Free Amazon KDP HTML Book Description Formatting Tool and Guide

Amazon book-description formatting guide contents

1. Troubleshooting
2. Best practices
3. HTML basics for Amazon KDP authors
4. Amazon rules for descriptions
5. Additional Resources

1. Troubleshooting

Most formatting problems occur when text is pasted into the formatting tool. Typing the text directly into the formatting tool or following the above copy/paste instructions for Word or Google Docs will prevent these problems.

If you are still having problems, try this:

• Click the <> button and you’ll see your text with the HTML tags. Delete any that are not on KDP's list of supported HTML tags below.
• If you have extra lines between paragraphs, there may be duplicate line ending tags: <br>. Delete them and switch back to check what the final should look like.
• If you want an empty line, you need two line breaks: <br><br>

2. Best practices

1. Keep a master copy of your book description and use it for all stores.
2. If you format your description with headings, bolding, bullets, etc., in Word, remember you must paste it in the tool without this formatting. Follow the quick-start instructions above.
3. If you make changes after you have already transferred the text to the book-description box, go back and make those changes in your master file as well. This will help ensure your description is the same in all stores.
4. Focus on readability. Just because you can format a word as bold doesn’t mean you need to. Does your use of headline styles, italics, or numbered or bulleted lists make the description easier for the reader to read? Always format to help the reader; aim for clarity and ease of understanding.
5. Don’t feel you need to use all the available space that Amazon provides.
6. Study the listings of books similar to yours (read this Featured Article in our past AuthorPro newsletter: Why and How to Perform Regular Comparables Research.)
7. Remember, sometimes more is less. And don’t forget, you can always create A+ Content, like the design below that we created for A Step-by-Step Guide to Stop Bloating & Heal Your Gut by Aliki Economides and Irini Hadjisavva.

3. HTML help for Amazon KDP authors

1. All websites use HTML, a programming language used to format the text and images you see on a website.
2. All websites use the same HTML codes, but they can be selective with the ones they choose to use and the characteristics of what is displayed.
3. HTML-formatted information looks different from website to website. It’s the tag (code) that tells each website how to display your description.

For example, there are six possible HTML heading levels: H1 through H6. Amazon KDP allows only H4, H5, and H6. IngramSpark’s book-description tool lets you use all six heading levels, but that doesn’t mean the stores will support them.

Most stores support a core set of HTML codes, called “tags,” and learning these and how to use them would not be a waste of your time.

The point of editor tools—like the free one we provide—is to insert these tags for you, just like you would do when typing your manuscript in Word.

Three HTML basics

• You format or “tag” text, and all tags are surrounded by brackets, like this: <br>
• Nearly all HTML formatting requires an opening and closing tag. They are the same except the closing tag includes a forward slash (/). For example, the tag for bold on KDP is <b>. To make the word “AuthorImprints” bold using HTML, it would look like this, <b>AuthorImprints</b> , and it would display as AuthorImprints.
• One important exception to the closing tag rule is you don’t need a closing tag for <br>. The purpose of the <br> tag is to force a line break, like at the end of a sentence, or to add an extra line. This is a handy tag to memorize!

HTML tags supported by Amazon KDP

• <br>
• <p></p>
• <b></b>
• <em></em>
• <i></i>
• <u></u>
• <h4></h4>
• <h5></h5>
• <h6></h6>
• <ol>
• <ul>
• <li> (used with the <ol> and <ul> tags)

Examples of how the Amazon KDP HTML tags are used

1. <b>This is bold</b>. (<strong> </strong> is another option)
2. <i>This is italics</i>. (<em> </em> is another option)
3. <p>To create a paragraph</p>. (Automatically adds the line break and adds space under the paragraph)
4. <H4>Heading size 4</H4>. Substitute the 4 with 5 or 6 for smaller headings.
5. <br> to add a line break. This is the only tag in this list that does not require a closing tag.

Amazon KDP rules for book descriptions

These are some of the things you cannot put into a book description. There is a link to the full list under Additional Resources below.

1. Pornographic, obscene, or offensive content
2. Phone numbers, physical mail addresses, email addresses, or website URLs
3. Requests for customer reviews
4. Advertisements, watermarks on images or videos, or promotional material
5. Time-sensitive information (for example, dates of promotional tours, seminars, or lectures)
6. Availability, price, alternative ordering information (for example, links to other websites for placing orders)
7. Spoiler information for books, music, video, or DVD (BMVD) listings
8. Any keywords or book-tags phrases

5. Additional Resources

1. How to Use Amazon KDP A+ Content for Books
2. Amazon rules and help for writing descriptions.
3. W3 Schools HTML Guide. An excellent resource for instruction and examples of HTML codes and programming.