E-Book Template: Digital Format Standards

Okay so here’s the deal with ebook formatting – I spent like three months last year fixing templates because I kept getting rejections from Amazon and it drove me absolutely nuts until I figured out what actually matters versus what’s just people overthinking it.

The File Formats That Actually Work

Most people stress about this way too much. Amazon KDP takes EPUB, MOBI, DOC, DOCX, HTML, and a bunch of others but honestly? Just use EPUB or upload a Word doc. I’ve published over 200 books and probably 180 of them were just Word documents uploaded directly. The conversion works fine like 90% of the time.

EPUB is the industry standard though and if you’re gonna be serious about this you need to understand it. It’s basically just HTML and CSS files zipped together with some metadata. Sounds complicated but once you get a template going it’s super easy to replicate.

MOBI is Amazon’s old format and honestly you don’t even need to think about it anymore. They convert everything to their new KFX format anyway on the backend. I wasted so many hours in 2019 trying to perfect MOBI files and then Amazon changed everything and none of it mattered.

Word Document Setup That Won’t Drive You Crazy

If you’re starting with Word which most people do here’s what actually matters:

Use styles properly. Like actually use the Heading 1, Heading 2, Normal styles instead of just making text bigger or bold. This is how Amazon’s converter builds your table of contents and if you don’t do this your navigation is gonna be broken. I learned this the hard way on my first 20 books and had to go back and fix them all.

Set your page size to 6×9 inches even though ebooks don’t have pages. Sounds weird but it helps you visualize how much content you’re actually writing and the conversion handles it better. Go to Layout > Size > More Paper Sizes.

Margins should be 0.5 inches all around. Don’t go crazy with custom margins because the ereader is gonna override most of it anyway depending on what device people use.

The Metadata That Actually Shows Up

This is where people mess up constantly. Your ebook file needs proper metadata embedded or Amazon’s gonna make assumptions and sometimes they’re wrong.

Title and author name – seems obvious but make sure it matches EXACTLY what you put in KDP. I’ve had books get stuck in review because I had “Daniel Harper” in the file but “D. Harper” in KDP.

ISBN if you’re using one but honestly for ebooks on Amazon you don’t need it. They assign an ASIN. I only use ISBNs when I’m also doing print books or distributing wide.

Language code – set it properly. EN for English, EN-US if you wanna be specific. I had a book tagged as EN-GB once by mistake and it messed up my keyword indexing for like a month.

Cover Image Standards Nobody Tells You

Your cover needs to be embedded in the EPUB file AND uploaded separately to KDP. The embedded one shows up in the book’s interior on some devices, the uploaded one is what shows in the store.

Minimum 1600 pixels on the longest side, but I always do 2560×1600 because it looks better on newer Kindle screens. File size under 5MB for the upload.

RGB color mode not CMYK. This trips up people who come from print publishing. Screens display RGB so that’s what you need.

Save as JPEG not PNG unless you absolutely need transparency which you probably don’t for an ebook cover. JPEGs compress better and load faster.

Typography Standards That Won’t Get Your Book Rejected

Okay so this is gonna sound nitpicky but Amazon’s actually pretty strict about certain things.

Font choices – stick to standard fonts. Georgia, Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica. You can embed custom fonts in an EPUB but it increases file size and honestly most readers override your font choice anyway in their settings. I stopped bothering with custom fonts around book #50.

Font size – use relative sizing not absolute. In your CSS or Word styles use percentages or em units not specific point sizes. Let the reader control the actual size. If you force 12pt text Amazon might flag it.

Line spacing should be 1.15 to 1.5. Single spacing looks cramped on screens, double spacing wastes space. I use 1.3 for most of my books.

Paragraph formatting here’s where people really mess up. Either use first-line indent OR block paragraphs with space between. Don’t do both. I prefer first-line indent of 0.2 inches with no space between paragraphs because it’s more traditional and uses less scrolling.

Special Characters and Encoding

Use UTF-8 encoding always. This ensures special characters, accents, symbols all display correctly across devices.

Smart quotes not straight quotes. Like curly “quotes” not straight “quotes”. Most word processors do this automatically but if you’re coding HTML make sure you’re using the right entities.

Em dashes—these are the long ones—not double hyphens — which look amateur. Word usually autocorrects but double check. I had a 300-page book with double hyphens throughout once and someone left a review complaining about it specifically.

Ellipses are three periods with specific spacing… but honestly just let your word processor handle it. Don’t manually type three periods in a row.

Table of Contents Requirements

Amazon requires a functional table of contents for any book over like 20 pages or so. There’s two types and you might need both which is annoying.

