Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines

In the process of my research, I found the following page that gives the true facts about a lot of the things that concern Kindle authors.

One thing that wasn't clear before... at least, not clear to me... is that the new KindleGen is a command line program intended for the batch-processing of many books at once.

In other words, it is intended for large publishers.

Small publishers and authors are still advised to use DTP (which this forum supports).

As far as I can see, there is only one reason for a small publisher or author to use KindleGen... If you do not use Windows, you need something other than Mobipocket Creator.

Below is where you will find the new 72 page manual "Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines", and you can also download the new KindleGen (if you need it)

Amazon Kindle Publishing Tools

NOTE:
I don't represent Amazon, I'm just posting the below for the benefit of those who have not been able to find this information... it's copied directly from the Amazon page.

Kindle Books

• Small publishers and authors can take advantage of Amazon's self-service tools through the Amazon.com
Digital Text Platform (DTP).


• Publishers who have a relationship with an Amazon Kindle vendor manager should read more about Kindle Title Manager.


• Publishers and individuals who are comfortable working with HTML can use KindleGen (see the KindleGen section below) to create content, and eBookbase to upload files.


Download KindleGen

KindleGen is a command line tool used to build Kindle Books that can be sold through Amazon's Kindle platform. KindleGen creates Kindle Books from sources in HTML, XHTML, IDPF 2.0 format (HTML content files with XML .opf wrapper). This tool is best for publishers and individuals who are familiar with HTML.


KindleGen for Windows (2003, XP, Vista, 7)

KindleGen for Linux 2.4 i386

KindleGen for Linux 2.6 i386





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4 comments:

  1. David SmithDecember 12, 2010 at 7:14 AM

    I may be an outrider here, but as an old-school programmer, the kindlegen tools let me do quick edit-compile-test cycles that result in Kindle files that look and feel exactly the way that I want. Of course, your mileage may vary.

    David Smith

    ReplyDelete
  2. CJ's Easy As PieDecember 12, 2010 at 7:31 PM

    Please tell how you use KindleGen.

    I'm not an old-school programmer... nor are most of my readers, so I need to figure out a way that "ordinary people" can set up and run KindleGen

    I can run KindleGen from the C:\ prompt command line, but I can't figure out an easy way to include the cover image.

    Can you explain how to do that?

    CJ

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dale MayerMarch 12, 2011 at 4:24 PM

    I've been trying to get the command prompt to work! I have KindleGen downloaded in C drive and the command shows it's functioning but it can't find the files. I've typed everything I can possibly think of. I have saved the word document as both web page and web page filtered on the desktop and made the name dead easy (book) and it always says can't find the file.

    Any suggestions? I'm hoping for an easy test, edit, test again system too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. CJ's Easy As PieMarch 13, 2011 at 10:56 AM

    Dale,

    Are you running it from the MS DOS COMMAND prompt?

    It's old-fashioned DOS... as in before Windows. I know it's simple, but I can't remember how to use it. You can probably find it in a basic DOS primer.

    Go to the Search box... just under the Birds on a Tight-Rope... and look for Araby Greene's article on how to build a NCX file. She explains more about how to run KindleGen there.

    ReplyDelete

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