How to Format a Book for Kindle, Step-by-Step

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How to format a book for kindle, in three easy steps.

Why you should know how to format a book for Kindle

Once upon a time, writers relied on traditional publishing to get their books in front of an audience. And it’s true that publishing through an established company means your book won’t get sent out into the world full of typos.

But every writer also knows this: sometimes, publishing houses release bland books that should’ve stayed in draft form forever. Conversely, sometimes even the best books never find a home through a traditional publisher. Actually, this happens all the time.

This situation has driven many writers to take matters into their own hands and self-publish books through platforms like Amazon. One neat thing about Amazon is that you can easily format an e-book using Kindle Create, a free formatting software that makes your book look professional before you upload it to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

If you’re wondering how to format a book for Kindle, keep reading. We’ll show you everything you need to know in three simple steps.

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Which One Won? In a book about Jesus, aliens sell

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Say you’re a writer of religious self-help books, but you want your book to appeal to everyone. Do you design your title and cover with religion in mind or the general audience who’ll be reading it (hopefully)?

Author Michael Peters created a PickFu poll to answer that question for his own religious self-help book.

Option A’s title is a bit of a mouthful: Lost in Detroit: Bent Nails, Alien Life, and Jesus of Nazareth: The Journey to the Non-Religious Jesus. The cover features a clean black, white, and turquoise color scheme with the Detroit skyline below the title.

Option B’s title is much shorter: Tired of Religion? Come & See Jesus of Nazareth. The cover art is a blurred painting of Jesus.

Can you guess which one won?

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How to Start a Fantasy Novel

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How to Start a Fantasy Novel | PickFu.com

When a potential reader is scanning the shelves at their local bookstore, a few things catch their eye and make them pick up your book. First are the title and book cover. Second, the blurb. Finally, they’ll open your book, thumb through the pages, and read the first couple of sentences. Will your first paragraph be enough to hook your audience into buying your book? Let’s discuss how to start a fantasy novel.

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Which One Won? Choosing products to sell online

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When choosing products to sell online, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If the product you want to sell is popular with the masses, embrace its popularity. 

But because trends come and go, it’s good to test products side by side and see which is more appealing. You’ll get an idea of which products to stock up on. 

In this PickFu poll, the seller is choosing products to sell online by asking which set of motivational wall art prints would be more popular. The two sets of prints have different motivational sayings and different designs. The most notable difference is that Option A includes some graphic elements, while Option B is just text designs. 

  • Choosing products to sell online - Option A
  • Choosing products to sell online - Option B
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Which One Won? Product images for Amazon

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pick poll which one won

While browsing, online shoppers focus most of their attention on your product images for Amazon. Amazon sellers need professional-looking photography for product listings, including detail shots, lifestyle scenes, and key images. 

An e-commerce seller used this PickFu poll to test two key images from a general audience of 50 respondents. Each image is a variation of a product flat lay showcasing the included colors, sponges, and brushes of the seller’s face and body paint kit.

Both key images have similar layouts but Option B includes a picture of a female model covered in the body paint. There are also variations in the features highlighted on the main graphics. Between the two product images for Amazon, can you guess which one won? 

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6 Tips to Improve eBay Listing Optimization

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Image showing text that says 6 tips to improve eBay listing optimization.

eBay has been an e-commerce seller’s dream spot for years — and for good reason. You can sell almost anything on eBay: used items, collectibles, refurbished gadgets, and of course, new goods. And while there’s a market out there for nearly anything you could sell on eBay, you need to keep your eBay listing optimization skills sharp and up-to-the-minute.

ebay listing optimization - listing for One ghost in a cardboard Amazon box
Any takers for this irresistible listing on eBay? Okay, so maybe the ghost-collecting market isn’t as big as the seller thought.

Also called eBay SEO, eBay listing optimization makes it easier for your target audience to find your product amidst the 1.3 billion listings currently featured on the site.

Here’s the key detail about eBay’s search engine, Cassini: its main goal is to keep shoppers — not necessarily sellers — happy.

Everything you post on your listing, therefore, needs to be aimed at shopper ease and satisfaction. By optimizing your eBay listing according to your buyers’ needs and desires, you’re optimizing the listing for eBay’s search engine.

Here are 6 ways to do just that.

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Which One Won? Mobile app game ideas

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which one won pickfu mobile games

Split testing with PickFu is useful for deciding between design aspects of your app or website, but it’s also effective for validating any new mobile app game ideas you have. Before investing too much time or money into a new game concept, you can create a PickFu poll to find out how well your idea is received by an audience.

That’s exactly what the creator of this poll did, showcasing screenshots of two different mobile games and asking which one the audience would be more likely to play. 

Both games are idle role-playing games and show two sides battling in an open environment. Option A has a darker background with cartoon-style characters, while Option B has a brighter background with more realistic characters. 

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Which One Won? Making insider knowledge appeal to outsiders

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There’s something appealing about reading a book from an insider’s perspective. It could be a book about being a paparazzo, or a midwife, or a maid. If there’s the magnetic pull of secret, insider information, we want to know it.

But there are ways to make even the most intriguing insider books stand out. One airline pilot wrote a book about tackling jetlag — from a pilot’s perspective — and created a PickFu poll to test two covers and titles.

Option A features a yellow-and-black illustration of a flight information display system. Option B shows two passports and an airplane laid over a map. The subtitle is long but neatly tucked under the prominent title.

Can you guess which one won?

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Copy Testing: The Secret to Better Sales

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Asian Businesswoman Writing on Glass in Office

Have you ever seen a really neat product on Amazon that you considered buying until you read the product description? Maybe there were missing words, misspellings, jumbled sentences, or glaring grammatical errors. It’s clear the company did not try copy testing before it went live.

What is copy testing?

If you’re a seller of any product, you know that clean, meaningful copy helps your product sell.

Copy testing is the best way to make sure you put your sharpest words before your customers’ eyes. You take your marketing copy (see examples below) and show it to an objective crowd. The test respondents then provide you with detailed feedback so you can know what’s working and what’s not before you put your copy out into the market.

Copy testing is especially effective when you’re selling across borders to ensure that your copy hits the right notes in the native language. Even British English and American English have distinct cultural differences, and you want to how customers in your relevant regions respond to your words.

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