Well, I’m beginning to discover that the process of formatting for KDP is a bit trickier than the directions make it seem–and the directions don’t exactly make it seem breezy. Last night I was up until almost midnight (I’m normally in bed by 10, to give you a frame of reference), trying to figure out just what I was doing wrong.
My first upload, I realized the paragraphing was off. Apparently the direction they give that “The first line of each paragraph is automatically indented” is incorrect. So I dropped my first upload, went in and set the paragraphs with the ruler, and re-uploaded.
The next snafu that ocurred was that the new version no longer recognized my start page, though I’d inserted it according to the directions on the guide. After messing about, reuploading, messing about more, reuploading again, and so on around four or five times, I suddenly noticed the lower part of the directions that tell you to turn the file into a web page.
D’oh! I’d actually read that part before, but I’d forgotten about it in the intervening week, and since the .doc file seemed ot be almost working right, I thought it was fine.
So then I decided I’d actually read through their whole directional sheet, download the mobipocket software, and use all of that.
Here’s the latest wrinkle though: the directions on the KDP site appear to be out of date when it comes to the actual layout of the Mobipocket Creator. This, eventually, prompted me to call it a night last night. So now I’m getting ready to tackle it again–and if I can figure out what you’re actually supposed to do, I’ll try to post accurate directions here for others who are as stubborn as I am about learning every step of the process rather than doing the (probably smarter) thing of hiring someone to handle the formatting, like konrath talks about.
Noelle Ryan 