Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    How To Build A DIY E-Book
    How To Build A DIY E-Book
    How To Build A DIY E-Book
    Ebook145 pages59 minutes

    How To Build A DIY E-Book

    By Bruce Anthony

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The simple and easy way for a new author to sell a book nowadays is to publish on one of the many digital book websites. But there's a catch. Publishing websites only want e-books in the finished form sold to readers.
    That means all the publishing work falls in the lap of the author. Sure, a writer can pay someone do the job, but it's not necessary— you can do it yourself, get published, and start earning money. E-acceptable authors can earn up to 70% in royalties. This DIY E-book is an up-to-date explanation of how to create EPUB and Kindle e-books.
    How To Build A DIY E-book uses itself as a model to explain the steps used to build an e-book by examining the "behind the scenes" digital instructions used in its own creation.
    From manuscript to finished product, the DIY E-book shows you what to do—and you can copy from the examples to create instructions for your e-book. Only your author details and book content must be changed.
    Become an independent publisher: desire to fulfillment in one book. What could be easier.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKatie Books Canada
    Release dateAug 12, 2014
    ISBN9780993729805
    How To Build A DIY E-Book

    Read more from Bruce Anthony

    Related to How To Build A DIY E-Book

    Related ebooks

    Programming For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      From Trash To Treasure

      May 21, 2020

      From Trash To Treasure
      3 min read

    • Article

      PODCAST: The 2022 Real Estate Market with Daniel Bortz

      Mar 23, 2022

      Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Overcast | RSS David Muhlbaum: Houses are scarce. Home prices are high, and the all-cash offer is king. We’ll talk about buying or selling a house in this market with contributing writer, Daniel Bortz. Als

      17 min read

    • Article

      From Trash To Treasure

      May 26, 2020

      From Trash To Treasure
      3 min read

    • Article

      100+ Ideas For DIY At Home

      Apr 16, 2020

      100+ Ideas For DIY At Home
      2 min read

    • Article

      Doing More With Less

      Apr 10, 2019

      Doing More With Less
      2 min read

    • Article

      Woodworking Apps

      Jun 30, 2020

      Woodworking Apps
      4 min read

    • Article

      T2Laser Tips And Tricks

      Jun 14, 2019

      T2Laser Tips And Tricks
      2 min read

    • Article

      In No Small measure

      Feb 19, 2022

      In No Small measure
      2 min read

    • Article

      Putting Your Words In Order

      Jun 3, 2021

      Putting Your Words In Order
      5 min read

    • Article

      Marketing Matters

      Sep 2, 2021

      Marketing Matters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Getting It Out There

      Apr 1, 2021

      Getting It Out There
      6 min read

    • Article

      Contact

      Jul 26, 2022

      Email your queries and your questions to letters@macformat.com I have been a subscriber to MacFormat now for about 15 months and as yet haven’t seen anything about personal finance apps. Having run Microsoft Money for 15 years or so, I found that I c

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Window On Your Words

      Jul 1, 2021

      A Window On Your Words
      6 min read

    • Article

      KISS: Keep It Simple Self-publishing

      Dec 1, 2022

      Could 2023 be the year you self-publish your first book? As technology advances, self-publishing is becoming a simpler process. However, the same technology creates more opportunities, which can make it feel complicated and confusing. Do we have to u

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Professionals

      May 6, 2021

      The Professionals
      5 min read

    • Article

      Write A Novel On Your Mac

      Apr 22, 2021

      Write A Novel On Your Mac
      11 min read

    • Article

      Mail Server

      Jun 1, 2021

      In response to Jack Kendrick, in issue 275 “Pyconfusion”, this attitude is something that bugs me, especially with Windows users who bash Linux, just because you have to sometimes use some grey matter to use it. I see it all the time on forums and Fa

      3 min read

    • Article

      CALIBRE Manage Your Ebook Collection Efficiently

      Jul 2, 2019

      Fed up with lugging paperback books around with you? Running out of shelf space? The solution – of course – is to digitise your library. When it comes to collecting, managing and distributing ebooks to your various ebook reading devices, there’s no b

      8 min read

    • Article

      The iPad’s IDENTITY CRISIS

      Dec 12, 2023

      SINCE APPLE FIRST launched the iPad in 2010, it has been a device in the middle of an identity crisis. Is it essentially a jumbo-sized phone? Or is it a computer? Or is it something new entirely? This might sound like a silly nerd debate—a modern equ

      3 min read

    • Article

      Distribution Options for Indie Authors

      Feb 15, 2021

      The decision to self-publish a book means taking on all the responsibilities of a publisher. This puts the author in charge of not only the writing, but the distribution, marketing, and promotion as well. Amazon is the leading vendor for book sales i

      4 min read

    • Article

      Create A Webpage Or Blog

      Mar 26, 2020

      Create A Webpage Or Blog
      12 min read

    • Article

      How To Choose

      Jul 7, 2022

      How To Choose
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for How To Build A DIY E-Book

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      How To Build A DIY E-Book - Bruce Anthony

      The diy Cover Image

      Other books by Bruce Anthony

      Beginning Creative Writing - Story Craft

      It's All About...

      Forever Friends

      3 Short Stories

      The Woman Below

      Title of book

      Copyright

      Bruce Anthony © 2013, 2014

      Image of the DIY Logo

      ISBN 978-0-9784565-8-0 - 2013

      ISBN 978-0-9937298-0-5 - 2014

      All rights reserved.

