Converting Written work to an eBook format?

[Andrew Q Gordon]

With eBooks and what not being all the new rage, does anyone have any experience converting their work to an eBook format?

 

Currently I use Pages [Mac's word processing program] but I routinely convert to Word for my beta reader and others. I have the Adobe eBook reader on my computer but was wondering if anyone has converted their work to an eBook format and if so, what program have they used, how easy is it, how happy are you with it? Basically what is your overall experience.

 

Thanks

 

Andy

[Lugh]

I have. But I'm not 100% proficient at it.

[hh5]

thread on ebook etc

[Rilbur]

I've done some work with it. Specifically, I hand-crafted the .epub version of Guardians. There are programs that will automate the process -- in fact, and automatic conversion process was used when I self-published a version through 'smashwords', which converted from .doc to all possible types for me. Personally, I'm happy with the e-pub version I hand crafted, and while it took a while -- while I normally use HTML, the standard required was strict XHTML, which is 'strict' in a lot of ways, so I had to fix code -- it was well worth the time.

[Kavrik]

Andy, I think Redhaircrow wrote a blog on this when he converted one of his stories to ebook. If I remember correctly, it was really informative. I like reading his blog.

[Guest Wyndham]

I do this frequently as I like reading stories on my iPhone. It's easy to do but feel free to contact me if you have any problems.

 

These options work on the PC but may also work on Apple but I've not tried

 

Software programs you need

• MS Word or similar to create a PDF output. There are other ways but I find this easiest.
• Calibre - converts to eBook format Calibre
• Stanza - this is the program I use to read the books on my iPhone (also has a version for the PC, etc) Stanza

Process

1. Copy story to Word (or similar). Tip: Ensure you edit the name (title), author and tags. I usually also check the formatting, grammar and spelling as well......
2. Save As PDF (there are other formats you can use in Calibre so check the Calibre input options). Tip: Because of the way Calibre stores stories, I usually name the story as follows 'Story name - Author.PDF' Note that Calibre creates a folder with the name of the Author and then a sub-folder with the name of the story.
3. Copy into Calibre - I usually drag n drop
4. Manually move the MS Word version of the story and the original PDF into the newly created set of folders. NOTE: If you delete the story in Calibre it also deletes from your hard drive!! So, if you are removing a story from Calibre because you have updated the story and want to reload into Calibre to recreate the eBook, then make sure you save the Word version of the story somewhere safe first. (So you can re-create the PDF and copy to Calibre, etc)
5. Select story in Calibre and check details such as Author name, tags, etc. For the first time go into options and choose output format (etc). I have not found any need to change any of the more detailed options, but they are several if you are clever enough.
6. Convert story
7. Read story (if necessary first copy to eBook reader)

Feel free to get in touch if you need any help.

[Hoskins]

I've converted lots of books.

 

Things I've learned:

 

Calibre rocks.

 

PDF's suck. HARD. I like to read on my nook and my iphone. Line breaks and pagination are terrible in PDF format on these devices.

 

The most flexible format I've found is epub.

 

 

When I need to edit an epub (usually to fix page break/pagination from a converted PDF) I use Sigil.

[Andrew Q Gordon]

Thanks to all of you - Hoskins, Wyndham, Kavrik, Rilbur, hh5 and Lugh. Hopefully if I PM you some of you with further questions, I won't be bugging - Lugh excluded since he has a lot on his plate right now - Thanks again, it will give me some things to look into.

 

Andy