I'm going to use Kafka's The Trial for this tutorial. That's because your book file needs to be pretty simple to convert it to ebook. If your book is in an MS Word file, you should actually have saved a simple copy, before you did any print formatting. In either case, skip down to the lower sections.*** *** If you used Scrivener or Adobe InDesign you can export as an Epub file directly if you used another open source word processor you can probably save as RTF or HTML. And that may seem depressing, but it should be liberating: you don't need to spend a lot of time or energy making your ebooks perfect, just make sure they work and are clean, and people can read your book without distraction. If you're like me, you're probably thinking these don't look very good. I'm taking a picture of a bunch of the books on my Kindle so you can get a sense of what they look like. And maybe you'll offset the first line in all caps, or a slightly bolded or larger first sentence. The first paragraphs of each chapter will be non-indented. What you can doīasically, you'll use "H1" or "H2" tags for headers. So don't get hung up on the small details. Even if you try to use a dropcap or special formatting, it might look funny. The most important thing is that - even if it doesn't look the same - it doesn't look "broken" or obviously flawed.įor this reason, most mainstream publishers use extremely simple ebooks with no decoration at all. It's very hard to get your file to look exactly the same everywhere.
#Jutoh manual code#
While this can be done, my complex code would look fine on Kindle or Barnes & Noble but might like strange on Kobo. I was trying to approach it like a print book, and insert images and special designs, and fixed fonts. When I first started learning ebook formatting, it was frustrating. While you don't really need to learn this code, it will help if you need to fine tune the details. To achieve this, ebook formats use something very similar to html code. This is so people using various ereaders can set their own options, change the fonts and text size, to make the reading experience suit their preferences. Unlike print books, for which you want everything to be "fixed" and perfect, ebooks need to "flow." Most ebook stores use a file format called "epub" - but Amazon/Kindle uses a slightly modified file format called "mobi." Most bookstore chains have their own ereader device and their own bookstore but some companies like Smashwords, BookBaby, and Lulu offer "distribution" - which means they'll send your ebook out to all the online retailers and keep track of sales for you. "Ebooks" are digital versions of your book that can be read on tablets and smartphones. Luckily, you can do it for free, and it can be pretty easy - if you aren't picky about the little details (and I'll explain why you shouldn't be).īelow you'll find a few different methods for converting your document to epub and mobi formats, as well as formatting a Smashwords file (ideal for broader distribution). So even while you're formatting for print, you should be thinking about ebook conversion. Since ebooks have no production costs, they let you be much more flexible in pricing, and can be a powerful marketing tool to attract new readers.
No matter what kind of book you're publishing, ebook sales will probably be your biggest numbers.
I'm not sure what to do with them yet but you can check them out here: Ebook Conversion and Formatting Tools. Recently I had a couple custom ebook formatting and conversion tools built. Until then, you can read through the guide down below or watch the videos above. But I'll start adding individual videos here for each separate method of making an ebook (From InDesign, through Scrivener or Jutoh, etc) I plan to have about 25 of them. That's the simplest process, which I recommend for beginners.
#Jutoh manual how to#
The video below will show you how to convert from Word (.docx) to epub and mobi formats with my free ebook conversion tool.Īnd this video will teach you how to edit your epub file with Sigil Above is a video explaining the basics of ebook publishing, formatting and conversion.
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