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Trouble with Childrens Book for Kindle

by nursewriter
12 replies
Has anyone tried to publish a children's picture book for Kindle? I have one written with the artwork all finished. I have been trying to get the darn thing to convert to Kindle format for 2 weeks. I have literally spent over 10 hours working on this ....Its driving me crazy!

Here is my problem. I do not have the latest version of microsoft word so I am trying to use open office.

I upload the book to mobipocket creator as a html with text and pictures in place. Once I get it to Mobi and press build I then open it with Kindle previewer to see if everything converted. The first 7 times I did this I had the text showing on each page with no pictures....all the pictures showed up on the last pages with no text.

I then got it to show the text and an camera icon with an X that says image file not found.

I have purchased several Kindle formatting programs from here and other places on the Internet and not one of them can help me get this right.

If anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful.

Thanks in advance!
#book #childrens #kindle #trouble
  • Profile picture of the author DogEmOut
    I had a similar problem, except that I spent WEEKS. In the end, I just exported it from OpenOffice as a .doc file and uploaded it like that to KDP. They did the conversion in a matter of seconds and after previewing you I confirmed that it looked perfect. Just link your table of contents to your chapters with styles and export as a .doc!
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  • Profile picture of the author djax3000
    If not having microsoft word is your only problem, just download the microsoft office 2010 60 day trial. Try Office 2010 - Office.com
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  • Profile picture of the author DianaHeuser
    Nurse writer,

    Just make sure that your pictures are formatted as "In Line".

    I find with a book that has a lot of pictures, you are better off creating it as an html file and then uploading.

    Drop me a pm if you would lke me to send you a tutorial on how to do that.

    Di
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
    You can use any version of Open Office or Word and get great formatting with no issues at all when it's done right. Also, many people try to convert to mobi or many other formats first and that can mess things up.

    Getting the "right" format isn't easy though, it took me a loooonnnng time to figure it out but I'll see if I can help.

    Do you have a Word document with the book text and images right now? Are the images on their own line without text wrapped around them?
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  • Profile picture of the author megansays
    Are you remembering to upload the image files in a .zip format when you go to publish? That hung me up at first because I thought they would go with the rest of the files, but you have to manually include them.
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  • Profile picture of the author nursewriter
    I downloaded the free trial for microsoft office word 2010 and loaded my texts and images into it and converted it to web page and then built a mobi file. When I previewed in my Kindle previewer the pictures were really small... but they did show up so I am making some progress.

    I am using custom margin settings that were recommended in a kids picture book kindle product that I purchased from this forum.

    However the margin settings puts text into what looks like a single column down the center of the page. It doesn't look that way in the previewer.

    I wonder if that is making my pictures too small? Any more advice from those who have published picture books on Kindle?

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
      Originally Posted by nursewriter View Post

      I downloaded the free trial for microsoft office word 2010 and loaded my texts and images into it and converted it to web page and then built a mobi file. When I previewed in my Kindle previewer the pictures were really small... but they did show up so I am making some progress.

      I am using custom margin settings that were recommended in a kids picture book kindle product that I purchased from this forum.

      However the margin settings puts text into what looks like a single column down the center of the page. It doesn't look that way in the previewer.

      I wonder if that is making my pictures too small? Any more advice from those who have published picture books on Kindle?

      Thanks
      There is no need to save as a web page, convert to a mobi file, or anything like that. You can get clean, excellent formatting from Word directly to Amazon.

      I know how frustrating this can be so if you want to send me your file, I'd be happy to take a look for you and see what the issue is so you can get your book published.
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      Click Here For My Exclusive WSO
      Kindle Self Publishing Supersite - Kindle Templates, Book Covers & Trailers, Marketing Tips, & More
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      • Profile picture of the author nursewriter
        Sure Paul I can do that. Where do you want me to send it to? You can PM me or email address is you don't want it public.

        I really appreciate the help.
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  • Profile picture of the author linkmetro
    nursewriter,

    you were able to publish your book?
    Thx.
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