      Permission is granted to the original purchaser to copy the

      example code pages for use in creating their own e-books.

      Katie Books Canada

      This book is intended for personal and individual use only.

      If you wish to draw attention to the contents of this book,

      please use a link to: www.katiebooks.ca

      Cover e-book reader image © koya979 / www.fotosearch.com Stock Photography

      Table of Contents

      Cover

      Other Books

      Title Page

      Copyright

      The Good Ol' Days

      Introduction

      Tools You Need

      E-Book Images

      Your Story

      Why HTML?

      The Basic Page

      HTML Tags

      The CSS File

      The Cover Page Example

      Validating HTML

      The Work Process

      Front Matter

      The Title Page Example

      Copyright Page Example

      Book Contents Example

      TOC Example

      EPUB Folder Structure

      The OPF File Example

      The NCX File Example

      Building an EPUB

      Zipping the EPUB

      Validating the EPUB

      Kindle Previewer Testing

      Documenting and Cleaning Up

      Taking EPUBs Apart

      2014 Update

      The Good Ol' Days

      Back in the good ol' days, authors worried about writing perfectly formatted manuscripts because anything less went straight into a publisher's waste bin. Writers were concerned with margins, headers, footers, titles and all the other things that distinguished a professionally written manuscript from amateur trash.

      The good part was that if a manuscript was accepted, the publisher did all the rest of the work to turn an author's book-child into a best-seller. For that service, and the financial risk of printing copies in advance, publishers kept 80-85% of the proceeds. Authors needed representation, before they were published and an honest agent was paid 15-20% of the author's royalty. That left the author with 8-12% of the profits.

      There are still many publishers who will be happy to do the work for you if you're willing to pay for their services. And many author representatives will promote an author's work for an up-front fee. But the chance of recouping your publishing costs from this type of vanity exercise is slim. You'll end up giving free samples to your friends and family, and storing dozens of boxes of unsold copies in your basement where they will slowly molder away.

      With e-book publishing, you need to know how to do-it-yourself.

      Important: Because this book contains and displays large sections of code, it is best viewed on a desktop computer. Adobe Digital Editions is recommended. It is a free download from: http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions/download.html. If read on a hand-held eReader, set the screen orientation to landscape and use the smallest font size available to view code examples.

      Introduction

      The simplest, easiest and cheapest way for a new author to sell a book nowadays is to publish an e-book on one of the many digital publishing websites. But there's a catch.

      E-book publishers don't want to do anything except sell your finished book. They don't want to bother with formatting or artwork, editing or proofreading, copy-writing or titling, indexing or linking, or anything that takes time or money. They want authors to submit finished e-books in the exact form sold to readers—or pay them for their trouble.

      That means all the publishing work falls in the lap of the author. Sure, a writer can pay someone do the work, but it's not necessary—you can do it yourself, get published, and start earning money. E-acceptable authors can earn up to 70% or more in royalties

      The DIY E-book provides a simple example of how to overcome the barrier of creating an e-acceptable book from a manuscript. The DIY E-book is self-explanatory. It uses itself as a model, and explains the sequence and instructions used to build it. You are shown how the DIY E-book was put together by examining the behind the scenes digital instructions used to present and display the book. The knowledge and skill you gain is yours forever, as is the pride of doing it yourself while other authors flounder, unpublished and unpaid, behind a barrier of inability and lack of knowledge.

      The DIY E-book shows you what to do, AND you can copy directly from the examples to create instructions for your own book. You only have to fill in your particular details and add your own book content. What could be easier.

      There is one more advantage to doing-it-yourself, you can keep up to date with changing standards and e-reader capability without depending on obsolete conversion software or the services of others. You'll be able to include the latest innovations in your state-of-the-art e-books when other authors are losing sales because their books can't live up to reader expectations. This DIY E-Book won't make you an expert, but it will give you a head start to becoming one.

      Authors and literary people seldom understand digital technology. They're interested in other things. But technology rules our world so authors need to understand how to use the literary tools of today. DIY E-books starts at zero and assumes the reader knows nothing or very little about building e-books. The learning curve will seem steep and full of information because the reader must absorb some basic facts before it begins to make sense. A little perseverance is all it takes.

      If putting an e-book together was all there was to learn, the task ahead would be simple. It would be prefaced with the need to learn some Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML); using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS); and the steps needed to assemble an e-book. But—

      HTML and EPUB standards are under development by separate groups proceeding at different speeds in the direction each believes is most important to their task. HTML and EPUB requirements are implemented by eReader operating systems developed by many different companies to support various reading devices, and the situation is further complicated by the millions of eReader devices in the hands of readers which do not meet current standards. Consequently, preparation of e-book code is in continuous flux. The creation of e-books is sometimes tricky in such a variable environment.

      Where to Start

      This book is not about writing, but that's where we're going to start. The first step in creating an e-book is to make sure your content is ready. The next step is to learn enough HTML and CSS to format your work. This is followed by creating the separate pages for the cover, copyright, title and table of content pages. Then we'll tackle the book content and linking it to the in-line table of contents. That is followed by HTML validation to make sure everything fits together and follows the HTML rules.

      EPUB (.epub) and MOBI (.mobi) are the two principle file formats used by eReaders. EPUB is considered the standard e-book format and .epub files can be read on most e-book devices. The elephant in the room is the Amazon Kindle which uses the .mobi format. If it wasn't for the market presence of

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1