So You Wanna Get In On The Kindle Market But Don't Know How?

A lot of people are touting the Kindle, the ease of reading as well as the ability to go into business for yourself.  I'm one of those proponents.  The technology has taken the reading/publishing world by storm and has reinvigorated the interest in stories and fiction and reading on the go.

However, a lot of writers get frustrated trying to follow Amazon's instructions for how to upload to the Kindle.  I spent some harsh weeks trying to figure everything out, especially dodging and weaving through their directions for navigating the whole HTML translation.  Rough stuff in the early days last year.

Michael L. Kent is a University of Oklahoma professor I work with and see on a regular basis.  We also do fun things like shoot zombies at the local target range.  Since he's a rhetoric professor, he can kill you with a cutting comment, and he can blow you out of your socks with a Baby Desert Eagle while on the run.  Multipurposed, this guy.

While I was talking about the Kindle and all the transmutations of the publishing field, Michael got interested.  He does that regarding technology and problems.  He taught me Photoshop and various things about internet marketing, and he's teaching me more stuff.  In return, I teach him some things too regarding writing fiction.

Together, we're a good pair.  We've got some surprises coming regarding the Kindle and book publishing that I haven't seen anywhere else on the internet -- and I've looked.  Cool stuff.  So stay tuned.

In the meantime, Michael got frustrated with the whole way the Kindle seemed unfriendly to Mac computers (of which he is a huge proponent -- we disagree about some things, but we overlook each other's flaws).  So he bought a PC computer (groaned about it the whole time is what he actually did) and still tells me I need to join him in the 21st century.  I tell him he can join me on various MMORPG games now that he has a real computer and I'll hand him his butt.

Using the PC as a jumping off point, Michael figured out a way through the complex morass of Kindle directions and pared them down to simple efforts, then added a method of putting dingbats into the document.  (For those of you who don't know, dingbats are special characters with visual flair -- adds coolness to your books, like for chapter headings, first line stuff, etc.!  I'm gonna be using those from now on.)  Of course, he immediately translated all of that into Mac programming and gave Mac authors a much easier way of uploading their manuscripts to the Kindle, along with some neat visuals and effects (like bullet lists and other stuff to set the manuscript off so that it looks really professional).

When he showed me the book, I grasped immediately what he was doing.  Then I asked him why he didn't do one for the PC, pointed out that they, too, were deserving.  So he did.

So whatever your flavor, Michael has provided a down and dirty system to get your books/stories/articles into eprint at Amazon.  And if you can get it done there, Nook is cake.  But you gotta go where the action is with the current big boy on the block.

Pick up whichever one you need.  With easy to understand language, image captures from the computer screens (which a lot of authors struggled with and Michael shows you how to do that), you'll be uploading much more quickly and in a more hassle-free way.