Last time I posted, I was struggling with KDP paperback publishing. Three Mylar balloons and two of my best curse words later, I hired Judi Fennell of Formatting4u.com to help Night to Dawn 35 to meet KDP specs. The process started out messy, but thankfully Judi had a lot of patience. The upshot was, Night to Dawn 35 is now available on Amazon. I’ve started mailing copies of Night to Dawn 35 to the respective contributors, not from KDP, but from Lulu Press.
Night to Dawn 35 of Amazon won’t look like Lulu’s or Barnes & Noble’s version because of these specs. For one thing, you can’t have a title on the cover and list of contributors. You need an author name, or in Night to Dawn’s case, “Edited by” name. So the cover page will read “Presented by Barbara Custer.” For the folks who haven’t read the book, I like to use two columns for many of the stories. That didn’t work for the KDP files, so all the stories and poetry in the Amazon version have one column. The illustrations, poetry, and tales are the same in both versions.
Amazon had a great thing going with CreateSpace and moved too fast by switching over to KDP. CreateSpace used to supply their own manuscript and cover templates for people that needed them. KDP has interior and cover templates, too. Trouble was, I downloaded an interior template and received the Idle Buddy Trojan virus into my computer, necessitating a trip to the computer repair shop. Esther Mitchell, a good writing buddy, sent me templates I can use for the trade paperback and Night to Dawn magazine. These templates have worked on KDP and are safe to use. The 6×9 template was made by Publisher Gail Delaney.
My takeaways? I learned I wasn’t the only author having problems uploading. Formatting4U has been getting a lot of business thanks to KDP managing paperbacks. I also found out I may need to look at photo editing software so I can resize images without messing up the DPI.
Also, KDP does provide you with specs on margins and page layout, and I recommend that you use that instead of their templates. You don’t want a computer virus. If you wish, contact me at barbaracuster@hotmail.com, and I will be glad to mail you a blank template. I am using the template to format L. M. Labat’s The Sanguinarian Schwartzwald, but referring to KDP’s page for margins and adjusting as needed. Before I work with KDP again, I may want to fortify myself with another Mylar balloon. Your thoughts?
