Our guide to all things e-book publishing

With Amazon KDP making it quick and easy for authors to self-publish their e-books, you might be wondering how to go about creating an e-book in the first place. Or maybe you’ve had someone create an e-book for you, but it looks messy when you load it in your Kindle? In this blog, we’ll look at how e-books are created and what you can do about how it appears in e-readers, answering the most common questions we get from authors.

What is an e-book?

The first thing to understand is what an e-book is. In simple terms, it’s a digital version of your book that readers can view on their electronic devices, rather than a physical printed book. The main format for e-books is “e-pub” and this is a specific type of file designed to work on devices such as smartphones and e-readers (Kindle, Tolino, Kobo, etc.). It’s important to note that the e-pub format is designed to adjust to the viewer’s device and settings, such as device size.

Who does e-book design?

If you already have a book designer or typesetter for your print book, they can probably create your e-book for you, but not all book designers create e-books, so it’s worth asking in advance whether they can do both. Generally speaking, the print book is designed first, then it’s used to create the e-book by converting it to e-pub format.

How are e-books designed?

This is where it gets a little frustrating. As mentioned, the e-pub format is designed to adjust to the viewer’s device and settings, and this is known as “reflowable” design, where text and images move (or “reflow”) depending on the device size, font size, etc. As a result, e-pubs are set so that text and images cannot sit alongside each other; they can only be above or below each other. All of this means that designers have very little control over how your e-book appears because this is determined by the viewer’s device and settings. What a designer can determine is where to insert a page break so that chapters start on a new page, for example. Also note that most e-readers are black and white, not colour, so very colourful books will lose some of their visual effect.

Why does my e-book look messy?

Because of the reflowable nature of the e-pub format, e-books can appear “messy” on various e-readers or smartphones, for example, there may be big gaps between text and images, half-blank pages, and so on. The way e-readers work is to calculate how much “space” is left on the page and determine whether an image will fit. If not, it will shift to the next page, leaving a gap. This is particularly relevant for very “designed” nonfiction books with lots of elements such as images, text boxes, activities for the reader, and so on.

Is there anything I can do about this?

Unfortunately, there isn’t much that book designers can do about this because it’s how e-pubs are designed to work. And even if it could be “fixed” on one device, it would appear differently on other devices depending on their size. What a designer can do is simplify your print design to remove more “designed” elements such as images and text boxes for the e-pub version. In this case, big images or activities could instead be moved to a separate downloadable PDF with a QR code for the reader to locate it, and your designer should be able to help with this.

Is there an alternative option to e-pubs?

If you’ve had an e-book created and really dislike how it appears, or you have a very designed book and don’t want to risk ruining the visual experience by having an e-pub created, there is an alternative: a fixed-format PDF. As you might guess from the name, this is a PDF file where the format is fixed and therefore nothing moves around. It’s not “reflowable”, meaning it will appear the same on every device. As such, if the reader is on a small device such as a smartphone, they may need to zoom in to read the text. 

What’s the downside of fixed-format PDFs?

Aside from the readability issues of people needing to zoom in and out because the book doesn’t adjust to fit their screen, a major downside is that fixed-format PDFs won’t work on most e-readers, especially Kindles. As the majority of e-book sales are made via Amazon with a link to download directly to Kindle, this can be very frustrating for readers who purchase an e-book, then discover it’s a fixed-format PDF that won’t load in their Kindle, and they may leave a negative review (it happens!). If you’re considering this option, you need to make it very clear on your Amazon sales page that the e-book won’t work on most e-readers including Kindles.

If you’ve got any more questions about book design and publishing, get in touch for a free call and we’ll get you on the right path faster than you can buy an e-book from Amazon and load it on your Kindle!