Tools and Resources for Creating Ebooks

Ebooks are great. You can carry around as many with you as you’d like at one time, and you can easily share what you’re reading with friends. Ebooks are also the easiest way for indie authors to sell their work. For authors who are interested in making their own books, here’s a list of resources:

Ebook Creation Tools

• “Book Creator now lets you create your own ebooks from your Android tablet” on The Next Web
• Bookry
• “Build a digital book with EPUB” on IBM
• Calibre
• “Calibre 2.0 ships with ebook editor and other improvements” on Ghacks
• “Drag and Drop AppleScripts for EPUB, IDML, etc.” on InDesign Secrets
• Editoria
• “How to Create an Ebook With Sigil: It’s Easier Than You Think” on Beyond Paper Editing
• “Introduction to Using Pressbooks” on Youtube
• Online HTML Editor
• “Pressbooks: An Option for Blogging Books and Booking Blogs from Start to Finish” on How to Blog a Book
• Pressbooks User Guide
• Jutoh
• Kwiksher (Apps)
• “New ebook widgets marketplace” on LinkedIn
• “What is the best software to use to format a book for epublishing?” on Quora
• Oxygen XML Editor
• JS Type Master
• ZappTek

Tutorials

• “Ebook Anatomy: Inside the Black Box” on The Book Designer
• “eBook Formatting 101” on Indies Unlimited
• “Ebook formatting 5: mobi to Kindle for iPad and iPhone” on Exploring Tech Writing
• “Your guide to 7 open eBook formats” on Open Source
• “ePub 3, HTML 5 & CSS 3 (+ Fixed-Layout)” on Slideshare
• “Epub Coding: Making that first line small-capped with some CSS-fu” on Angela Quarles
• “Format a Book in Word: Footnote, Index & Bibliography” on Format Book in Word
• “How To Create EPUB 3 Read Aloud eBooks” on Alberto Pettarin
• “How to Make Ebook Design Count” on Digital Book World
• “Insert html tags” on Stack Overflow
• “Hyphenation in NOOK Color” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
• “Keeping it together – Page breaks in iBooks” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
• “Page Breaks, Turning off Hyphenation, and Horizontal Bolding Bug in iBooks” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
• “Wrapping Text in an ePub for the iPad” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
• “Design and Format An Ebook like a Pro! – Part 1” on Pub My Book
• Regular Expressions Tutorial
• “Responsive Ebook Design: A Primer” on Medium
• “The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To AppleScript” on Envato Tuts
• “Build a digital book with EPUB” on IBM

Kindle (KF8 and MOBI)

• Kindle Formatting
• Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines
• “Adding Page Breaks for Your Kindle eBook” on Paul Salvette
• “Rejoice! Kindle Previewer v2.91 Improves Ebooks for iOS” on Digital Book World

EPUB3

• “Building an EPUB 3 Template” on EPUBZone
• “Creating Read Aloud Content for ePub” on Cue Logic
• EPUB on IDPF
• “EPUB 3 and Interactivity” on EPUB Zone
• EPUB3 Changes on IDPF
• EPUB3 Overview on IDPF
• JavaScript epubReadingSystem Object on IDPF
• Scripted Content Documents on IDPF
• “How Publishers Should Prepare for EPUB 3” on Digital Book World
• “How to Build Rich Navigation in EPUB3” on Digital Book World
• “ePUB3 Special Effects” on Page to Screen
• “Creating pop-up footnotes in EPUB 3 (and thus in iBooks)” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
• “Linking to external video (and audio)* in EPUB3” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
• “EPUB 3 Accessibility Guidelines” on IDPF
• “Javascript and geolocation in Fixed Layout ebooks on iPad/iPhone” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis

CSS (for Styling)

• “CSS Speech Module” on W3C
• “Getting Started with CSS Shapes” on HTML5Rocks
• “Hyphens” on CSS Tricks
• “The Shapes of CSS” on CSS Tricks

HTML (for Building Ebooks)

• HTML5 Periodic Table on WebsiteSetup
• “eBooks and HTML” on Slideshare
• “HTML5 for Ebooks FAQ” on Digital Book World
• Tables on W3C
• W3 Cheatsheet

