When publishing an eBook through Amazon, there’s an extensive list of requirements and standards that need to be met in order for your book to be accepted for publishing, not the least of which is proper formatting.
Previously, we outlined a few formatting tips to help you get started, but given the plethora of additional steps required to format your eBook properly, the time you could be using to write your next book is instead spent on fiddling with formatting software and making sure every little technical detail is correct. If you’re interested in saving these precious hours of your day, but also want guaranteed professional formatting for your manuscript, it may be in your best interest to use an eBook formatting service.
In short, you can pay a company specializing in eBook formatting to correctly and professionally format your eBook for you so that is it ready for submission.
Why should I use an eBook formatting service?
“I’m not sure I want to pay money though,” you might say. There is certainly free formatting software available online, but as the saying goes, “Time is money.” If you’re working a day job in addition to writing books in what little spare time you have, using an eBook formatting service will ensure that your free time is devoted to writing, not formatting. The same goes if you’re a full-time writer. If the books you write are your bread and butter, you’ll want every hour of work to go toward writing, not fussing with margins and page numbers and how many spaces need to go here or there.
Furthermore, every author, professional or amateur, published or self-published, unequivocally needs their manuscript copyedited. If your book is going to sell, it needs to be readable. Typos and the like will take your readers out of the narrative and there’s a good chance all they’ll remember about your book is how poorly edited it was. But of course, copyediting takes a lot of time, and as you’ve no doubt been staring at your manuscript until your eyes have fallen out, it’s better to have a fresh set of eyes that’ll catch any mistakes you may have overlooked. There are some eBook formatting companies that will include copyediting services, which means trained professionals will be on the look out and zeroing in on every comma, every quotation mark, and every letter in your manuscript to make sure it’s polished and ready for submission.
What does an eBook formatting service entail?
Let’s take a look at an example of what an eBook formatting service has to offer:
Word-2-Kindle offers eBook formatting services starting from the nominal price of $49.00. Not only is it affordable, your professionally formatted manuscript is delivered to you in 48 hours.
Word-2-Kindle also provides the following:
- eBook formatting for Kindle, Smashwords, Kobo Writing Life, iBooks, and CreateSpace.
- Unlimited revisions: Once you receive your formatted manuscript, Word-2-Kindle gives you two weeks of free unlimited revisions if you wish to change anything.
- Formatting for standard novels, short non-fiction, children’s books, cookbooks, complex novels, and non-fiction.
- Mobi and EPUB versions of your manuscript ready for publishing.
- Book cover design: A basic book cover for your manuscript comes FREE with any eBook conversion package. You also have the option to get a premium book cover and a cover for the print version of your book.
- Print formatting: If you want to sell hard copies of your book, Word-2-Kindle can also properly format your manuscript in accordance with print specifications.
- Copyediting and proofreading.
- Book scanning: Word-2-Kindle can scan your book and either provide you with a Word file of your manuscript, or apply eBook and/or print formatting.
There are a number of eBook formatting companies out there, each offering a different set of services, so it is important that you choose one that fits your needs and you get the most out of your money with the least amount of time and effort on your part.
