Previewing kindle book made with scrivener

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Hello everyone. Thanks to help on this forum, I was able to organize my chapters and turn it into (what I thought) was a kindle book.

In any event, I tried to email the ebook (which looked fine to me) to my editor, who only has a kindle (not the kindle application I have on my ipad).

The short of it is that I can see my kindle ebook from my scrivener files just fine on my kindle app ipad, under docs. However she can not see the cover or TOC in her kindle.

She tells me she is able to open kindle books just fine on her kindle.

I wonder if I have sent her some sort of preview, and not an actual kindle “book.”

If anyone can shed some light on this that is appreciated.

2

You compiled it to .mobi using the latest version of Kindlegen downloaded from Amazon?

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Yes. I downloaded rhe latest version. I think for her to read it i mist actually publish via amazon it and send her that copy.

4

There is a Kindle previewer at the KDP site which you can use to check your mobi file.
Publishing the book doesn’t change anything.

5

There are some subtle differences between a production .mobi straight out of KindleGen and what people get when they buy a book and download it through Amazon:

  • The .mobi you compile is actually two different formats in one bundled package: the old legacy MobiPocket ebook and the new KF8 that pretty all the modern devices and apps use these days.
  • When a reader buys the book, Amazon doesn’t send them the whole bundle, it only sends the half that matters to the device doing the downloading. So in that sense yes, publishing the book changes it, if you consider the whole fulfilment chain to be a part of publication.
  • Also, for whatever reason, KindleGen sets a meta-data flag on .mobi files that marks them as documents, not books. So that’s why you see it off in “Docs” on your iPad. On a Kindle, depending on the model, it’ll probably just show up in the main list. I don’t have any issues with the whole Docs not Books dichotomy with the Paperwhite. Calibre can produce not only single-format .mobi/.azw files but it can set that flag so it shows up with the rest of the books on your device. So you might consider using that instead of KDP.
  • There are no conditions that would cause the ToC or Cover to vanish when sideloading a production .mobi that I’m aware of. What I have heard of are some cases where older readers malfunction when calculating the start position and end up loading a few pages in. So the cover and ToC may be there, just back a few pages.
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Thanks Amber V

Yes, she says it comes as a flat document without links. This would be my first time publishing the book on Kindle. I assume that the copy would be “inside” the Amazon/kindle interface and she would have to “buy” the book in order to correct it.

There is no other workaround for her reading the preview on an actual kindle?

Thanks in advance.

7

Uh, what kind of editor only has access to a Kindle? It’s a terrible format for that purpose.

Katherine

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Ha! That is funny. She is OLD FASHIONED and quirky. But I’ve been working with her for a number of years and so …

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I don’t know what a flat document without links means in this context, but if the .mobi file opens fine on your iPad and you can jump around and see the cover, it’s not a problem with the file.

Can they use the “Go To” menu to get around? The HTML link ToC is mainly only there for accessibility and compatibility with ancient gen 1 & gen 2 models.

It’s really just a file, there is nothing special about it like you’re thinking. The way I put them on my Kindle is plug it into the computer, where it come up like an external hard drive, and drag the .mobi file into the “documents” folder. I then unmount the drive, unplug it, and the book shows up in the list with all of the rest.

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My editor - if I had one - would be so old fashioned she’d say “What’s with the new-fangled papyrus and hieroglyphs? What was wrong with the old cave painting?” :smiley:

11

even funnier!