InDesign

• “Create an index” on Adobe
• “Jan Wright on Creating ePUB Indexes in InDesign” on EPUB Secrets
• “Creating an index for EPUB with InDesign and GREP” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
• “Creating a Full Page Slideshow hotspot for Oomph in InDesign” on Youtube
• “Creating a Two-Function Button for Interactive PDF or SWF” on InDesign Secrets
• “Working with Interactive and Multimedia in Adobe InDesign CS6” on Peachpit
• “Creating Multi-object Buttons in Adobe InDesign” on Graphics
• “Creating Multi-State Objects in InDesign 6 Interactive” on Youtube
• “Design column: Creating fixed layout ePUB eBooks with the latest version of InDesign CC” on Talking New Media
• “Digital Publishing Suite Help / Nesting interactive overlays” on Adobe
• “Resources: Going from InDesign to Ebook” on Digital Book World
• “ePublishing with InDesign” on Pariah Burke
• “Fixed Layout EPUB Assistant In InDesign: ePubCrawler” on Rorohikko Workflow Resources
• InDesign Multistates
• “Apply Color” on Adobe
• “Create buttons” on Adobe
• “Create button hot spots” on Adobe
• “Combining multistate objects and buttons” on Lynda
• “Hyperlinks panel overview” on Adobe
• “About masters, stacking order, and layers” on Adobe
• “Master page with editable text region” on Adobe
• “Master Pages in Adobe InDesign CS” on About Tech
• “10 things to know about multi-state objects and buttons in InDesign and DPS” on Gilbert Consulting
• “Tips and tricks for building a slideshow in the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite” on DPCI

Formatting Tips

• “10 Formatting Tips for the Nook (EPUB)” on BTW
• “Publishing: 5 Top Tips for Formatting Ebooks” on Self Publishing Advice Center
• “9 Ways to Significantly Enhance Your eBook Design” on Business 2 Community
• “Best Practices for Ebook Front Matter: Cover Image” on Digital Book World
• “Best Practices for Ebook Front Matter: Table of Contents, Part 1” on Digital Book World
• “Can an Ebook Look Good?” on Slideshare
• “How to Avoid the Self-Published Look” on Digital Book World
• “How to Batch Resize in Photoshop” on Digital Photography School
• “How to Prepare for Self-Publishing: Ebook Formatting” on Digital Book World
• “Is it possible to create an index for an ebook in EPUB3?” on Quora
• “Tips for formatting MS Word documents” on Lulu
• “Some Tips to Make Your Ebook Look Great” on Digital Book World
• Strikethrough on Mobile Read
• “Why E-Book Text Layout Sucks” on Gizmodo

Ebook Features

• “Apple Shows Love for HTML5 with iOS 8” on Sencha
• “Apple updates iBooks Author, adds in support for importing ePub and InDesign files” on Talking New Media

Ebook Metadata

• “Complete BISAC Subject Headings List” on BISG
• Dublin Core Metadata
• Book Metadata on NLM
• “Encoding Dublin Core Metadata into XHTML” on Mobile Read
• “Summary of valid XHTML metadata for import into Sigil” on Mobile Read
• “Tips for Technologists #14: SEO and Discoverability” on Publishing Perspectives
• “What’s in an identifier?” on Safari

Quality Checking Your Ebooks (Reviewing)

• “A Step by Step Guide to Evaluating Your ePub Files on Kindles, iPads, and Smartphones” on The Book Designer
• “An EPUB Reader overview” on Ghacks
• EPUBTest
• “What is the QED?” on Digital Book World
• “Managing File Sizes for Ebooks” on JW Manus
• “Reviewing Your eBook Files” on Ebook Architects
• W3C CSS Validation Service

Additional Resources

• EPUB Secrets
• “How to Turn Your Print Book into a Digital File” on Beyond Paper Editing
• “Ebook Development: Education” on Medium
• “Track E-Book Circulation Using ASP” on Ebook Code
• “Track E-Book Circulation Using ASP + Access” on Ebook Code
• EPUBZone
• eReader Resources
• EPUB Straight to the Point
• “How are eBooks Evolving?” on Ebook Formatting
• “How E-Books Have Changed the Print Marketplace: Digital Book World, Day 3” on Jane Friedman
• “Ebooks, E- Reader, Digitial Publishing, Pre-Press, E-learning, HTML5, Books and Publishing” on LinkedIn
• “The evolving content and production publishing pipeline” on Movemen
• Regular Expressions in Perl
• Resources for eBook Developers

Examples

• The Cabbage Tree Method
• “EPUB 3 Samples: Now Showing – All EPUB 3 Features” on IDPF
• “Writing EPUB 3 – Samples of fixed and flowing ebooks with Japanese text” on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis