When I wanted to write books for Kindle I found a great Open Office novel template created by Bill Myers. I have since updated Bill’s Kindle template with information I had to figure out on my own. It took me forever to figure out how to remove Mango Bob from Bill’s template so that my book was not titled Mango Bob. I have since stripped all author information from the template and given instruction on how to add yours. Hopefully my updates make it even easier to write and publish your book to Kindle Pub, and when you do, it won’t be titled Mango Bob.
One of the strange issues with Open Office is “curly quotes”. The program switches from straight to curly and it makes folk crazy fixing them. I have added a Macro into this template to fix that issue. Instructions for use are on the template.
I suggest saving your Open Office book in odt format. Once you are done convert the odt using Alkinea into a mobi. Use Kindle for PC/Mac to look your mobi file over, and if you like what you see, send the mobi file into Kindle Pub. The best part is, Open Office and Alkinea are free programs, so all you have spent is your time.
I have also created a Kindle Book Cover Template for you. Simply open it in software like Photoshop, create your cover, and delete the template layer. Here are the links to get you started. Right click each template and Save Link As:
Kindle Novel Template for Open Office
Stuff you will also need along the way:
Open Office Writer – read download carefully and opt out of browser tool bars and other software bundled with Open Office.
KindleGen and Kindle for PC/Mac – you need KindleGen to power Alkinea, and Kindle to open a mobi file to proof your finished book.
Alkinea – Free software that converts Open Office odt files to mobi files.