Three Unfortunate Misconceptions About Kindle Ebook Publishing

Take a look around you the next time you visit a quiet beach, and I'm sure you'll see that besides the men and women who have plopped themselves down with a paperback novel under the shade of an umbrella, numerous others are reading material on their Kindle. Amazon has sold millions of these devices in the last few years, to the point that mainstream consumers who aren't particularly gadget lovers are using them.

In many cases, those Kindle users are reading books that also are on sale in bookstores and available for borrowing in libraries. But did you know that thousands of authors and entrepreneurs are now earning extra money and in a few cases a very good living writing content specifically to be sold for Kindle?

I've identified three misconceptions that keep some writers and experts from pursuing this exciting new entrepreneurial opportunity.

Misconception #1: You need a Kindle ereader to get involved in publishing for Kindle.

In fact, you don't need a Kindle device either to read works published for Kindle or to publish them. Amazon provides free tools for reading Kindle ebooks on your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or other smartphone. Amazon also provides everything you need for publishing your works for Kindle without owning a Kindle yourself.

I don't own a Kindle. I much prefer reading traditional books. However, I have painlessly published 19 ebooks for Kindle. You can, too.

Misconception #2: You need to write a full-length book to get involved in Kindle publishing.

This is also not true. Although six of my Kindle ebooks are digital versions of previously published paperback books, the other 13 are Kindle originals and only a fraction of their length. The shortest is just a little over 5,000 words. It prints out off my computer at 17 pages.

As long as you alert potential buyers to the shorter length of your compact eBook and price it accordingly, you can earn money from selling short reports on Kindle.

Misconception #3: You need to be a technical whiz to format a manuscript for publication on Kindle.

This used to be difficult. Amazon has now simplified the process by allowing properly formatted "doc" files to be uploaded for conversion to Kindle format. Amazon performs the conversion, and you can check in their online previewer to see if the Kindle version looks the way you intended it.

Now, if you can manage formatting a Word file according to easy-to-follow instructions, you can upload your work to the Kindle store without struggling with software or paying for technical help. Smashwords offers an excellent free style guide to preparing your manuscript for uploading to Amazon. Look for it in the left column of their home page.

If you enjoy writing, if you have files and files of useful content, if you have reports that are no longer selling from your website but could be easily updated, if you gave up on finding a traditional publisher for a manuscript you still love - these are all great reasons to look into Kindle publishing now. Chances are, any excuses you still have not to do it also involve misconceptions!

The author of 16 books and nine multimedia home study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information in one form or another since 1981. She has developed and sold more than a dozen multimedia home-study courses on publicity, writing, web site structure and personal branding and published more than a dozen Kindle ebook originals. Download a free recording of her answers to the most commonly asked questions about information marketing by entering your information into the privacy-assured request box at http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm.

The Three Principal Reasons Why the Kindle Sleeve Is Superior to a Kindle Case

Ever since the very first Kindle reader was released, Amazon has been promoting the Amazon kindle case as the best security gadget, even though the Amazon kindle sleeve is actually a significantly better choice and most people get to this particular realization a couple weeks from the moment that they have bought the Kindle reader. Sadly many of them surrender to the power of the industry and so their first acquisition is a Kindle reader case. Nonetheless they soon realize its disadvantages and then they make the switch. However anyone who could take the time to evaluate the problem at hand before buying an Amazon kindle case would realize that a Kindle sleeve is a much better solution for three important reasons.

The first reason a Kindle sleeve is superior to the Kindle cover would be that the case is pointlessly large and bulky. However the Kindle has been developed to become an ideal replacement for a novel therefore protecting the Kindle in an Amazon kindle cover is just one way of building it big once more. And naturally almost anyone will argue that the scale is necessary to provide an Amazon Kindle a good amount of protection. But the fact is that most people don't take a Kindle reader on dangerous off-road adventures and almost half of the existing Kindle users tend not to even use it to read on their commute. Therefore it instantly becomes clear that there is simply no requirement for a high degree of protection since what most Kindles require is a good safeguard from dust.

