Questions about Picture Books

[kilomile]

I have a picture book that I would like to publish on Kindle. I know that Kindle is primarily a text medium.

How well does Kindle cope with images?

Should the images be black and white or color?

Answers to these questions and any other feedback on publishing picture based ebooks is welcome.

Thanks,
Robert

[Magenta]

There is a formatting guideline available at the DTP site - https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin.

There are also several kindle books available on the topic.

I do have a few kindle books with images.  They display pretty clear and you can "zoom" them to full screen. Detailed maps such as the one published with Under the Dome, are harder to read.

I was also receiving Time magazine for a while.  That too came with images.

[Annalog]

Since Kindle books can be read on color devices (iTouch, Kindle for PC, etc.), I think the decision for color versus black and white depends on what is most appropriate for the book. Also the Kindle will convert color photos to black and white.

If you have a Kindle, subscribe to the free Amazon Daily blog to see how various color pictures, intended for viewing on the Web site, are portrayed on the Kindle. To me it seems that the quality and contrast of the image seem more important than black and white/color.

[Ricky Sides]

Hi there,

My latest book contains several black and white photographs taken with a split frame 35mm camera, 18 years ago. They seem to have turned out well, but I don't yet have a Kindle and I am going by the Kindle for PC application. At set up in the preview they looked a bit grainy, but that cleared up on the monitor display.

My pictures were primarily 96 DPI with the single exception of one which was 71 DPI.

According to one of my customers, there does seem to be an issue with the K1 forcing blank pages in association with at least some of the pictures in my book. I suspect that may be associated with spacing issues so that the entire picture will display and not just a portion, but I am no Kindle expert. By the way, the reader reported no issues with the pictures themselves. Just the odd blank pages in the book primarily associated with the art. This could irritate some customers, so I'll be looking to see if there is anything I can do to alleviate the problem. Bear that in mind. I've seen it before when placing the cover at the beginning of book files. So far I haven't figured out why some force the blank pages while others do not. It could be a matter of the size of the pictures, but I've tried standardizing the sizes to match books where this did not occur and still it happens.

Hope this helps a bit.

Sincerely,
Ricky