Ebook creation instructions

This document also assumes that you are creating a reflowable epub and not a fixed layout e. Formatting is both an art and a science and is the first step in creating an ebook. The art part has to do with layout and changes that make your book visually appealing. The science part is the technical aspect that makes the ebook work as it should and enhances the user experience.

It is this latter part we will go over in this step. Keep in mind that ebooks are quite different from the printed book. There are many limitations you have to deal with when creating an ebook that is reflowable , for example, you can't choose the exact placement of photos in comparison to the text. These limitations frustrate some people, but keep in mind that the upside is that your book has a universal format that can be read on virtually any ebook reader.

Here is a list of formatting suggestions. For complete details, see our short guide to preparing your files for ebook conversion. Again, we are talking about an art and a science Unless you are really good at graphic design and have a good eye for colors, fonts, layout, etc. I would strongly suggest leaving this step to the pros or asking an artistic friend for help.

People really do judge a book by its cover, especially when we are literally talking about books! Assuming you are creating your own cover, here is what you need to know.

Check this page out for some sample designs. Creating an ebook means converting your document into one or more of the several ebook formats. The most common are. If you convert your book into these three formats you will be golden. Let's start with.

Now things get more complicated since you can't simply export to. If you created your table of contents as we showed you earlier, then this will be a walk in the park. This will make it so much easier for your readers to navigate your eBook, and you should consider hyperlinking out to any other material, too. The same with your website, email address, Instagram account, etc.

For shorter eBooks that need more of a visual appeal, Canva is the tool to use. Heads up. While creating an eBook in Canva is super easy, make sure you have all your written content on a Word or RTF file already so you can simply copy and paste it over into the program.

To make things even quicker, put all the images you plan to use in a separate folder as well. Have a scroll through their templates and, once you pick one, click on it and start customizing the front cover.

Or, if you want to replace an image in the template, just drag your image across and place it directly on top of the old image. If your eBook is more than 30 pages long, Canva will split the document into separate files. It comes at a cost, though. Sites like GraphicRiver are a great resource to download an easy-to-customize InDesign eBook template that will leave you with a sleek and professional looking file. Remember our old trick of keeping your text material for your eBook saved in a separate Word document?

Have it ready, and start copying and pasting different sections of your eBook into your InDesign template. Because there are probably businesses out there already using this template :.

While the anchors should already be pre-set on your template, you can check by clicking on the image and looking for a small anchor symbol at the top right of the image. This is a quick way to make sure your eBook flows well if you want to change up the design from the template. Of course, one of the perks of using InDesign is being able to export your eBook in any shape or form you need.

You should see this :. Because the templates are already fitted out with all of the technical bits like image anchors and text formatting, it means even those of us without a design degree can make serious looking eBooks. And that means including a call-to-action CTA wherever you see an opportunity.

Anything that could drive your business more traffic is a win at the end of the day. This seems like an obvious hack, but you should approach your eBook design with the same brand colors you use on your website. While it has since been replaced by azw, it is still hugely popular. Mobis can be read by almost any device, except Nooks and Sony Readers.

While technically not an ebook format, this is the one most people are familiar with. Designed for printing and easy, platform neutral sharing of fixed-layout documents, it is no surprise that reflowing the text is problematic. It can be done, though. The big backside of pdf is that it is not accepted by any of the major ebook stores. See All Stores. There are several ways of doing it: you can convert a book yourself in the cloud, on your laptop using a book editor, or hire somebody to do the conversion.

This is true if you entrust a professional, but is increasingly so if you decide to convert your ebook yourself. See here for the costs to publish a book. Microsoft Word and Google Docs, however, use an entirely different system of styling and formatting a book than ebook editors: if the two system clashes, it can result in pain, sweat and long hours of troubleshooting. The most important advice we can give you is actually the advice of the US Navy. As the ebook reader apps and devices strip the books from most formatting, there is hardly a reason for taking hours selecting different fonts and colours.

Use styles for formatting, especially headings: these will be used to create your table of contents later. There is no need to manually add a table of contents with page numbers — page numbers are uninterpretable in case of an epub.

Check out our ebook writing apps masterpost for advice on choosing the best paid and free ebook conversion software and ebook editors.