And the evident simple truth is that the Amazon kindle sleeve is the best kind of protection against dirt and has the further benefit of being a contemporary protection system for a modern means of reading books. This is because the genuine reasons why folks consider the idea of a Kindle cover so appealing is that it helps make the Amazon kindle look like the familiar book concept. Nevertheless the time came for all of us to accept we have left the Dark Ages and have arrived in a modern, virtual book and virtual reality world and it's time that we forget about our connection with the historical past and begin enjoying the present. Therefore the Amazon kindle cover is truly a very good way to abandon the connections with the past and also to reach for a destiny that can be more wonderful and much more realistic than the past.

And the final reason why a Kindle reader sleeve is really a better option compared to a Kindle case has to do with the same attachment to the past and, yes, it refers to the fact that nearly all Kindle cases are made from a leather material or even leather kind of textiles. And while a hundred years ago natural leather was the material of preference because it was the strongest fabric obtainable and because of this it has been the emblem of top quality, these days we've produced far superior fabrics that don't need that any creature be killed to ensure we can enjoy an advanced level in protection for the Kindle. Hence the time has arrived that we forget about the outdated attachment with genuine leather items that usually are harming not just animals but, because of the level at which this is being done, the earth too, and we begin focusing on the better quality fabrics that can be used in nearly all Kindle sleeves.

Please visit us on http://www.kindlesleeve.net if you would like to read more about the best protection system for your Kindle.

From Word Manuscript to Kindle Ebook in Three Easy Steps

If you've self-published a short report that you're selling in PDF format, consider converting it to Kindle format and selling it in Amazon's digital downloads store. Prices you can realistically charge there range from $.99 to $9.99, with your share of purchases either 35 or 70 percent. But perhaps the greater benefit than the income is the opportunity through the Amazon Kindle store to get your material in front of customers from around the world who wouldn't otherwise ever run across your ideas and talents.

About a year ago, I struggled to take a paperback book I had nicely designed using the powerhouse publishing program InDesign and convert it so I could sell it on Kindle. I tried three different conversion tools, and all of them produced grossly unacceptable results. Frustrated, yet not ready to shell out the cash to hire someone else to reformat the book, I put this project on the back burner.

More recently, tempted by tales of colleagues experiencing results with short ebooks on Kindle, I decided to test the waters with a collection of articles that I'd compiled into an ebook. After sifting through many how-to articles and videos on Kindle conversions, here are the steps I followed that worked out perfectly not only for my experimental 30-page ebook but for several other short works and then the more complex paperback that had earlier stumped me.

Step One: Setting Up Styles in Your Word Document

One key to success is keeping your Microsoft Word formatting as simple as possible. Don't worry about selecting fonts or defining fancy formatting. Instead, define and use what Word calls "styles."

To do this, click on "Styles" from Word's "Format" menu, then one by one define the following three basic styles:

1) Body Text: Times New Roman 12, single spacing, no other special effects

2) Heading 1: Based on no style, Times New Roman 16 points, bold, page break before

3) Heading 2: Based on no style, Times New Roman 14 points, bold, no page break before

Then code all regular paragraphs in your manuscript as Body Text by highlighting them and clicking on "Body Text" for them in the "Styles" menu. Code your chapter titles as "Heading 1" and any subheads as "Heading 2."

If you need additional formatting styles, define a new style for it in the "Styles" menu instead of manually clicking buttons on your computer keyboard to make the text look the way you think it should. Unless everything in your Word document is coded consistently in such styles, you'll see chaos in the Kindle version.

Step Two: Save Your Word File as RTF

When you have finishing coding everything in your Word manuscript, save the file first as a ".doc" file, then as a rich text file - ".rtf." The RTF file is what you need for Step Three.

Step Three: Convert to Mobi Format using Calibre

Calibre is a free ebook conversion program you can download at http://www.calibre-ebook.com. Open the program and click on the "plus" icon in the upper left to load the RTF version of your ebook into Calibre. Then click the "i" icon" in the upper left to fill in such information as your name and the title of the ebook.

With your book title highlighted on the main screen of the program, click on the next icon, with two curved arrows, which gets you to the conversion function. There are a lot of options that come up, but you only need to concern yourself with two of them. In the upper right corner, where it says "Output Format," select "MOBI." Then in the left column, click on "Page Setup" and then under "Output Profile," select "Kindle."

