I recently received an e-mail from somebody asking me what kind of format they should use for their eBook.
The e-mail was written by someone who is brand new to the eBook publishing industry and who felt it was important to create an eBook in a format that could be purchased and read by the widest number of people possible.
This may be hard for some people to believe, but there are actually more than half a dozen different eBook formats to choose from.
That being said, there are three basic formats to seriously take into consideration given the fact they are so widely supported by the various devices in existence these days on which people consume eBook content.
Plain Text (TXT) Few people appear to realize that plain text format eBooks are universally compatible with every eBook reading platform in existence.
Needless to say, the reason why a lot of people don't ultimately choose plain text is because it limits the amount of multimedia data (like photos and charts) that can be used, and also inhibits text formatting.
Portable Document Format (PDF) This particular format is nearly universally accepted.
It's the one format you may already be familiar with.
Because the format is designed to reproduce page images, the text traditionally could not be re-flowed to fit the screen width or size.
As a result, PDF files designed for printing on standard paper sizes were less easily viewed on screens with limited size or resolution, such as those found on mobile phones and eBook readers.
That is no longer an issue.
While it's true that PDF files are supported by almost all modern eBook readers (including tablets and smartphones) -- PDF re-flow is not universally supported by all devices that can open PDF files.
This is especially true of older devices.
Regardless, the overwhelming majority of people can open and read PDF files on practically any device they own.
One advantage to PDF files is that you can include multimedia content (photos and charts) and you can also format the layout of the text in whatever manner you wish.
KF8 (Amazon Kindle) In late 2011, Amazon released the Kindle Fire reader.
At the same time, Amazon also released Kindle Format 8.
This is their band new eBook file format.
Various eBook publishers who choose to target the Amazon Kindle market will oftentimes choose the Kindle format.
This particular eBook format supports HTML5 as well as CSS3 -- which is all a technical way of saying that you can format text and include multimedia content.
The drawback is that this particular format is not universally supported across all eBook reading devices.
If you are brand-new to the world of eBook publishing, the very first thing you need to focus on is actually creating an in-demand eBook that will generate sales and earn you money.
This means following a proven step-by-step system that can quickly and easily enable you to get started.
Given the fact there are no restrictions as to how many different eBook formats you ultimately choose to use, it makes sense to publish your eBook in multiple formats -- starting with the PDF format.
Don't worry about other file formats until you've mastered creating an eBook using the PDF format.