"Imagine That!" is my first venture into combining my writing and artwork as a children's picture ebook on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing with the KF8 format.
 The journey has been quite a process, and definitely an adventure so I thought it may be of value to set down my best road signs for others starting on the journey.
 Rather than give the full info here I'll give you my road map and some good links that helped me.
As a first-up, I kept the format simple rather than doing fixed graphics... alternating text on one page, picture on the next. I set the format up as a .doc in Word.
It's vital to know the difference between formatting and conversion. Here's a great article on that aspect and has good tips about formatting. 
I used Kindle Direct Publishing Help extensively. I suggest reading it in small bites so you don't get overwhelmed. It contains a formatting guide.
I painted the images in my ebook in acrylics, photographed them and inserted them in the word doc so that the actual image measurement, pixel size and kb size in the doc would best fit the Kindle Fire reader. You'll find this info in KDP Help.
You will need to know how to set your camera to create a 300dpi image and you'll need some basic info on how to set pixel sizing and compression of your images on your computer. Basically, I just experimented.
A couple of good tips in formatting. Centre your images. Set two returns (hit enter twice only) at the end of text and then insert a page break. Hit a return at the top of the next page before inserting the picture, two returns after the picture then insert a page break, and continue this pattern.
Follow the formatting guidelines carefully and you should have a clean doc.
Now convert it to filtered HTML webpage and upload to your Amazon Kindle Account. If you've kept it simple it should arrive relatively intact.
What about payment?
If like me, your only choice of method of payment would be to receive a paper cheque from Amazon, that would then cost you plenty to convert to your country's currency, and take another month to clear for goodness sake, you may wish to do as I did.
I applied for an affiliates MasterDebitCard from Payoneer
Once it is approved you are then directed to apply to the US Payment Service. Once this application is approved, you will be advised of a bank account with a US based bank in US dollars. So, once you have the details of your US based bank, you list the account details in your Amazon Kindle account.
You cannot draw directly from this US based bank account. It exists only so that your Amazon payment can be deposited and transferred to your Payoneer MasterDebitCard.
The Payoneer card can be used anywhere that a Mastercard is accepted. The card takes ages to arrive, and I'm still waiting for mine. That's ok, you need to build sales first. (My card has arrived since writing this blog)
As I live in Australia and my country has a treaty with the US relating to withheld taxes, I have also applied to Internal Revenue  in the US for an Employer Identification Number using Form SS-4, and when this is granted, I will submit the EIN to Amazon for reduction of withheld taxes. Your application for the EIN needs to state in point 10 under "other" ; "to obtain a reduced rate of withholding imposed by section 1441 pursuant to an income tax treaty".
So I guess you can see from this blog why you need something of a roadmap to arrive safely. However, I urge and encourage you to push on. You'll get there eventually. And like any rugged journey, it will all then be behind you.
Here's another excellent link that I found really useful. http://taleist.com