The default first-line indent on Kindle for PC annoys me. Was it always .5 inches? The Kindle Previewer default is 2 em and Mobipocket Reader is 1 em. The Kindle for PC feature set has otherwise improved greatly, and now supports NCX files.

(Though it still needs a line-spacing slide control.)

So I added a first-line indent style of .25 inches to all of the ebooks I publish. The first-line indents still aren't the same, but they're a lot closer. I also recompiled the Zarahemla Books catalog, tweaking the formatting here and there.

The Kindle is persnickety about how it interprets proprietary styles, making a style sheet the best bet for overall consistency. I've added a few examples to my Kindle template.

Even so, considering all the chapter headings and epigrams in the paper edition of On the Road to Heaven, the bestselling ebook in the Zarahemla catalog (meaning about fifty copies a month), it looks quite nice in the Kindle format.

While the Kindle XHTML feature set can be a bit too spare, I think Amazon is wise to stay conservative. The feature creep in ePub worries me, though distributors like Smashwords will continue to exert a lowest common denominator standardization.

Creating ebooks where precision placement of the text is called for remains problematic. To this end, Amazon has rolled out a format called "KPR" ("Kindle Print Replica"), which is simply a PDF file stuck inside its own DRM wrapper).

Speaking of technology, glitzy tech rollouts rarely impress me (what Apple has up its sleeve doesn't interest me at all). This time, though, Amazon has really impressed me. It's not just the panoply of products, it's the vision. Amazon is clearly in the ebook business for the long run.

Amazon is turning the Kindle into a literary version of Darwin's finches, adapting itself to every possible reading niche.

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Labels: ebooks, kindle, publishing, technology