There are plenty of apps letting you buy, organize, borrow, lend and — most importantly — read ebooks. New Windows computers come with a built-in solution for opening ebooks: the Microsoft Edge browser is set as default for opening epub files. While the way it displays it is by no means pretty, it is certainly legible. By all means the most popular reader software to open, read, organise and convert for private use ebooks on a laptop or desktop computer is Calibre. Calibre is the non-profit love child of Kovid Goyal and is an ebook managing must-have.

It is thanks to Calibre that my ebook library is much better organised than my physical. It works literally on any platform: Mac, Linux and Windows. Just don't waste words thinking you need to write a long ebook.

Get writing! Here, you can approach each chapter the way you might write a long blog post — by compartmentalizing each chapter into smaller sections or bullet points, as shown in the picture below. This helps you write simply and clearly, rather than trying to use sophisticated language to convey each point. Be sure to maintain a consistent structure across each chapter, as well.

This helps you establish natural transitions between each chapter so there's a clear progression from one chapter to the next simply stitching blog posts together can rob you of this quality. These practices should hold true for all your other marketing efforts, such as email marketing, call-to-action creation, and landing page development.

Want to make sure you're keeping your ebook exciting for readers? Here are some key tips to keep in mind:. Our downloadable ebook templates are offered in both PowerPoint and InDesign. For this example, we'll show you how to do it in PowerPoint, since more people have access to that software. You'll notice we only have one "chapter page" in the template slide three. To create additional chapter pages, or any pages really, simply right click the slide and choose Duplicate Slide.

This will make a copy of your slide and allow you to drag it to its proper place in your ebook via the sidebar or Slide Sorter section of PowerPoint. You can then customize it for any subsequent chapters. Ideally, our free ebook templates would magically match your brand colors. But, they probably don't; this is where you get to truly personalize your work. However, because ebooks offer more real estate for color than your logo or website, it's a good idea to consider secondary colors within your brand's color palette.

Ebooks are where this color scheme can truly shine. To learn how to add your brand's colors to PowerPoint, check out this blog post.

That way, you can customize the color scheme in our ebook templates to match your brand! Images and graphics in ebooks are hard to get right. The key to making them fit well is to think of them as complementary to your writing. If you need help gathering visuals, we have three sets of free stock photos that might help you along the way:.

And if you're compiling a data-heavy ebook, you might want to download our free data visualization ebook for tips about designing compelling charts and graphs for your content. Another way to enhance your ebook is by highlighting quotes or stats within your design.

Just be sure the quote or stat you're using genuinely adds value to the content. Whether you're emphasizing a quote or adding a visual, keep all your content within the same margins. If your copy is consistently one-inch indented on your page from both the left and right sides, keep your designed elements aligned using that same spacing.

Now that your content is written and designed, it's time to optimize it for lead generation, reconversion, and promotion. Think about how you got here — you clicked on a call-to-action CTA in an email, on a social media post, or somewhere else. A CTA is a link or visual object that entices the visitor to click and arrive on a landing page that will get them further engaged with your company.

Since your ebook readers have probably converted into leads in order to get their hands on your ebook to begin with more on this in step below , use the CTAs within your ebook to reconvert your readers and propel them further down your marketing funnel. For instance, a CTA can lead to another offer, your annual conference's registration page, or even a product page.

Depending on what this next action is, CTAs can be an in-line rectangle or a full-page teasing the next offer see both images below. We've even designed 50 customizable calls-to-action in PowerPoint you can download and use in your ebooks. You can grab them here. Now, we don't have a dedicated CTA template slide in the PowerPoint ebook templates for you to customize Once you've finished writing your ebook — CTAs and all — it's time to convert it to the right file type so it's transferable from you to your recipient.

Why can't you just attach what you have to a landing page and be done with it? Word documents, PowerPoints, and similar templates are perfect for creating your ebook, but not for delivering it. Because these templates are editable, the contents of your ebook are too easily corrupted, distorted, or even lost when moving from your computer to the hands of your future leads.

That's where PDFs come in. You've seen these letters at the end of files before. Short for Portable Document Format, the.

PDF file type essentially freezes your ebook so it can be displayed clearly on any device. A popular alternative to PDFs is the. EPUB file type. Your ebook should be available for download through a landing page on your site. This is how you are able to convert your visitors into business leads that your sales team can ultimately follow up with.

For instance, you went through this landing page in order to access this ebook template. To learn more about how to optimize your landing pages for conversion, download this free ebook.