If you are new at this indie publishing stuff and haven't tried formatting your masterpiece yet, all I can say is, prepare for a sadistic adventure in annoying CCS and HTML coding hell.
No, you can't just upload a Microsoft .doc file to Amazon and start racking in your royalties. Instead, you have to...GASP...format it first!! And if that weren't stressful enough, if you format it wrong...your baby will magically turn into one steaming pile of hot mess....words will be misspelled, paragraphs will run together...and when a reader purchases your book and goes to read it...they'll think you're a complete idiot to upload such nonsense.
We can't have that can we?
So let's just cut to the chase here...formatting a manuscript is a royal PAIN IN THE BUTT!! This little book by Nadia Lee isn't a huge masterpiece or anything, it's just a simple guide that's really easy to follow (with copy and pasteable coding, even!). But, I'll tell you, if you follow the directions step by step, your manuscript comes out looking magnificant!
I'll go out on a limb and even recommend it for people who aren't computer gurus - as long as you can install software (mobipocket), you know how to save a file from your wordprocessor into HTML, and you know how to cut and paste, you tech 'fraidy cats SHOULD be able to follow this step by step guide and end up with something that is uploadable.
I will say I'm quite the miserly cheapskate - aren't all of us indies? - and I did look all over the stinkin' internet for another guide in an effort to save myself a few bucks, but I couldn't make heads or tails out of any of the free ones I found. They were too convoluted and confusing. I finally decided to cough up the dough for this one and I'm glad I did.
Save youself the hassle I put myself through - just cough up the dough and be done with your formatting nightmares once and for all!
