Best e-book formatting process?

Question

The question I would like to ask is this: does anyone else have their own process (or one borrowed from elsewhere) that they use for formatting and then creating their e-books? Are you using other software tools besides Calibre to create your e-book files?

I am currently using Guido Henkel's formatting guide for putting together my e-books, but I have modified it slightly. Having an extensive background in html, I didn't really need the primer on html formatting. However, once we get to the part where he has you copy everything to Notepad+ and then create the file in Calibre, I pretty much stick to everything he says.

Answer 1

Scrivener will export your manuscript as an e-book. I use it on a Mac, but I understand there will be a Windows version if there isn't already.

update The Windows version has been out for a while now, and while it seems a tad more spartan than the Mac's, it compiles manuscripts much faster on my PC (which, to be fair, is newer and faster than my Mac).

Answer 2

I use LaTeX for any and all writing, short, long, mathematical or otherwise. It gives fantastic control to the user and you can set the output to be any one of a myriad of types, including pdfs of all sizes. Here is a showcase of some of its capabilities. Also, this is a nice compendium of examples.

Answer 3

This may come across as a bit odd, and like a lot of work, but I do all of my writing in a WordPress blog. I am producing 2-4 ebooks a month for clients right now, so I needed a system that was efficient in the long run, if work intensive to set up.

Organization

I create a new category for each work and subcategories for chapters. I use an exceptionally minimal theme that was simple to modify to use my own css class naming conventions and html tags.

Manual Workflow

My original workflow required that I view-source and copy/paste the relevant portion into a text editor. The benefit was everything had the correct css classes and html tags already.

Beyond the Manual Workflow

I've since written a plugin that will take an pull all of the subcategories out of a main category and compile it into a single html document and embed my default styles.

Tertiary Benefits

• Versioning
  • Using WP to write also nets me the benefit of auto version saving so I can always go back and check out where I've been.
• Existing Plugins
  • There are also a number of WP plugins that I find extremely useful like language complexity analysis, passive voice checking and some style checkers.
• Customization
  • The immense power of WP's plugin engine means that you can really make it do just about anything you'd like it to.
  • I wrote a plugin that essentially does 90% of the manual work for me. I usually end up opening the output file in DreamWeaver and customizing the css a bit before submission to my clients.
  • Some of my clients require documents delivered in LaTeX format. I was able to write a plugin that also exports in that format as well.
• Body of Work
  • Using WP also allows me to store my entire body of work in my WP database. It is searchable, well indexed and available on anything from my desktop to my telephone.
  • This centralization also makes it very easy for me to ensure my work is backed up by a world class technology company.
• Note Taking
  • I also use my WP for taking notes on things I am either writing about or thinking about writing about. I find this to be very convenient.

Conclusions

I find the manual method to be more efficient than MS Word. The automation I now have is so much better that I shudder at the thought of losing it.

--Edit-- I just finished reading the link that the OP gave as their process. I basically do the same thing but I use my WP tools to handle most of it. I agree that controlling the html and CSS is the only way to ensure that you are getting what you want.

Answer 4

Scrivener has a learning curve but there are a number of good online courses that will get you going if you have not used it before. I took the course offered by Gwen Hernandez and it was very good, but there are others.

My process is:

1. Write the book in Word
2. Import the book into Scrivener
3. Divide the Word documents into chapters
4. Format the chapter headings
5. Create the TOC
6. Add the cover photo
7. Export to .epub
8. Expert to .mobi

There are so many people using Scrivener these days that there is a great deal of specific how to information available online. Many authors also use Adobe InDesign to produce their e-books. I have used Scrivener for several years so I have used Scrivener for my first e-book, but I do plan on learning InDesign in order to have more formatting control.