No. PDF documents are not true eBooks. PDF documents and their contents cannot easily reshape or reflow text to better suit smaller screens. Whilst a PDF may be perfectly legible on a (larger) computer screen, it will likely not be easily readable from a (smaller) smartphone screen.

Many large online book retailers do not accept PDF files, instead preferring the ePUB eBook format.

Question time.

• How many new readers could you reach through printed books alone?
• Are you aware of the notoriously low royalty rates most authors earn from books sold through brick-and-mortar retailers?
• Working with a tight publishing budget?

eBooks help solve the problem of poor distribution or reach, lower earnings and increasing costs of printing. Creating an eBook is fast. In fact, in the time it takes you to read this, you could have your eBook ready. (Well…almost.)

By removing the need for middlemen and publishing an eBook directly through a store like Amazon KDP, you retain full control of the process, reducing delays and the inevitable disappointment from dealing with physical bookstores and book distributors.

Pay less to publish your eBook. Instead of paying for every new batch of books needing to be printed, only pay once to create an eBook. This means that after recovering your costs, your returns are unlimited.

The question should be why would you not want to create an eBook?

I recommend reading this to help manage your eBook expectations.

1. Reflowable ePUB. The reflowable eBook (as the contents “reflows” to fit the screen size) is the preferred file format for most large online book retailers such as Amazon KDP, Apple, Kobo stores.
2. Fixed-Layout ePUB: Ideally suited for a visually detailed book, such as a children’s or cookbook. These specially shaped eBooks are able to retain their print layout. Note that these types of eBooks are more complex to create than their reflowable versions and can reduce distribution options, as not all eBook stores and devices support them.

More than likely not. With the popular reflowable eBook format, the final choice of font face, font size and line spacing are decided by the reader’s device. This means that the author loses control over the exact look and feel of the pages.  I always recommend previewing your eBook file before publishing, to understand exactly how the final eBook layout looks.

Examples of print elements that are not easily translated into an eBook format: 

• Page numbers no longer exist. Try avoiding referencing page numbers within your eBook text. Also, if your book has an index, this may need to be very carefully hyperlinked.
• Page borders and full-page backgrounds are not recommended.
• Your choice of fonts may not be supported. You may not have the commercial rights to use the specific font, or it may simply be overwritten by the readers’ device.
• Images in “floating” positions will need to be either left, right or centre justified.
• Text wrapped around images. Images should either appear above or below text
• Page headers and footers.
• Footnotes or endnotes would need to appear at the end of a chapter or the entire book. They should be hyperlinked.

For visually busy books such as a children’s books or cookbooks, I recommend opting for a fixed-layout eBook format. A fixed layout eBook means that the eBook’s layout closely resembles the print edition. Remember that opting for fixed layout eBook means that your distribution options are less. (Thankfully, Amazon KDP supports the fixed layout format.)

Yup. A shotgun (wide) approach to eBook distribution is a valid strategy to reach more readers. Whilst going wide should increase the royalties earned, it also increases the admin required to monitor multiple sales channels. Not always recommend for very busy authors.

For those authors choosing to publish into multiple stores; please ensure you are not opted into digital exclusivity within Amazon KDP! (aka KDP Select.)

I recommend almost all new authors at least sell their eBook through Amazon KDP. This covers the lion’s share of the world’s eBook market. Avoid Amazon at your own peril.

For those of you looking for maximum distribution for your eBook, consider including the smaller stores such as Apple, Barnes and Noble and Kobo. The easiest way to reach these smaller stores is by using a platform such as draft2digital.com

Print on demand is a method of printing your paperback that avoids being forced (by the printer) to place large orders. Instead, your paperback books are only printed when there’s an order and even then, only the exact amount are printed. Less wasted stock, no ongoing print costs for the author. Our favourite print on demand platform is…you guessed it, Amazon KDP.

A reader ordering a copy of your paperback would pay for both the printing and shipping of the order. This saves you both time and money. *Insert happy face here*

See a full list of supported trim sizes.

For those authors outside the US and in love with the A5 (14,8 x 21,0 cm) book size, take note, this size is not supported on Amazon. Look instead to having your book & cover size adjusted to the similar 5″ x 8″ (12.7 x 20.32 cm) size.

Over the years I have seen many local online book retailers come and go. The best solution (right now) for South African digital book distribution is local behemoth TakeAlot. I have written more about listing your paperback on TakeAlot over here. Note, my advice is to work with TakeAlot using the print-on demand method described in the article, NOT by shipping a stack of books to TakeAlot and selling them manually.

