Publishing an eBook with Free Tools Edition

After all the effort I have expended trying to figure out how to format an ebook the last few days, I've decided to put together a guide on how to do it. Primarily so that if I forget any of the steps I can come back here to reference how I did it the first time!

Please don't blame me if I've missed anything... this is simply what I've done that worked for me!

Prerequisites

First, let's start with what you'll need before you start.

• Cover art. Ideal size is 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. If you get it in this size, it should work for all ebook sizes. A stock picture, art you've done yourself, art you've commissioned - get it in this size, if possible.
• GIMP, or another image manipulation tool. You need to be able to convert your cover art to TIF and JPG formats.
• Paypal account. Kindle KDP supports direct bank account deposits, but Smashwords wants Paypal.
• Your manuscript.
• Word document editor. Since I'm doing this on a shoe string budget, I used Libre Office. If you're using Word, some of the steps here might be easier for you, but you probably won't be able to use this guide because I'm gearing it towards using LibreOffice.
• Alkinea - A libre office format (.odt) to epub and mobi format converter.
• Document template. You can find a sample on the Alkinea Website. Using this saves a LOT of time.
• Kindlegen - a Kindle utility required by Alkinea to convert to Amazon's mobi format.
• Kindle Previewer - used to preview your eBook before uploading to Amazon.

Amazon Kindle

It's best to start your formatting journey here, because you can derive what you need for Smashwords once you have your eBook formatted correctly for Amazon. Amazon is much less strict about what you need, surprisingly.

1. Do not include your cover image inside the eBook here - that will be handled for you by Alkinea later.
2. The first page should be your title page. Put in your title, 'by Author', and information about other books in your series, if applicable.
3. The next page should contain your copyright information. This will be different depending on the publisher you're using - Smashwords wants particular license information, but Amazon doesn't seem to care. You can also include your blog and email address, if you desire.
4. If you want to add front matter, like dedications, you can do that here.
5. Table of contents. The template I mentioned earlier contains a sample table of contents. Any text which has the 'Heading 1' style set will automatically be considered a chapter header for your ToC. To update the ToC, right click on it and click 'Update index.'
6. Add your chapters. Chapter headers get the 'Heading 1' style, while text gets the 'Text Body' style.
1. Using the 'Text Body' style will automatically set paragraph indents. These are desired for eBooks.
2. You can change the font if you'd like, but most eReaders allow the reader to change the font so it's not really required. Choose a standard font like Arial, or leave it on Garamond.
   After each chapter, make sure to add a line break.
7. Replace block paragraphs in your manuscript text with zero line breaks. eBooks don't like block paragraphs, instead they want every paragraph indented.
1. Select the text of one of your chapters and go to Edit -> Find & Replace. Check the 'Regular Expressions' box and in the 'Find' box put ^$. Click on 'Replace All.' This will remove all paragraph line breaks.
2. This will also make your chapter breaks and *** interstitials look weird, so make sure to re-proof your document after doing this replace.
8. Replace all en dashes with em dashes to follow American formatting: ' - ' should be replaced with '—'
9. Add your back matter. Author's notes, references to other works, etc. Be sure to use 'Heading 1' and update your table of contents as appropriate.
10. Open Alkinea. Select your .ODT, set the 'Title' and 'Author,' select the cover image you're using, the location of Kindlegen on your hard drive, then click 'Convert.'
11. In the same folder as your ODT manuscript, Alkinea will create an epub and a mobi.
12. Open Kindle Previewer 3. Drag and drop your mobi file and view your ebook. If you find any formatting errors, open the ODT ,fix them, and regenerate the mobi file with Alkinea. Make sure your cover image is the first page in your ebook in the previewer.
13. Go setup your KDP account on Amazon, setting your pen name as the primary contributor of your book. Make sure you setup your payment and tax information at this time.
14. Amazon will want your cover image in TIF format for display on the site. Use GIMP to do the conversion by opening your cover image and using 'Export As' to save as a TIF.
15. Send in your book!
16. After your book is published, head to Author Central to claim your pen name and associate it with your published book. Update your author profile with a description, bio, image, etc.
17. Use Booklinker to generate a link for Amazon that you can share freely. This link automatically takes the viewer to the appropriate Amazon storefront internationally. You will need a free account for this.

Smashwords

If you thought that was difficult, wait until we do the next part!

1. First, setup your Smashwords account, linking your Paypal account to your Smashwords account.
2. Take your existing formatted .odt document, and do a Save As -> .doc (Word 97-2003) format. 
1. Smashwords does accept epub files, but the epub file generated by Alkinea is NOT automatically accepted by Smashwords. You can validate this by sending your EPUB here for validation. If it works, cool, but it probably won't.
3. If it didn't work, open the .doc you saved. Your first page needs to be your cover image.
1. Smashwords' automated tool ONLY accepts a JPG as the cover image. Open GIMP, and use Export As -> JPG on your cover image.
2. Go to Insert -> Image in LibreOffice and insert the JPG image on the first page.
4. Go to your copyright page and add the Smashwords license:
1. Smashwords Edition License Notes
   This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold orgiven away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, pleasepurchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchaseit, or it was not purchased for yourenjoymentonly, then please return to Smashwords.comoryour favorite retailerand purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work ofthis author. 
5. Delete your table of contents. Smashwords doesn't like automatically generated ToC's.
6. Go to each chapter you wish to have in your table of contents and bookmark it. You do this by selecting the text, going to Insert -> Bookmark, naming it, and clicking Insert.
1. Do this for any backmatter pages you want on your ToC as well.
7. Where your Table of Contents used to be, type or copy the names of the chapters you want indexed. Select the text for each chapter, go to Insert -> Hyperlink, select 'Document', hit the target icon on the right side, select 'Bookmarks,' select the appropriate bookmark from step 6, click 'Apply' on that box, 'Apply' on the main box, then hit 'OK.'
1. Once each chapter and backmatter page has been hyperlinked, you're done!
8. Now you're ready to send your .doc in to Smashwords! If you've done it right, their automatic conversion tool should come back with no errors and EPubCheck should be successful.
9. Smashwords will tell you of any issues with your manuscript. They will also want you to assign a free ISBN with their ISBN Manager.

Conclusion

That wasn't so hard, was it? If you'd like to see what this looks like, you can buy my book here or here on Amazon, or here on Smashwords. Or check out other eBooks you've read in the past, they're doing something similar!