MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Some Good Software To Write E-Books.

abeonis · 05-28-2013, 11:04 AM

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.

05-28-2013, 11:04 AM	#17
abeonis eBook DIYer Posts: 111 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Europe Device: K4, KF HD 8.9, Readium	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.