Kindle e-book available now! Inside Citrix – The FlexCast Management Architecture

It was always my intention to create an e-book version of my book as soon as I had it finished for print, and since I choose the Create Space self-publishing platform it had to be in the so-called Kindle format. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to offer it on Amazon, as I did with my paperback version as well. To be honest, of all the research I did, I didn’t spend any time looking at how to create a Kindle e-book. Something I would regret later on. I just assumed it would be fairly straightforward to convert a Word and/or .PDF document into a nicely formatted Kindle file. Boy was I wrong.

If you’d like to know what I mean with the above, then by all means do read on. In fact, I would recommend you to do so. However, long story short – as of today my book is also available as a Kindle e-book through all well-known Amazon channels, including India. See the links below:

United States – United Kingdom – Germany – France – Spain – Italy – Netherlands – Japan – Brazil – India – Canada – Mexico – Australia

It’s about 25% cheaper than the paperback version, and it will be offered as an additional purchase for 2.99 when you buy the paperback version. Previous buyers of the paperback version will also have the option to buy the Kindle version for 2.99, though this option isn’t available yet but will be in the (near) future.

– Pick up a paperback version as well, click here –

As a side note: The Inside Citrix – The FlexCast Management Architecture Kindle book has been tested using various Amazon Kindle software. I used the Kindle online reviewer as well as the Kindle offline previewer.

Next to that I also reviewed the book multiple times using the native Kindle client software for both Mac and Windows. I looked at formatting, corrected a few small spelling errors here and there, tested with a couple of different font types and sizes, checked the links/URLs, reformatted the Table of Contents, re-written all the tables into bulleted text lists etc.

While Amazon advices to test Kindle books using one or multiple of these software packages before publishing, I cannot guarantee –  and neither can anybody else –  a perfect layout/formatting and reading experience on every physical Kindle device out there, especially the older ones.

Here’s what I’ve found during my tests. The book looks exactly the way it should on the Kindle Fire HDX, Fire HDX 8.9, Kindle Voyage, Kindle for iPad (though it does uses text indents by default, which it does not do on the other mentioned devices), iPhone, Android table and phone. And as mentioned, it also looked great (probably best even) using the kindle native app for both Mac and Windows.

The only formatting issue I encountered was on the Kindle DX, here the bulleted lists were somewhat off. This could also be the case on some of the older Kindle models, although I’m not a 100% sure on that. However, the book still made sense and was more than readable, I am just not easily satisfied.

Kindle files are somewhat special

It definitely helps to have certain HTML and CSS skills when formatting your Kindle book, especially since most Kindle books are ‘reflowable’, meaning users can adjust the font size and type as they feel fit on the go. There is also a ‘special’ approach and multiple considerations when it comes to tables, font types and sizes, (hard) enters and whitespaces, images, the table of contents, bulleted lists and so on.

Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) offers an online conversion option where you can upload your Word or .PDF file and they will take care of the conversion to a supported Kindle file format for you.

As you can image I had all my hopes riding on this feature, and it was one of the first things I tried after publishing my (paperback) book, unfortunately the results were far from satisfying. At first, after digging in a bit more, I came to the conclusion that this (the whole formatting issue) would be too much for me to take on by myself. I have HTML skills, sure, I build my first ever website using nothing but Notepad, however, not only does kindle formatting asks for different approach, it would also take me another month (at least) to finish, maybe two. And even then it would be questionable if the result would be acceptable, as I am not easily satisfied. So my search for a designer / formatter started.

Since I was, or am on a budget I tried Fiverr, a great resource of relatively cheap and professional IT specialists. Although my first experiences with Fiverr – when I looked for a designer to take care of my book cover – were somewhat disappointing (I ended up doing it all myself) I decided to give it another try. Quickly I stumbled upon a highly recommend Kindle formatter. I contacted him, I paid and of we went. A couple of days later I was confronted with the result: horrible. Please, let’s just leave it at that. Shortly after that, with the second so-called designer I sort of went down the same path, but again, I wasn’t happy *understatement*.

All this was about five weeks ago when I had just released my book on Amazon. Just over a week ago I decided to give it another (final) try, again using Fiverr as my main source. I had come across a few potential candidates in other places but at ten to twenty times the costs. This time I made sure to pick a ‘professional’ formatter, as far as I could tell of course. Before we came to an agreement we talked extensively about what the general idea was, my expectations and I even send him the document to work with beforehand so that he (I assume it was a he) could have a look and decide if he could ‘deliver’. This wouldn’t be an issue, and he also ensured me his work was always professional and well taken care of etc. I trusted him, wired the amount we agreed upon and waited.

When I saw the final result just recently, I just didn’t know how to react. They call themselves professional formatters, designers or whatever, unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Or maybe I just had bad luck and came across the only three wannabe / fraud formatters on Fiverr, who knows! I guess you truly get what you pay for.

The reason I know that it would take me a lot of time to get the formatting right, and I honestly doubt if I can get it a 100% right, is because I have actually read and gone through the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guideline guide, plus a bunch of other related material. Something I am sure none of these so-called formatters did. Otherwise they would have warned me beforehand, right? Too bad I had to learn the hard way. I guess I can only blame myself.

During the last week or so –  closer to ten days probably –  I have spent quite some time re-formatting my book to make it suitable for Kindle distribution. I think I can safely say that I did a more then reasonable job. I am still not a 100% satisfied, but that’s mainly because the (bulleted lists) formatting on some of the older Kindle devices, the DX in particular, is somewhat off. But this is the best I can do, and trust me, it still makes sense and looks more than reasonable.

I guess I can put this on my – writing a book ‘lessons learned’ list as well.

I hope you enjoy it!

Bas van Kaam

Field CTO EMEA by day, author by night @ Nerdio

Father of three, EMEA Field CTO @ Nerdio, Author of the book Van de Basis tot aan Meester in de Cloud, Co-author of the book Project Byte-Sized and Yuthor of the book: Inside Citrix – The FlexCast Management Architecture, over 500 blog posts and multiple (ultimate) cheat sheets/e-books. Public speaker, sport enthusiast­­­­­­­­: above-average runner, 3 x burpee-mile finisher and a former semiprofessional snooker player. IT community participant and initiator of the AVD User group Community world wide.