How to Publish with KDP: Part Eleven

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Hello SErs. Harmony here.  As promised, here is  part eleven in the post series dedicated to taking a step-by-step look at how to get your finished manuscript from your computer and on sale on Amazon in both ebook and paperback.

If you’d like to take a look back at the previous posts in this series, please click on the links at the end of this post.

So, here’s Part Eleven: How to Preview Your eBook.

The quickest and easiest way is to use Amazon’s online previewer to view your eBook. However, it is always best–if you can–to check how your finished book looks on as many devices as possible … more on that later.

As we saw in Part Ten, once you’ve uploaded your eBook, you can click on ‘Launch Previewer’ at the bottom of your eBook details page.

 

The following screen will load >>> (It might take some time.)

You can use the arrows to navigate from page to page, or alternatively, you can type in a location at the top of the page. I would recommend checking all of your internal links here too to make sure they work properly.

 

Other ways you can preview your book involve first downloading the file to your computer or device. See the next screenshot >>>

As you can see, Amazon gives you two options. The first one will dowload a Mobi file to your computer.

Top Tip:

If you want a Mobi file to send out to friends/family/or freebies to email, then downloading to your computer, using the ‘Preview on your computer’ option, gives you your finished eBook to keep in your files.

Option 2 also involves downloading a file to your computer, ready for emailing. To use this option, you will first need to have set up an approved ‘send to Kindle’ email. See this link HERE for more information on that.

When I make an eBook, I always make mulitple versions (ePub, etc.), rather than just Mobi, so that I can check how the book looks on all platforms. Also, this allows me to gift a selection of book files to reach as many readers as possible.

You don’t need to have a Kindle ereader to preview your book on your tablet or phone. You can use a Kindle app instead. Amazon also has an app to read on your computer.

You can download the apps HERE.

That’s it from me for today. I hope you’ve found this post useful. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, and I’ll see you all again on Wednesday, July 15th, where we’ll be taking a look at how to edit your eBook.

Past posts in this series:

Outline: https://wp.me/p7OGru-29c

Part 1 (Software for Writing) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29t

Part 2 (General Formatting Necessities) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29J

Part 3 (Ebook Conversion) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2ah

Part 4 (Paperback Formatting) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2eS

Part 5 (Image Software for Making Book Covers) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2gi

Part 6 A (Using Amazon’s Cover Creator Tool for eBook) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2gQ

Part 6 B (Making your own ebook cover to upload to Amazon) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2hQ

Part 7 A (Using Amazon’s Cover Creator Tool for Paperback) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2jY

Part 7 B (Making your own PDF book cover to upload to Amazon) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2kf

Part 8 (Setting up your KDP account) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2kF

Part 9 (An overview of your KDP Dashboard) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2lq

Part 10 (Uploading your eBook) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2pL

 

To make it easy to browse back and forth, I’ve set all links to open in new tabs. As this series progresses, I will update the links for you so that each post includes links to all past posts in the series.

©Harmony Kent 2020

(If you’re reading this post on or after July 15th, 2020, then here’s the link for Part 12 in the How to Publish with KDP series: https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Aa. Please note, the link won’t work until July 15th, 2020.)

 

48 thoughts on “How to Publish with KDP: Part Eleven”

  1. Your information regarding previewing was a lifesaver when I released In Search of McDoogal, Harmony. I had uploaded an HTML file that looked fine. It wasn’t until I previewed on my Kindle that I caught a lot of glitches and converted to mobi.

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  7. Pingback: How to Publish with KDP: Part Eleven | Story Empire | Welcome to Harmony Kent Online

  8. This is very helpful, Harmony. I’ve saved all parts of the steps by steps for my future books. My first book was a poetry with photos. So I had a lot of problem using MS Word. I ended up using Kindle Create which didn’t give me an option to download as MOBI. i would like to have a MOBI file of my book for giveaway. I forwarded your posts to a couple people who consider self-publishing.

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  16. Reblogged this on The Write Stuff and commented:

    Harmony Kent is back on Story Empire today with #11 in How to Publish with KDP: How to Preview Your Book. This step is very important, and one that writers need to pay close attention to. Check out Harmony’s full instructions and illustrations to see just how to handle it. Don’t forget to pass the post along so others can check it out, as well, thanks. And thanks to Harmony for such a helpful post! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  17. For some reason, this is the part of publishing my book I find the most fun–actually seeing how the final product is going to look. I use everything you described (and illustrated) above, usually. And once the book goes live, I download a final copy, just to be sure it looks good to buyers. (This has been a process I’ve developed since I started, as I began to realize you can’t check it over TOO often.)

    Great post today, in a great series. Passing it along! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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      • Oh, yes! Holding a brand spanking new copy of your book in print is the BEST!! 😀 I will never forget the day I received the first box of books from my first novel. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry–so I did both! 😀 Writing might involve all sorts of blood, sweat, and tears, but nothing can beat that feeling! 🙂 ❤

        Liked by 1 person

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