it.

1. Chapter Headings

When formatting an eBook for Kindle Direct Publishing (or KDP) the images you added for chapter headers won’t always translate the right way. It causes the images to jump around on the page like in the image below:

As you can see, using my circles over the text wasn’t working out. No matter how hard I tried, KDP just didn’t like it that way. Naturally, I panicked a little as these were the chapter headers I was set on. But this is a great example on why flexibility when formatting is important. I still wanted images for my chapters, but I had to do it a little differently for the eBook.

As shown above, I opted for a flame icon that sits on top of the text rather than over it and that seemed to work just fine! When adding images to your eBook, it’s important to keep them simple.

The same thing goes for your font!

When converting your manuscript from Word to KDP, certain fonts won’t carry over to the eBook format. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.

Because of this, the Viner Hand ITC font I used for the chapter headers in Word couldn’t be used. When I uploaded it into the previewer, it completely change the font for my chapters. Luckily, the body of the book was setup in Palatino Linotype. One of Kindle’s allowed fonts. So I also used it for the chapter headers and changed each one. To make them look different, I italicized them and turned the font color from black to grey for more of a pop. These simple changes converted just fine into KDP.

NOTE: When formatting, you should have two different versions of your manuscript. One for the paperback and one for the eBook since they may have differences. You will want to keep them as separate Word docs for easy editing.

Below are the only fonts KDP allows:

• Arial
• Baskerville
• Bookerly
• Caecilia
• Courier
• Georgia
• Helvetica
• Lucida Sans Unicode
• Palatino
• Times New Roman
• Trebuchet
• Verdana

For your eBook you will want to pick one of these to keep it easy. You will also want to use the same font throughout your eBook. Readers have the ability to change what font they read their eBooks in on their Kindle, so it will need to be the same so it can be converted easily.

2. Hyperlinks

When formatting your eBook, any websites or links you want to add should be clickable. Just as I show above, my author website has an active link in the eBook version while I didn’t even worry about it for the paperback (for obvious reasons). This is optional, but definitely recommended so your readers can click on them and go right to your website or other books you have for sale. I also add hyperlinks at the end of the book to encourage reviews an Amazon.

3. Creative Fonts

When I say “creative fonts” I mean the different fonts you use to portray other voices, text messages, etc. For example, in Dream Sequence I use a specific font to portray the demi-god’s voice that Liv hears in her head. As shown above, I again used the Viner Hand ITC for the voice in the paperback version. Like I mentioned in the first bit of this post, KDP doesn’t typically like these fonts and wants them to be the same. Again, simple is always better. So for the eBook voice, I gave it bigger spacing, increased the font size, bold and italicized it. It doesn’t quite give the creepy vibe my original text did, but it sets it apart nonetheless.

4. Page Numbers and Headers

When it comes to page numbers and headers, don’t bother with the eBook because they will be stripped regardless. KDP will add the page numbers for you. But in the paperback version, adding the page numbers is a must. For a little flair, I also added the title of the book on even pages and my name on the odd pages.

Luckily, KDP has their own document to walk you through your paperback formatting. Once you’ve finished the paperback, the eBook is pretty easy (aside from any changes you need to make based on the above). I’ll leave a download option for it below:

Kindle Formatting Instructions

Conclusion

I hope this helps if you’re in the process of publishing your own eBook/paperback! Maybe it even gives you some fun facts about Dream Sequence, or helps you decide which version you want to purchase. Either way, I figured this may be an interesting experience to share. If you’re interested I will leave the link to purchase my debut novel below:

Thanks for reading!

-Aubri <3