IN MAPS & LEGENDS writer Michael Jasper and I have been making digital comics for about a year now, and we want to share what we've learned, so other folks can join the fun and get their comics out to a whole new set of readers.
So, we did what any creative folks would do. We made a book! An eBook, to be precise: Formatting Comics for the Kindle and Nook.
This how-to guide covers how to assemble your comic pages or other images for the two biggest e-readers on the market: Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook. This eBook covers how to convert the images for your comic into the Kindle and Nook formats, and how to package those images in the most effective manner for those two formats. We also share what they have learned about digital comic distribution for sites other than Amazon.com and BN.com.
Some of you may have read Mike's older blog posts about formatting comics as ebooks. This guide expands greatly on those posts, with updated information and plenty of screenshots to help you figure the process out. I also wrote a brand new section about sizing your images correctly!
You can buy Formatting Comics from the following online distributors:
Amazon’s Kindle Store (Kindle)
Barnes & Noble (Nook)
Smashwords (HTML, MOBI, ePub, PDF, RTF, LRF, PDB)
DriveThruComics (PDF Download)
And if you'd like to know what's actually in the book, here's the complete table of contents:
Introduction
Part 1: Preparing Graphics
- Adjusting for a Smaller Screen
- Tweaking the Text Size
- Adjusting Image Legibility, and Deciding on Grayscale vs Color
- Setting Pixel Dimensions for Kindle
- Setting Pixel Dimensions for Nook
- Adjusting the File Size
- Streamlining the Formatting Process
- Creating the Cover
Part 2: Uploading Your eBooks
- Uploading Your Comic for the Kindle
- Uploading Your Comic for the Nook
Part 3: Working with Digital Distributors
About the Creators
Each chapter is accompanied by step-by-step screenshots to help you format your images and put together your Kindle and .ePub files.
Hope you check it out, and let your comic-writing friends know about our eBook -- and anyone else who may have an image-heavy book to turn into an eBook and is looking for a tutorial. While our experience is with formatting comics, the guide should be useful to anyone looking to make a eBook version of a coffee table book, children's picture book, photo book, art book, and more. Happy publishing!