Amazon has released a plugin for InDesign that lets developers export files from the Adobe software in the Kindle ebook format.
The plugin maintains font styling information, text and paragraph alignment and image placement while allowing designers to add ebook specific features such as a cover page, links within the book, bullets and numbering and a table of contents.
“Our aim is to make it simple, fast and cost-effective for publishers to create Kindle books,” said Russ Grandinetti, vice president, Kindle Content. “The release of Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign is another step toward this goal. We look forward to feedback from publishers on how we can improve and what additional features they’d like to see.”
The free beta of the Kindle plugin is available for InDesign versions CS4 or CS5 running on OS X 10.5 or 10.6.
InDesign has built-in support for exporting in the ePub format that Apple uses for iBooks.
Amazon has also announced that UK authors and publishers can now earn a 70% royalty on Kindle ebook sales, exclusive of net costs, when distributing titles through the company’s Digital Text Platform.