NCX TOC is the old XML-based navigation that Kindle devices use. If you’re creating an EPUB manually you need to include a toc.ncx file. But if you’re uploading a Word doc Amazon generates this automatically from your heading styles.

HTML TOC is the one readers see when they tap the TOC button. This should be an actual page in your book usually right after the title page. I always include one even if it’s just chapter numbers because it looks more professional.

The HTML TOC needs to have working hyperlinks to each section. In Word you can insert a TOC automatically from the References tab and it’ll create the links for you. Make sure you update it if you add or change chapters.

Front Matter and Back Matter Setup

Front matter order that works: Title page, copyright page, dedication (optional), table of contents, foreword or preface (optional). That’s it. Don’t go crazy with 15 pages of front matter because readers want to get to the actual content.

Copyright page needs to have copyright year, your name or publisher name, “All rights reserved” or whatever rights statement you want, and ideally an ISBN if you have one. I also put my website and a note about not reproducing without permission.

Back matter is where you can actually make more money. I always include: a call to action to leave a review, links to my other books, maybe a preview chapter of another book, and my email list signup. This stuff converts way better than people think.

Image Handling for Ebooks

Images are tricky in ebooks because screen sizes vary so much. Phone, tablet, e-reader, desktop Kindle app – they’re all different.

Keep images under 500KB each if possible. Large images bloat your file size and Amazon charges delivery fees based on file size which eats into your royalties. I compress everything through TinyPNG before embedding.

Resolution 300 DPI is overkill for screens. 150 DPI is plenty. I usually go with 96 DPI for most images unless it’s something where detail really matters.

Format should be JPEG for photos, PNG for graphics with text or sharp lines. GIF works but honestly why would you use GIF in 2024.

Center your images and add a line break before and after. Floating images left or right looks terrible on small screens. I learned this when someone sent me a screenshot of my book on their phone and the text was wrapping weird around an image.

Oh and another thing – if you have a book with lots of images like a cookbook or travel guide, consider making it a fixed-layout ebook instead of reflowable. Fixed layout maintains your exact design across all devices but you lose the ability for readers to change font size. There’s tradeoffs.

CSS Styling for EPUB Files

If you’re getting into the technical side and building EPUBs from scratch you need a basic CSS file. Don’t go overboard though because ereaders have limited CSS support.

Stick to basic properties like font-family, font-size, font-weight, font-style, text-align, margin, padding, text-indent. Fancy stuff like transitions, animations, complex positioning – none of that works reliably.

Use classes not IDs for styling. Classes are reusable, IDs are unique identifiers and you probably don’t need them unless you’re doing something with javascript which you shouldn’t be.

My cat just knocked over my coffee cup which is perfect timing for a break in this rant but anyway.

Testing Your Ebook Before Upload

You gotta test this stuff before uploading to KDP. Download Kindle Previewer from Amazon – it’s free and shows you how your book will look on different devices. I check every single book on phone view, tablet view, and e-reader view.

Calibre is another free tool that opens and edits EPUB files. Super useful for finding formatting errors. You can also use it to convert between formats but honestly Amazon’s converter is good enough now that I rarely bother.

Send the file to your actual Kindle using Send to Kindle. Test it on a real device because sometimes the previewer doesn’t catch everything. I’ve had weird page break issues that only showed up on my actual Paperwhite.

Common Formatting Mistakes That Tank Books

Forced page breaks everywhere. You only need page breaks between chapters or major sections. Don’t hit enter 20 times to create white space because it looks different on every device.

Centered text for body paragraphs. Just no. Center your title page, center chapter headings if you want, but body text should always be left-aligned. I see this in amateur books all the time.

Inconsistent formatting between chapters. If Chapter 1 has a certain heading style, Chapter 2 better match it. Sounds obvious but I’ve done it myself when I was working on a book over several weeks and forgot what I did earlier.

Manual numbering for lists instead of using actual list formatting. Use the bullet point and numbered list buttons in Word. The conversion handles them properly and they’ll display correctly.

File Size Considerations

Amazon charges delivery fees for books over 3MB in certain markets. It comes out of your royalty so smaller is better. Most text-only books are under 1MB which is fine.

If your file is huge check your images first. They’re usually the culprit. Compress them more aggressively or reduce dimensions.

Embedded fonts add size. If you’re not using a custom font don’t embed font files in your EPUB.

I aim for under 2MB for everything. My biggest file ever was like 8MB for a photography book with tons of images and I definitely noticed the delivery fees eating into profits.

Okay I think that covers most of the important stuff. There’s obviously more technical details if you wanna go deep into EPUB 3.0 specs and all that but honestly this is the stuff that matters for actually publishing books that sell and don’t get rejected.