Click "OK," and the program converts your file to something you can upload to Kindle. When the rotating circle in the lower right corner stops spinning, double-click on your title on Calibre's main screen to see how your file will look in the Kindle e-reader.

If the e-reader shows formatting that looks wildly wrong, then you didn't define and code your styles in Word carefully enough. Go back to the ".doc" file that you saved at the beginning of Step Two and check your styles, then repeat Steps Two and Three. You may need to do some trial and error in redefining the styles to get things like bulleted lists looking right in Kindle.

When your text looks fine in Calibre's Kindle simulator, you are ready to upload the.mobi version of your ebook to Amazon. You can get that process started by going to http://kdp.amazon.com/. In just a day or so after you've uploaded your ebook, you and the rest of the online universe will see it available for sale in the Kindle store. Happy ebook sales!

The author of 15 books and nine multimedia home study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information in one form or another since 1981. Download a free recording of her answers to the most commonly asked questions about information marketing by entering your information into the privacy-assured request box at http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm.

Kindle Publishing Strategies - Three Ways You Can Use Kindle Publishing to Build Your Business

Kindle books are hot these days. But the hottest thing about them is how they can be used to build your business. Here are three ways how you can leverage Kindle Publishing into big profits.

1) The Instant Expert Effect

First, there is the instant expert effect. It's related to the instant expert effect you get when you publish your articles in online article directories. You're instantly more credible, especially if the articles are excellent and the directories are selective ones.

Many people in the offline world don't realize how easy it is to get published online. To get your article into a newspaper can take a lot of doing, and to get it published in a glossy magazine is next to impossible unless you're a professional writer and have contacts or previous publications.

But getting published online just takes a great article and following the submission guidelines. Online directories need content, and so they welcome contributors who help them out.

But getting your book published on a Kindle takes things to a whole new level. You've got a BOOK! And if it seems difficult to get an article published in the offline world, getting a book published seems to add a whole other level of difficulty.

So Kindle publishing allows you to add those words, "Author of..." after your name, and that can do wonders for your credibility.

2) A Highly Effective Way to Get Targeted Leads

In order to keep growing (and even to keep from shrinking), any business needs targeted leads. Targeted leads are leads that are interested in what you have to offer. And article directories have traditionally been a great way to get those kinds of leads. But why stop there?

You can get even more targeted leads with Kindle publishing! Having your Kindle book (or, even better, many Kindle books) out there will do a lot of the marketing for you. As long as you give your books enticing titles and price them to sell, you will be able to sell lots of them.

And that's where things get interesting...

Inside your Kindle book, you include a reason for your reader to visit your website for more information. If you offer them an additional special report on the subject in which they've just demonstrated an interest by buying your book, they're very likely to "bite."

And now you have the one-two punch of very targeted leads, coupled with leads who are impressed by your expertise because you have a BOOK!

3) Kindle Publishing Provides Ready-Made News for Press Releases

The third way that Kindle publishing can help you build your business is by giving you a ready-made excuse for issuing a press release.

As you know, press releases require news, and while the news doesn't have to be dramatic, having real news will make it more likely that your press releases will be distributed, especially in the offline world.

And what better news than the publication of a new book. And since Kindle books don't have to be huge books, you can write new ones every few weeks or at least months, and each time, you can announce their arrival in a new press release.

Press releases are terrific for a number of reasons. They too add to your credibility and visibility. They make you look even more authoritative because OTHER people write about you. They also help you be found on Google for your preferred keywords.

Finally, because they get syndicated, they also provide a wealth of backlinks to your website, giving it extra clout in search engine results.

As you can see, publishing a Kindle book can have lots of advantages. And we haven't even gotten to the royalties you'll earn on your sales. That's a topic for another article.

In the meantime, if you don't have a book published on Kindle yet, why not find out more about how you can make that happen. Kindle publishing is not as daunting or difficult as it might seem.

Want to find out more about getting your book into the Kindle store? Simply request your FREE Kindle Publishing tips and a FREE special report.

To discover just how easy it is to become a Kindle author, and how it can benefit you, simply go to http://kindle-publishing.net