Business Corner

Although Amazon will not confirm how many of their popular Kindle e-readers have been sold, the number is estimated to be in the millions. One testament to the Kindle’s popularity is that there are more than 950,000 ebook titles available for immediate download from Amazon’s Kindle store. Add to that all of the ways readers can buy Kindle ebooks even without owning a Kindle and you can believe Amazon’s claim that Kindle ebook sales have surpassed sales of print books.

All you need to buy ebooks from Amazon without a Kindle is one of the many free Kindle reading apps available. Start by going to Amazon.com. In the left navigation, click on Kindle, then Free Kindle Reading Apps. On that page you will find links to download the Kindle reading app for the Windows PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7.

With the app installed you can download free and paid ebooks from the Kindle store and read them on your favorite device. (Because of a recent change in the terms of service for Apple apps, ebooks can not be downloaded via the Kindle apps running on an Apple device. However, ebooks can be purchased through a web browser and delivered to the Apple device.)

Even if you own a Kindle, you may want to use one or more of the Kindle reader apps. Using an app on a mobile device allows you to buy from anywhere, and read anywhere, even if you don’t have your Kindle with you. Most people have their phones with them wherever they go, so anytime you have a few spare minutes you can read a bit of that novel you are having a hard time putting down. Any of the Kindle ebooks already in your library can be transferred to other devices, and the ebooks can be accessed from more than one device. For example, I have some of my Kindle ebooks on my Kindle, my PC and my iPhone.  Read more... (514 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Have a book you’re dying to share with the world? Sigil is an open source program available for free online that will allow you to quickly and easily convert your book to the.epub format for submission to Kindle ebooks and elsewhere.

Publishing options for ebooks abound, but if you’ve honed in on the opportunity to self-publish your ebook with Amazon – for the Kindle – or elsewhere and need an.epub format file, you probably need some words of encouragement, a pat on the back for writing a worthy and unique book, and a little help converting your book to the proper format for publication. I’m here for ya! I’ll walk you through the wonderful Sigil Program .epub formatting process.

Alright, the first thing you’re going to want to do is open your document in whatever program you’ve created it in and use the ‘Save As’ feature to save the document as HTML. Then go online and grab a free program called Sigil (see program download link in article resource box below) and install it on your computer. Open your .HTML document in Sigil and immediately use the ‘Save As’ feature to save your document with an .epub extension (It’s the only option available in the program.). Now you have a document that is in the correct file type for submission to Amazon’s Kindle ebooks, but don’t stop now; your book still needs to be properly formatted – this is where you’re going to fall in love with Sigil! **

Here are the 6 steps to follow to convert your document using Sigil:

1) Separate Your Book into Sections: Scroll down your document until you find the your first ‘Chapter’ break and use the Sigil squiggle button (fifteenth option from the left on the top panel of screen) to create a break in the document. Repeat this process throughout your document wherever you want a separation in the document. (Save your work.)  Read more... (947 words, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)