Reviewing your ebook
So your designer has finished your ebook file. Before you rush to send it off to distributors, there's still one crucial last step to go. It's vital to check what your book will look like to your readers when they read it on an e-reader, it'll help you spot errors and inconsistencies you wouldn't otherwise notice, and check the reading experience in ways you simply can't when viewing the file on your computer.
Open the ebook with the right software
You'll need some software to review your ebook. The file you receive once your ebook conversion is complete is an epub file, you can't just open this on a PC, unlike an image or video file, there's no software on most PCs that can read an epub file. So we recommend you use Amazon's Kindle Previewer, which is free to download. Just type "Kindle Previewer" into your browser, go to the Amazon site, and download and install the software, there's a version for Windows and one for Mac. Once installed, simply drag your epub into the software and it will display it for you. Top left are the Preview Options, you can view your ebook as it will appear on a tablet, a phone or a Kindle e-reader, change the orientation, and select both the font and the font size. This really is the best way to see what your ebook will look like when your customers buy it and load it onto their device.
Understand how ebooks differ from print
Before you review your ebook and make notes on any changes you want, it's worth reminding yourself what an ebook is and what it is not, it's definitely a case of picking your battles, as there are some things you simply won't be able to change. Fonts will be different to your printed book. Many of the fancier fonts that designers use for book typesetting or cover designs are either incredibly expensive to license for use in an ebook, or not available at all, so designers will typically replace particularly stylized heading fonts with similar, freely licensed versions. The main body text will also vary from device to device, this one is completely out of your control, each reader sets the font they prefer on their own device. Certain layout features available in a printed book aren't possible within a reflowable ebook either, things like wrapping text around images, including images within paragraphs, background images, and text in multiple columns.
Don't expect fixed pages
Often authors hope to keep certain bits of text, headings or images "together on the page." The problem is that reflowable ebooks don't have pages, instead the text flows freely from one screen to the next, depending on the size of your screen and your settings. If you changed device or reduced the font size, you'd find each "page" looked entirely different. As much as it would be nice to keep things consistent, trying to force certain things to stay together on the screen can result in lots of empty spaces throughout the rest of the ebook.
Be aware of color differences
Some e-readers are color, and some are black and white. The most popular e-ink Kindle devices only use black text and images, so any elements of your printed book that were in color will now appear in grayscale instead. This is normal and expected, and it's one of the reasons ebook designs prioritise clarity and contrast over decorative color.
Understand ebook navigation
If you have a contents page in your printed book and decide to include the same in your ebook, be aware that readers will view and use it slightly differently. Designers often hyperlink text in an ebook contents page so readers can navigate to the right section, but because of the integral design of an ebook, there's often no need for a separate contents page at all, you can integrate the table of contents into the ebook software itself instead. Readers can access this inbuilt navigation from their menu at any time, rather than needing to turn to a specific page.
Review with flexibility in mind
It's important that designers are free to optimize your ebook to work on the widest range of devices. This means it's best not to try and over constrain your ebook to suit the specific device you happen to view it on and the specific text size you're reading in. While any changes might make the ebook look perfect for you, it's likely to be less than ideal for people viewing it on other devices.
Mark changes clearly
If you've spotted anything that does need to change, the next step is to mark those changes nice and clearly. You and your designer both need to feel confident that you're looking at the same thing. This is particularly tricky with a reflowable ebook, with so many devices and viewing choices, it's unlikely two people will see the same things in the same place and the same way. You can't use pages as a measure of position, an iPad might show 160 screens' worth of material for a book, a smaller Kindle screen might show 200 for the same material, things will be in totally different places. The best way to ensure everyone is looking at the same thing is to add a PDF comment to your book file, explaining what changes you need at exactly that position. It's also worth knowing that converting your book to ebook format means converting all the text into reflowable HTML, and occasionally a line of text breaks in an odd place or a symbol gets misread. Designers quality-check for this, but they won't catch everything, so if you spot it, just let them know and it'll get fixed.
Reviewing your ebook is your chance to see your book through your readers' eyes. With digital book sales growing, creating a great ebook experience has never been more important. Our aim is to help you focus on what matters, understand what's normal for ebooks, and give feedback that improves the reading experience across devices, rather than reacting to quirks of a single screen. Checking a reflowable file on real devices is part of our ebook formatting service.