My previous print books were put together using a software product called Quark. It is a wonderful marvel of the times in which we live, known as a desktop publishing program or DTP. There are many good ones out there, such as Pagemaker, In Design and others. I do recommend owning and learning to use one of these, because, as you will see later, there are indirect uses for them even in e-book publishing. I will say however, that you are going to have to sell a digi-ton of books to pay for your very own copy of Quark. I find Photoshop, also indispensable for the work I do, but you may be able to get by without any of these, if your book is really straightforward and contains only print material.
My assumption, when I started my first e-book, was that I could simply take one of the Quark files I had so carefully and painstakingly put together for any of my previous print books, copy and paste the new book into that template, turn that file into a pdf (more about that later) and upload the finished pdf to …say…Kindle. One problem with this thinking, let's call it problem (a), is that the Kindle certainly cannot read any of these programs' native files, nor can it read a pdf file. But, you say, your print book was made from a pdf file.
Boy are you stupid! As stupid as I was.
You are guilty of thinking, as was I, that a book has a set number of pages and that if you turn to page 55, you will find Chapter 3 right where you put it in your pdf file-which you then uploaded to your publisher and she printed it out.
Sorry Bunky, but that is problem (b). Unlike a print book, an e-book does not have a set number of pages. This is why. Reader (a), who is 22 years of age, keeps her Kindle type size set to 10 point type. She will find Chapter 3 beginning on page 44. Reader (b), an old geezer such as yours truly, keeps his Kindle type size set to 14 points and his chapter 3 begins on page 60. Reader (a)'s book is 200 pages long. Reader (b)'s book-the very same book-has 250 pages. Regardless of these rather mind-boggling discoveries, the first thing we must consider is which program we want to use to make our e-book.
My assumption, when I started my first e-book, was that I could simply take one of the Quark files I had so carefully and painstakingly put together for any of my previous print books, copy and paste the new book into that template, turn that file into a pdf (more about that later) and upload the finished pdf to …say…Kindle. One problem with this thinking, let's call it problem (a), is that the Kindle certainly cannot read any of these programs' native files, nor can it read a pdf file. But, you say, your print book was made from a pdf file.
Boy are you stupid! As stupid as I was.
You are guilty of thinking, as was I, that a book has a set number of pages and that if you turn to page 55, you will find Chapter 3 right where you put it in your pdf file-which you then uploaded to your publisher and she printed it out.
Sorry Bunky, but that is problem (b). Unlike a print book, an e-book does not have a set number of pages. This is why. Reader (a), who is 22 years of age, keeps her Kindle type size set to 10 point type. She will find Chapter 3 beginning on page 44. Reader (b), an old geezer such as yours truly, keeps his Kindle type size set to 14 points and his chapter 3 begins on page 60. Reader (a)'s book is 200 pages long. Reader (b)'s book-the very same book-has 250 pages. Regardless of these rather mind-boggling discoveries, the first thing we must consider is which program we want to use to make our e-book.
Excerpt from Go E-Pub Yourself by Darryl Halbrooks