Choosing your File Format

I would recommend you use just two different file formats one for mobile devices and one for PCs. Remember that most people will only read really large eBooks (i.e. 80-100k words) on their desktop PC. For PCs, I would chose the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) as (a) Adobe reader is already installed on millions of PCs worldwide, (b) all the major eBook distributors support it and (c) Micosoft are planning to incorporate export-to-pdf functionality in all their next generation MS-Office products.

For mobile, my personal recommendation is the Mobipocket .prc format as (a) it supports more complex e-books that require oversized images and horizontally scrolling tables, (b) the Mobipocket Reader can be used on the widest range of PDAs & Smart Phones and (c) Amazon have recently purchased Mobipocket and are sure to give it greater prominence in the future.

Converting your master to PDF Format

To begin with, optimize the meta-data in your MS-Word document. Access File Properties from the menu and begin with the Summary tab. Enter your title in the Title box, exactly as it would appear on Nielsen BookData and Amazon. Put your sub-title in the Subject field. Enter your author name as second name, first name (e.g. Viney, David) in the Author field. In the Category field, I would use Amazons taxonomy, so for my eBook Guide, I would enter: Books > E-Books & E-Docs > Non-fiction > General. Use the Keywords field to add individual words which summarise the content of your book. Separate them with a comma and a single space. For my eBook I would enter: eBook, self, publishing, Amazon, Mobipocket, PDF, Lightning, Source, eBooks.com, writing.

Once you have optimised the Word master, it is time to begin conversion to the PDF format. With OEM or second-hand software available so cheaply these days from eBay (see panel right) I would recommend you purchase and use Adobe Professional software to do the conversion. Once you have installed the software, you will find that you can simply click on a Convert to Adobe PDF icon, which should be the left-most one of the three Adobe icons in your Word toolbar. The macro that follows will first prompt you to chose a filename to save your PDF document under. Use the ISBN (so for my ebook, I used 0955077427.pdf).

The macro will then scan for bookmarks, create pages and process tags before firing up the pre-final PDF file. Check the Bookmarks panel to make sure the macro has converted your Word table of contents properly. Then tweak some of the PDF settings for best results. Firstly, set the Initial View document options to Show Bookmark Panel and Pages. Under Page Layout select Continuous Facing and in the Security tab decide whether you want to apply any DRM-style restrictions (I leave at No Security). Secondly, check the metadata has been translated properly from the Word master and add any Additional Metadata (e.g. copyright status). Finally, optimize the file size of your PDF file, using both the the Advanced | PDF Optimizer menu option and the File | Reduce File Size option (which limits the reverse-compatibility of the file).

Converting your master to PRC Format

I recommend you purchase Mobipocket Creator Professional to handle the conversion. Whilst relatively expensive, it is by far the better functioned of all options. Open the installed software, select the import from MS Word document option and browse for your Word master. From the publication files screen, the first step is to add your cover art. Ensure your cover art has a file width of less than 200 pixels, a file height of less than 300 pixels and an overall file size of less than 50kb. This should generally be the case when you have set a medium (6/10) file quality to your .jpg file.

Whilst I would avoid the Mobipocket Table of Contents option (too complex) you should certainly focus on the metadata section (as the Mobipocket site has a Google Page Rank of 7/10 and your finished page will rank high up on Google). I advise preparing metadata entries first in a (backed-up) text file (using Notepad). If you iterate the file conversion and build process a number of times, you will find yourself re-entering data over and over again; being able to copy-and-paste from a text file will save you lots of time!

Once you have finished this section, it is time to build your eBook file and test it on various readers / emulators. Select the default build options, run the the build process, then preview results in Mobipocket reader on your PC. After you are happy, do a final test on the Mobipocket PDA Emulator. Having tested what you file will look like on a sample of PDAs and Smartphones, do one final iteration of the build process, this time with the content encryption with DRM checkbox selected. Your eBook is now ready to be uploaded.

Uploading your PDF to Lightning Source

To distribute your PDF via Amazon, I recommend signing up for Lightning Source International (LSI) as a minimum. In my full eBook (purchase from panel right) I also cover how to distribute via other sites, including Lulu and Content Reserve). To sign up with LSI, click on the new customer? link on their homepage, then the new account link.

Choose a log-in name and password (both between 6 and 16 characters in length), then enter your contact information. In the form of business drop-down, select sole proprietor. Choose your primary book category from the drop-down within the miscellaneous information section (e.g. professional/technical). Under total number of titles in print and number of new titles published annually I would suggest entering 2-5 titles. For number of years company in business put Uploading your PRC to Mobipocket

Firstly, visit http://www.ebookbase.com to register with Mobipocket. Now review the eBookBase Agreement. Either sign it and fax the form or (for speed) copy-and-paste the content into a Word file, add your signature as a scanned picture and email the signed electronic contract to nting@mobipocket.com

You will note from the contract that the wholesaler price is 50% of the suggested retail Price. As such, you may wish to set the retail price of the .prc version of your eBook slightly higher than you did for the .pdf version (so as to recoup a similar return).

Mobipocket will come back pretty quickly to confirm your application and will point you to a URL from where you can logon to your account online. You should find that you are given the same user-id and password that you originally registered with on the main site.

First select the Add an eBook option from the eBook catalogue. Browse to find your .prc file and click on the upload new eBook link. Note the default directory for the Mobipocket .prc file you created s is the My Publications folder within My Documents. The file you are looking for should have been saved there (using build within the Mobipocket software) with a DRM security level of 4.

In the Meta-Data input screen, you should address (a) Affiliation URL (leave alone), (b) Title (enter title, than a colon, then a space, then the sub-title), (c) Activate for Retailers (leave checked), (d) Author (put the LastName, then a comma, then FirstName), (e) ISBN (leave pre-populated), (f) Print Book ISBN (put parent ISBN), (g) Language (select English), (h) Main Subject (select most appropriate from the drop-down), (i) Abstract (Max 4000 chars; copy-and-paste from your Amazon short description meta-data), (j) Review (Max 4000 chars; this will appear on the site as if it is from Mobipocket themselves), (k) Keywords (Max 100 chars; enter same as you did for the MS-Word metadata, only with each word separated by a semi-colon rather than a comma), (l) Adult only (leave unchecked) and (m) Publishing Date (leave autofilled)

In the file information section, click on browse to find your cover art image in the CoverPage section. Note that you are restricted to a maximum size of 50KB and dimensions of 200 pixels width x 300 pixels height. Ignore the Demo PRC File dialogue and leave the Force No Demo file checkbox unchecked. This will cause Mobipocket to default to an automatically generated PRC demo file containing the first 5% of the text of the ebook.

Conclusions

Choose only the PDF and PRC file formats for your eBook and distribute them using LSI and Mobipocket respectively. Pay close attention to the use of high quality metadata, as it will help with the subsequent marketing of your book, which (together with taking payment) if the theme of my final chapter: selling your eBook.