The Kindle Relents, Lets Oneironauts In

I could try to get you to believe how difficult making my book into Kindle material was, but I know you don't like unsolicited preaching as much as the next guy. Suffice it to say, I had a wild ride getting this thing to work. The biggest hurdle is the lack of documentation. Amazon apparently expects the majority of people to upload a document file then let their algorithms chew through it and spit out a .mobi file. However, my attempt at getting such a file generated fell flat on its pupillary sphincters. It was all kinds of messed up. So many kinds of messed up, it would have been easier for me to write my own file than try and fix theirs. And did this happen because of my sloppy use of Microsoft Word formatting?

Absolutely not. It's quite obviously an issue with Amazon's code ;)

Let me explain though. To make a .mobi file, you need an HTML file of your book, and two additional XML files for navigation and such. You then combine all this in a command line executable (which I have no issues with). Nowhere is it documented that you need to use the .opf file in the cmd line argument. Also, there is little in the way of tutorials on making the two XML files (the .opf and the .ncx), so that took an age.

Fortunately I'm now in a position to easily produce another eBook once I acquire the text. If you have any questions on the process, just ask.

Here are the links: Book page and the Kindle-specific page. I'd love to hear any feedback on the eBook for those of you who get it. **I've also told Amazon that if a customer buys the physical copy, then they can download the digital book for free.