Great review. I was not aware of Bookshop, thanks for sharing your deep-dive into using it and other tools.
I began writing ebooks over the summer. To date, I have written four educational/reference titles around a theme -- "In 30 Minutes". The idea is to let newbies quickly understand a mildly complex topic. The most recent title is The $10 Small Business Website In 30 Minutes (1).
Not only do these books contain lots of screenshots and detailed TOCs, I also publish them in multiple formats -- .mobi, ePub, PDF, and PDF for paperback.
Unfortunately, I discovered that the most popular writing tools -- Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Apple Pages, are not up to the task of creating ebook files across all of the platforms. Even if they can export to a certain format, there are limitations that force additional production and conversion steps. I also encountered the problem of forked masters, when I had to use different tools for exporting/converting to special formats.
Currently, I am using Google Docs for composition and collaboration with my copy editor. I then copy and paste the text into Scrivener (2), which is the most powerful writing and publishing tool I have ever used. It exports to .mobi, ePub, PDF, and print book PDF. Like TFA, I use Kindle Previewer to test the .mobi files. The ePub files need some mild HTML cleanup, which I do in Sigil (3).
Thanks for the links - I had heard of Scrivener but didn't try using it. The approach I took with Bookshop is more geared towards programmers and web developers who are comfortable with HTML/CSS coding.
I love your "in 30 minutes" idea! Easier to read, and I'm guessing easier to write for you. My eBook definitely will take more than 30 minutes to read :)
I'd be interested to hear what cleanup the ePub files need after the scrivener export. Is it just tweaking styles or does the ebook not render correctly on some devices. Am also curious about how the scrivener mobi export compares to kindlegen. Does it do KF8?
[EDIT] - From looking at the scrivener site, they require kindlegen for mobi generation.
There are a few issues that I encountered when I tested Scrivener ePub output:
- Chapter suffixes not being properly appended
- Extra spaces appearing after headings/subheadings/sub-sub-headings
In addition, I like to look at the HTML and CSS associated with images to make sure they are not being reduced in size during the ePub compile process. This was an issue I encountered with Word and Pages. So far it hasn't cropped up in Scrivener, but I need to manually confirm this for peace of mind.
Regarding Kindlegen: Scrivener incorporates Kindlegen into the compile process for .mobi files. It's nearly seamless, and generates good output when I test in Kindle Preview and the Kindle app for iPad.
I began writing ebooks over the summer. To date, I have written four educational/reference titles around a theme -- "In 30 Minutes". The idea is to let newbies quickly understand a mildly complex topic. The most recent title is The $10 Small Business Website In 30 Minutes (1).
Not only do these books contain lots of screenshots and detailed TOCs, I also publish them in multiple formats -- .mobi, ePub, PDF, and PDF for paperback.
Unfortunately, I discovered that the most popular writing tools -- Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Apple Pages, are not up to the task of creating ebook files across all of the platforms. Even if they can export to a certain format, there are limitations that force additional production and conversion steps. I also encountered the problem of forked masters, when I had to use different tools for exporting/converting to special formats.
Currently, I am using Google Docs for composition and collaboration with my copy editor. I then copy and paste the text into Scrivener (2), which is the most powerful writing and publishing tool I have ever used. It exports to .mobi, ePub, PDF, and print book PDF. Like TFA, I use Kindle Previewer to test the .mobi files. The ePub files need some mild HTML cleanup, which I do in Sigil (3).
1. http://10dollarsmallbusinesswebsite.com/
2: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
3: http://code.google.com/p/sigil/