If you ’ve register this far , you ’re credibly a ego - publish author who has once contend with Amazon ’s grumpy Kindle Direct Publishing platform . The program , which allows you to upload and sell ebooks and paperback , has always been remarkably thwarting when it came to ebook layout . If you did it in good order , you were fine . If you did it wrong , thing went bad moderately apace .
Why would they go unfit ? Because KDP on the face of it accepted many democratic format — namely , epub and mobi — you could pose out a book in a desktop publishing app , export it , and then upload it to KDP . The result ? A final ebook either look ok or , more likely , look like a ransom note thanks to high-risk typeface and paragraph spatial arrangement or flaw that made your book look like an easy reader for grade - schoolers , with huge fonts and broken chapter .
It drives many first - timeKDPuserscrazy .
This photo is as old as many popular ebook file types.Photo: Tim Boyle / Staff (Getty Images)
So here ’s what Amazon ’s doing : If you want to create “ reflowable ” books , i.e. books that work on many devices and automatically fit the Sir Frederick Handley Page , you ca n’t use the most problematic format of all , mobi . grant to a user on the mobi musical accompaniment meeting place , KDP client support sentthe following content :
We listened to your feedback and are make up it simpler to publish eBooks on Kindle . get June 28 , 2021 , we will no longer support file in MOBI , PRC or AZK format when publishing new reflowable eBooks or updating the message for previously published eBooks . Instead , we ask publishers to use EPUB , KPF ( Kindle Create files ) , or DOC / DOCX ( Microsoft Word filing cabinet ) files for reflowable eBooks . Please note MOBI files are still take for fix - layout eBooks . You do n’t need to take any activity for reflowable eBooks already issue unless you are updating the eBook files .
Amazon’sinstructionsfor upload ebooks to KDP now notes that “ MOBI is no longer support for reflowable cognitive content . ”
This intend you may still upload a mobi Indian file if you want to stomach from crazy formatting on some Kindle gadget but that Amazon advocate using its own file format , KPF , or the slightly more forgiving epub data formatting if you ’re trying to stay platform agnostical .
Themobifile appear in 2000 with the rise of Mobipocket , an former French ebook company . Like epub , the mobi is an XML - based file that is establish on the legacy Open eBook Publication Structure ( OEBPS ) or Open eBook standard . The cardinal give-and-take here is “ legacy ” because , given the boring pace of ebook evolution , most formatting standard are over 20 years onetime . The epub is actually a pure version of the Open eBook standard that has subsist as long as mobi but with less wonkiness .
Anyway , that ’s the bit of news program about KDP formatting , an of import bit especially if you ’re working on a three - book trilogy of sci - fi fantasy feature a feisty thaumaturgist and her automatonlike sidekick .
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