Some Good Software To Write E-Books.

[James_Wilde]

I started off using LibreOffice and quickly discovered its Master Document feature which links all the chapter documents into one whole, though still editable separately. But since I was on a Mac and kept hearing all these comments about Scrivener, I tested it and - WOW! - better than sex and almost as good as eating water melons, as the man said. It's now available for Windows also, and there's an experimental version, which works very well, for native Linux (i e not under Wine).

I'd suggest you try it. I think you get about a month's trial time before you have to fork out, and it's quite cheap anyway. I think it was about 300 SEK which would make it about £25, €35 or $50.

[abeonis]

Hi Emma,

Interesting to read all these answers to your question. Maybe you are a still a llittle bit confused. I was like you 12 months ago. My opinion is that it is a real mess. As every young industry, you have different eBook formats, different business interests. Amazon is the number 1 (MOBI/KF8) but we can expect to have serious outsiders very soon based on ePub. At the beginning of the internet industry, there was IE and Netscape. Today everybody speaks about Firefox or Google Chrome. You must produce MOBI/KF8 and ePub.

Both formats are based on HTML for the content, CSS for the presentation and XML for the packaging of your eBook.

Whatever the format you upload to any publishing platform (like Amazon) it will be translated to HTML, CSS and XML soon or late. You have 2 choices, you let some magic tool to do the translation or you do it yourself. I don't know if you already tried an english to french automatic translator ...

If you take the time to have a look at the different forums here, you will notice that whatever tool you decide to use, MS-Word or Scrivener, it is a nightmare when you must create your ebook, specially if you write technical/business books. Currently no push button tool does the job.

So ... be prepared to produce a significant effort if you decide to go the indie way. How many eBooks do you plan to write? If just a few, I strongly suggest you compare the time you will spend to obtain the necessary skills with the price of subcontracting the conversion. Consider a minimum hourly rate of $10 ... You will be surprised. There are some people here dedicated to this service (I am not one of them).

Regarding my design flow:
1. My text editor is MS-Word
2. For MS-Word to HTML and CSS I use Notepad++ (Copy/Paste from MS-Word and intensive use of Regular expressions)
3. For HTML to ePub I use Sigil (wonderful tool). It handles all the XML part (OPF and NCX)
4. Finally, I modify a little bit the ePub and create a MOBI/KF8 with Kindlegen.

It may seem a complex flow but it is not. Actually, I found a new passion. I started learning HTML, CSS, etc. And I have to recognize the travel is extremely funny.

Good luck.

[BeccaPrice]

Is there a problem with converting epubs to mobi with calibre rather than kindlegen? because I get a kindlegen error when I try to convert to mobi, but it converts to mobi flawlessly when I use calibre.

[abeonis]

I use Caliber exclusively as a library management tool. I do NOT use it to convert formats. Do yourself a favor, don't use it. I modify the ePub and run Kindlegen with it. It is the more secure way. Some people upload directly the ePub without modification and claim it works. Maybe, though they recognize having problems with the cover appearing twice. Anyway, I prefer to create the MOBI/KF8 locally and check it before uploading it.

[abeonis]

Sorry BeccaPrice. I built my flow in the more secure way possible based on what I see here. There are so many people having problems with Calibre that I decided to not use it. Question of statistics. I am sure you are able to use it and achieve your goals, but immagine you are a beginner ...

[BeccaPrice]

oh, I am very much a beginner. It's just that, when I compile through Scrivener (which gives me good epub that validates), I can't seem to generate a mobi file because I get a kindlegen error message - but the message is blank, so I don't know what's wrong or how to fix it.

[abeonis]

I don't use Scrivener so it is difficult to say and it is too bad if Kindlegen error message is blank. Regarding EPUB and MOBI/KF8, they are pretty much the same, the compilation is different. I have limited the HTML I use to be compatible with both formats. However I have 2 slightly different CSS, one for each format. OPF files are the same except for the cover part. And I remove reference to the HTML cover in the NCX file for MOBI/KF8. I am not sure this helps you that much. What I can suggest is to start with a minimalistic eBook, one or 2 chapters with limited text, limited style, no custom font, no images, etc. and check what happens. If it works, implement progressively more chapters, more text, more style until you get your blank error message. You will then know what causes the problem.

[BeccaPrice]

What caused the problem was adding the cover in Scrivener. It compiled just fine without it, and I got a kindlegen error with it.

I'm trying what was suggested on another thread: use scrivener to compile to epub, validate the epub and fix any errors in Sigil, then use kindlegen to compile to mobil It seems to work ok.

[abeonis]

If you know Sigil, then it is great. I am not surprised it is a cover issue. You will have access to all your epub files.

[VydorScope]

That is what I have to do, I use Sigil to add the cover post Scrivener. Of all the tools I have used, only seems that Sigil gets the cover right.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

oh, I am very much a beginner. It's just that, when I compile through Scrivener (which gives me good epub that validates), I can't seem to generate a mobi file because I get a kindlegen error message - but the message is blank, so I don't know what's wrong or how to fix it.

What program are you using to validate your ePub? FlightCrew doesn't fully cut it for validation. It does miss errors. epubcheck 3 is what you want to use if you are not using it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

That is what I have to do, I use Sigil to add the cover post Scrivener. Of all the tools I have used, only seems that Sigil gets the cover right.

You could use Calibre with the Modify ePub plugin to add in the cover. That works.

[Lemurion]

Just to go back to the original post for a moment, it's important to note that writing the eBook and preparing it for publication are very different tasks.

You should write the whole book, then go in and deal with any formatting or other adjustments involved in preparing for publication.

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What program are you using to validate your ePub? FlightCrew doesn't fully cut it for validation. It does miss errors. epubcheck 3 is what you want to use if you are not using it.

I have been using this site..

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You could use Calibre with the Modify ePub plugin to add in the cover. That works.

So I have tried that (assuming you are referring to the cover feature under the right click menu in the interface), and for some reason the way it adds it, it does not show up in some places. When I use Sigil's "Add Cover" feature (which just drops in a very simple templated HTML page) it seems to work everywhere. YMMV of course.