Book Design and KDP Conversion
Modern-day book design has become a lot of fun with digital tools (like Adobe InDesign). What is even more fun is designing long documents to be converted for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) eBooks and print on demand (POD) paperbacks. I started with Ventura Publisher and “graduated” to become proficient with Adobe FrameMaker (when it was a Frame Technology product).
Long document book design
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Workbook
From simple to complex manuscript design, Adobe InDesign is the tool of choice for long documents and courseware workbooks. With a single-source approach, a book’s set of documents can be configured for a variety of export formats (view, print, interactive).
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Magazine
Magazine design can be used to jazz up boring user guides. Interactive PDFs give the user an amazing experience. For example, the user can click on hyperlinks to jump to another location in the publication. to display a web page in your browser, or send an email.
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Newspaper
In creating a 90-minute workshop for software programmers, we wanted to provide student handout material in an unconventional newspaper layout.
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Product Overviews
For quick starts or product overviews, a colorful 4-page document was created. Lots of instructions and graphics (“killer” screen captures).
“Ken quickly got up to speed on the technical aspects of the project and assisted other technical writers with their issues. The project ran very smoothly with Ken driving it forward. Ken has a bias toward action and results with an eye for detail.”
— Greg K.
Spresso iVersionIt user guide as an interactive PDF
Interactive books
There are better ways to design paperless manuscripts in thought-provoking formats. For example, our own Spresso iVersionIt app has a colorful, non-boring user guide that looks like a magazine: an interactive PDF.
Key features:
Notebook tabs (on the side) and next/previous buttons for easy navigation
Form field fill-ins (text, checkboxes, radio buttons, and so on)
Cross-references to key articles
Button animation and video clips
We’re so confident in how we create interactive documents (iPDFs), you can view exactly how to do it:
“He saved the day with his extensive experience with Amazon publishing, attention to detail, and client-centered approach.”
“My experience working with Ken was amazing! He was able to edit our 390-page book in just a week. It passed the KDP review quickly.”
— Alan P.
— Ashley S.
Traditional books
For workbooks, textbooks, and user guides, there is nothing better than a visually stunning, “inviting” manuscript. If designed correctly and the usage is understood, long documents can be designed for flexibility:
Language independence (not everyone reads English)
Online viewing or print (view with hyperlinks vs print with page bleeds and CMYK color model)
Single-source, multiple uses (student vs instructor content) in a single document
A hierarchy design of text styles that enables simple body text, headings, and other attributes in one place
“… as long as we get the same ‘Ken Quality’ that we had before.”
— Ashley S. [in response to my availability to fit in an upcoming book layout project]
Book to KDP conversion
Adobe’s InDesign CC has become the de facto standard for professional, multi-chapter book creation (novels, textbooks, workbooks, and instructional documentation). Instead of error-prone beta converters and unsupported tools, Amazon’s Kindle Create app makes the process so much better.
There is an overview on how to successful create a KDP eBook from InDesign (or Word):
“Communicative. Helpful. Reliable. Another successful project!”
— Kristen F.
“Your cleanup of the INDD [InDesign] file is a work of art! The tables all look great and the new consistency is very pleasing. And, all the images linked automatically. Thank you.”
— Jim S.
KDP eBooks need to look professional
This thumbnail represents sample pages of a converted InDesign book on a Kindle Paperwhite reader. This eBook thumbnail of six pages was produced using the Kindle Create app from a book originally created with Adobe InDesign, exported to Microsoft Word, and imported into Kindle Create.
There are some details we learned along the way:
“I cannot express how happy and satisfied I am with Ken's work. He was able to fix everything in one try; he is really an expert with InDesign and KDP. I will definitely work with him in the future.”
— Katriel S.
And what about KDP print on demand?
For on-demand paperback printing, KDP requires that the manuscript be in a page-oriented PDF format and is approved for printing. There are two distinct methods of producing a KDP paperback (thumbnail of six pages was produced from a PDF exported from Adobe InDesign).
Every book must conform to KDP rules for text placement, page layouts, and the use of high-resolution graphics. Custom cover spreads need to take into account page count and paper thickness available from Amazon.
For those not experienced with KDP’s strict submission approval process, your book may take several passes of corrections before it is approved for printing. I’ve learned the hard way how to avoid layout problems.
How-To instructions
Once a project has been completed, a how-to set of instructions is usually delivered to the client.
Ken Whitaker was hired for an extremely complex, multi-layered project in 2023 which lasted over a year. He was invaluable to our internal team—we could never have done this without him.
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He obviously held his own work to the highest standard which was almost entirely without flaw and always executed promptly. Remarkably, Ken took it upon himself to lead the other freelancers on our team, provided them with resources he created himself, and held weekly meetings with them! He kept me informed of the project’s status and the status of the other freelancers.
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If we ever had an InDesign question for him, he was delighted to help. His knowledge of InDesign and computers in general is significant. We had him learn our internal project management system which he did with ease, and he used it for each deliverable just as we had asked. He kept spreadsheets for himself that he freely shared with us to help keep track of the work.
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Ken is trustworthy and reliable, working every day for long hours. He was also delightful to work with – offering light humor and a jovial attitude in meetings and emails, but never wandering from professionalism. I was very sorry to see our project come to an end! Because of his expertise, diligence, and attention to detail, he finished it two months early.
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— Marci T.
For information on InDesign document layout, KDP manuscript flowable text eBook/print-on-demand (POD) paperback conversion services: