Make Your Own eBooks

GradyHendrix

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I didn't see if anyone had linked to this yet, but there's solid technical info here for anyone interested in making their own ebooks. It all seems to make sense to me, although it's really dependent on Adobe indesign which is a program that makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it. But still, from a brief read it all sounds logical and feasible.

Just in case anyone's interested!
 

Deirdre

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You don't actually need InDesign, it's just an easy way to do it. If you have a Mac, the new version of Pages will export to an EPUB. There are other ways, too: Calibre has some quirks, but will not only make EPUB but pretty much every other format, too.
 

swachski

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This is good news to me, because I use InDesign on a daily basis. I'm going to look into getting my MS into an ebook format now, on my own. :D Thanks for the tip!
 

Kaete

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eBook formatting

For PDF formats, Adobe Acrobat 10 is perfect (Adobe designed PDF). If you are a a student or teacher, you can save a lot. In any case, they offer a 30 day free trial.

Calibre works well once you figure out its quirks.

For Google Books, you need to convert to ePub. This is easy if you are working with Word 2007, but took me two days to figure out as I have Word 2003. For instructions, go here: http://www.theessentialebooker.com/publish/publish-for-google-books/

For the Kindle, you need to convert your doc to Amazon's proprietary software. For instructions, go here: http://www.theessentialebooker.com/publish/readers/

The most important consideration when self-publishing in digital format is to learn internet marketing in order to create a "buzz" about your book.
 

Deleted member 42

Scrivener on the Mac (I don't know about the Windows version) is another powerful but easy to use tool for making epub files.

Stanza and Calibre are both useful, free and cross-platform.
 

gal513

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Thanks! I'm going to check this out!!
 

jimbro

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Check out the article on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB:

At the bottom is a very comprehensive list of Editing software. I use Apple's Pages, but I also use Sigil. Quoting from the Wikipedia article:

Sigil: "Free, Open source under GPLv3. Currently the only application that can also open and edit EPUB books, instead of just converting from other formats to EPUB."

Pages on the Mac is extremely easy to use. If you have a Mac, it is relatively inexpensive. Sigil is free and works on almost any platform, and while not as easy, it is not difficult either. I recommend both.