Looking back on a journey through the world of ePubs

A look back at my experiences.

I guess it was pretty clear that I preferred the all-in-one solution: Indesign. It is less easy than for example Word, but if you just look up some tutorials or browse through forum questions, you can really make a beautiful ePub.

What to do when you want to create an ePub file?

I would recommend to work with DTP software or to combine Word & Calibre. The first option, the specialized software, is also possible of course, but I just think it's less convenient.

And afterwards?

It depends on why you wanted to make an ePub file to begin with. I wouldn't really recommend self publishing a literary ebook or elaborated lifestyle book(zine). It's a personal choice, but I would work with a professional publisher for this.
I would rather use ePubs as an 'extra' tool for your (creative) business. If you have a blog about home organization for example, you can publish a (free) ebook with some basic tips and tricks there. Next to this, you can also offer more elaborated ebooks about your specialized topics for sale. If you have a website about cheap travelling, you can publish a self made city guide. There are plenty of options.

I hope you enjoyed this journey and learned something from it. I definitely did 😁.

Creating another ePub file with ... desktop publishing software

The third and last way I will use to make an ePub file is with Adobe Indesign. If you want to check out some speed courses for Indesign, take a look at this blog: andreaculturelestudies.tumblr.com. If you'd rather design your ePub file with free software, try out Scribus. A speed course for this program can be found here: lindseylearnsscribus.wordpress.com. But even if you're not familiar with Indesign or Scribus yet, you'll be able to just design some text lay out and insert a picture to create a basic ePub design.

Formatting & publishing in one

The best aspect about this option is the fact that it is an all-in-one solution without any code and with a great designing interface.

I did some (limited) research, just to look for some attention points. Apparantly, there is a difference in creating a 'reflowable' and 'fixed' ePub. For my collection of quotes, I am going to use a reflowable ePub, because it focusses on text. If you want to make a really graphic publication and/or use interactive links, a fixed ePub is the better option. Another aspect I had to do research for, was how to create table of contents in Indesign.

Here is a home made step-by-step plan:

• Open Indesign and create a new document (or book, in the end you can still choose how to export it).
• Pick 'A5' (or A4, I don't think this matters). If you're in a hurry and not planning on being creative in designing different text blocks, select 'Primary text frame'. 
• Copy/write your flat text in the text blocks and make a new page for every chapter.
• And the nicest thing (for me, that is): do whatever you want with your titles, subtitles, ... Important: if you want to have a table of contents, you should work with 'paragraph styles' for your titles and subtitles.
• How? Design a paragraph style for your chapter titles + click on 'Edit all export tags' and choose this style as a page breaker.
• Choose 'Layout' and 'Table of contents' in the menu.
• Edit the Table of contents, maybe choose a style you made beforehand (in Layout/TOC Styles).
• Click 'OK' and choose where you want to place the TOC.

• After the formatting, you just have to click 'export' and choose 'ePub'. Check the options (select 'Split document: based on paragraph style export tags' for your page breaks. And fill in your metadata.
• Click 'OK' and there it is!

Sources:

• helpx.adobe.com/support/indesign.html

Creating another ePub file with ... word processors

A second way to make an ePub is with a common word processor. In daily life I use two word processors: Google Docs and Microsoft Word. Apparently Word is the only one does not have the possibility to directly produce an ePub file. The open source software OpenWriter does. If I have any spare time left after this test, maybe I'll download this software too to test the ePub tool.

So first I'll do a double skill test: I'll make the ePub file with Google Docs and then with Word for the lay-out and an ePub software for the technical conversion. I will convert the file with Calibre, since I already use this program for my ebook management, but there are plenty of other options.

Google Doc to ePub

I forgot to embed a picture in my first ePub, so before I started, I looked for a free to use photo to liven up my title page.

The fact that you can just dowload the document directly as an ePub is very convenient, it just takes a few clicks. Designing the document was also really easy ...

 I thought. Until I opened a preview of the ePub file with Internet Explorer. The pages of the document didn't match those of the ePub. I did some research and looked for a template that would make life easier but I couldn't find it. The tutorials I found never showed the actual result and I really couldn't find any explanation on how to make clear when there's an e-page break in Google Docs ...

So after an hour of research I took a break myself and went on to the second method: using a word processor and an additional software to publish it. Fingers crossed ;-).

Word doc to ePub via Calibre

To avoid doing twice the work, I downloaded my formatted Google Doc as a Word doc. Unfortunately, this didn't work out, since it created a bug in the 'styles' of my titles and headings. So I did start a new document, copied the text from my Google Drive document and did the formatting according to this tutorial. Then I followed the instructions from part 2 to turn it into an ePub file.

Looking back

If you want to use a word processor, I would recommend the word processor + Calibre option. I guess Google Docs is not ready for real ePub publishing. So I guess using two different programs is worth it. I will keep an eye on Google Docs and keep you posted if things work out better.
Here is a short summary to create your ePub file with Word + Calibre:

• Style your plain text in Word: use 'title', 'subtitle' and headings per chapter or part.
• Insert a page break before each part or chapter.
• Insert (automatically) a table of contents.
• Save your document after the formatting, just as a normal Word document.
• Open Calibre, click 'Add book' and choose your Word document.
• Edit the metadata of your ePub file.
• Click 'Convert books' and follow all or some of the steps, for example:
• Check your metadata and book cover.
• Make some changes in the lay out (for example font size) or leave it to the default option.
• An important one: select 'page break' to structure the book.
• If you have different levels and thus headings in your structure you should specify this in 'Table of contents'.
• Make sure your output type is 'epub' (or mobi works for Kindle).
• Click 'OK'.
• Enjoy!

I was really happy to see all my pages on separate pages 😏. So far this was the easiest way to make an ePub file. If you want to try other software than Calibre, you can try out Smashwords, Draft2Digital or Scrivener. 

Next time I'm going to 'desktoppublish' an ePub file, I'm definitely looking forward to it!

Sources:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kudler/4-ways-to-create-an-ebook_b_8839968.html
https://www.janefriedman.com/word-epub/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX0wJjR7MjU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF9V4SXo1Kc