CJ's Easy as Pie Publishing for the Kindle

A lot of people work way too hard at preparing their material to be published on the Amazon Kindle. Even if they start with Microsoft Word, as I do, they think it must take a "real" programmer to produce anything as wonderful as a Kindle book... so they go into "real" programmer mode, even if they have to ask for help at every step.

First, they "strip out the Microsoft bloat", as they describe it... then they go into their file and laboriously type in HTML code to get the file formatted as they want it, and photos placed where they want them.

Then, judging from messages on the forums, most have to go through several "Upload and Preview" cycles at Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) before they get it right.

Most don't even bother with a Table of Contents, because it's so much trouble.

In this series, I'll show you how to use Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Picture Manager, and MobiPocket Creator, to create a perfectly-formatted book for the Amazon Kindle, complete with pictures and an inter-active Table of Contents, without writing a word of code... "CJ's Easy as Pie" way.

If you want to follow along as I write these articles, you might start by getting familiar with the MS Word Styles and Formatting Menu, shown open in the screen shot below, from A Donkey Named Millie... and, yes, I changed her name, to protect her innocence.