First prize will always be if Amazon accepts your direct banking details for local EFT transfer. This method does work however has proven to be a hit or miss for South African authors. I would hazard a guess that this is mostly the fault of not signing the yearly online mandate.

Outside of Amazon, many other platforms such as draft2digital.com are able to pay an author using PayPal. (Not Amazon.)

As a final solution, I recommend authors use international and online payment provider, Payoneer. (Expect high fees, unfortunately.)

This can seem a trick question. Let me explain.

Most popular online bookshops such as Amazon do not charge an author to publish a book in either eBook or paperback format. Instead, they rather deduct a percentage from each book sold.

Whilst the publishing (listing) process with a retailer such as Amazon KDP can be free, book production costs including of editing, cover design, layout and possibly the conversion process from Word-eBook format will not be. Costs for producing a book can vary widely, depending on exactly how much help you may need.

The easiest method is simply to hyperlink from your website to your book sales page on Amazon. Alternatively, you can sell your paperback book from your website using an eCommerce plugin such as WooCommerce, assuming you have a WordPress website. Finally, consider using a separate platform such as Payhip to sell your book. This can then simply be linked within your author website and avoids the need to set up eCommerce.

[Watch this for my summary on selling from your website.]

If you plan to only publish your eBook through Amazon – then an ISBN is not needed, or of any benefit. For the other smaller eBook retailers, an ISBN is sometimes required, depending on the exact store you plan to publish through.

For paperback books, an ISBN is required before publishing on Amazon. Although Amazon KDP can now help an author with a “free” ISBN should they need.

Any South African author working with us will have their ISBN application process taken care of. For other SA authors, you can approach the National Library of South Africa directly.

For authors outside of South Africa looking for an ISBN, I recommend visiting this helpful website.

I recommend all authors preview their eBook before publishing. My recommended method to preview an ePUB eBook is by using the free Kindle Previewer software. This software is currently a 325-ishMB download, available for both Windows and Apple users. Previewing your eBook is essential to understand exactly how your eBook will be experienced by readers.

No surprises here. Our favourite eBook reading application is the free Kindle reading app. Available for iOS, Android, Mac and PC users. Not to be confused with the Kindle Previewer software mentioned above.

The terms Amazon and Kindle are generally interchangeable, referring to the same business. An Amazon Kindle also refers to the propriety eBook reading device sold by Amazon.

Unfortunately, eBook (ePUB) formats weren’t designed to be printed.

No. An ePUB eBook is a one-way experience and can’t accept input from a reader.  This means that authors with workbooks or journals should focus on publishing only the paperback edition through Amazon.

No, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If a sufficiently motivated baddie wanted to pirate your eBook from a legal copy, it would be almost impossible to try and stop them.

My recommended method to reduce the motivation of a pirate is by making sure your book:

1. Is priced fairly
2. Is widely available from the world’s leading retailers.

DRM or Digital Rights Management is a technology used to limit copying of your eBook by forcing people to have relevant credentials before they can access the eBook. Authors publishing their eBook on Amazon have the option to enable DRM protection for their eBook. If selected, people who pay for and download the eBook will need to first log into their Amazon account through their reading device before they are able to read your book.

There are several drawbacks of “protecting” your work via DRM, and we normally recommend that our authors do not implement DRM through Amazon KDP platform.

Consider using the free send-to-Kindle software Amazon is now kindly sharing.  Alternatively, you could try manually transferring the eBook file over a USB link to your reading device. (Requires some technical know-how.)

An ePDF is a user-friendly PDF document that has been optimized for web delivery. This means that all external hyperlinks point to the relevant resources and all internal links also point to the correct location in the document. This includes linking items like the Table of Contents, chapter-level bookmarks and any other internal links present in the PDF. In short, it makes for a more pleasant reading experience.

Here is a checklist of the work needed in getting a user-friendly and optimised PDF ready. 

• Trim and crop: All pages trimmed to the final printed size with no registration/crop marks
• Page Numbering: All pages numbered in order
• Bookmarks: Chapter level bookmarks
• TOC: Table of content linking in the front matter
• Cross reference links: Linking the internal reference such as chapter, figure, table etc
• URL links: Linking all website links in the PDF
• Embed fonts: All fonts must be embedded
• Remove security settings: Acrobat security settings must be removed
• Image colour: Save all colour images as RGB
• Images optimized for web delivery
• Insert cover pages
• Adding the Document properties and initial view of the PDF.