Tag Archives: ebook design

Book Covers 101: You CAN tell a book by its cover

Let’s Talk Covers…

Your mother probably taught you many things, among them the truism “You can’t tell a book by its cover.”

Now, while that wisdom holds in most of our lives, one place where it doesn’t, ironically, is in publishing. Continue reading Book Covers 101: You CAN tell a book by its cover

Roundup: 6 More Interesting Posts on Ebook Publishing!

We’re back! Here are 6 more interesting online publishing tidbits, coming at you hot off the (digital) press.

  1. Looking for tips on how to successfully interface with readers online? Don’t reply to comments when you’re hangry, and other helpful tips from Neiman Lab.
  2. For those not in attendance at the recent London Book Fair, here were bestselling author Joanna Penn’s main take-aways.
  3. Facebook’s newsfeed feature is constantly evolving — read this Social Media Today article to keep up to date with how to use its algorithms to your advantage.
  4. For those not up to date with Google’s new GDPR-compliant policy, here’s an interesting read on why publishing trade groups aren’t happy with the tech-giant’s latest update.
  5. If you’ve really been living under a rock re: literary scandals, here’s a quick update on why the Nobel Prize in Literature is postponing this year’s award.
  6. I recently stumbled across this list of best publishing podcasts, and have to say, I’m impressed! If you’re looking for a good listen, shuffle through a few of these — you’ll certainly learn something.

Also, Stillpoint publisher David Kudler posted recently on TheBookDesigner.com about whether or not it makes sense to offer your ebook for free — and the best way to make that happen if you decide it does. Check it out!

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Feel free to let us know below!

Weekly Roundup

April may be the cruelest month, but here at Stillpoint Digital there’s some good news — with a new month, comes a new roundup of this weeks most interesting #eprdctn-related articles.  Continue reading Weekly Roundup

Elements of Style: CSS for Ebooks

I originally published this post on Joel Friedlander’s wonderful resource for self-publishers, TheBookDesigner.com

If HTML is the blueprint, showing how an ebook (or a web page) should be laid out, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are the interior design, saying how everything should look. While that may sound superficial, in fact learning to use CSS can have a profound impact on your ebook.

This is a somewhat complicated topic, so I am going to take three posts to cover it. This time round, I’m going to show you what CSS is and how to apply it. In the second post, I’m going to look at some of the different properties that you can use to define how your ebook looks. And in the last post, I’m going to talk about how to know which rules take precedence when.

Continue reading Elements of Style: CSS for Ebooks

Weekly Roundup – 6 Fresh Topics in Ebook Publishing

Don’t call it a comeback! Here’s the second installment in our now weekly roundup of interesting articles in the world of eBook publishing.  Continue reading Weekly Roundup – 6 Fresh Topics in Ebook Publishing

Speaking in Code: Ebook HTML basics

This post originally appeared on Joel Friedlander’s wonderful site, TheBookDesigner.com.

If, as I keep saying, an ebook is just a website a box, then in order to know how to get in and edit your ebook, you’re going to want to know some HTML. However you choose to work on the file, knowing the basic building blocks is essential in creating a finished  product that presents your book to its best advantage.

 

When we talk about HTML, we’re actually talking about two separate things:

Continue reading Speaking in Code: Ebook HTML basics

Weekly Roundup: 7 Interesting Articles on eBook Publishing

As a matter of principal (both personal and professional) I spend quite a bit of my time keeping up to date with what’s new in the eBook publishing world. Having built up a relatively substantial feed to scroll through, it recently occurred to me that I’m not the only one who could benefit from a list of new ePublishing articles  to peruse while I’m going about my day.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to start publishing a weekly list of recent articles I think are important, interesting, innovative, etc. Here are this week’s choices:

Continue reading Weekly Roundup: 7 Interesting Articles on eBook Publishing

Inside the Box: The Anatomy of an Ebook

Over the next few posts, I’ll be showing you how ebooks are coded and formatted. We’ll look at the anatomy of an ebook, and what makes it tick.

You’ve heard me call an ebook a website in a box. This time we’re going to talk about what’s inside the box.

First thing’s first: let me share an ebook with you. It’s the ePub file for a short story of mine called White Robes.

You’re welcome to read it, obviously, but for the purposes of this post (and the next two), we’re going to be opening up the box and dissecting the ebook.

This is the actual production file that I’ve uploaded to Amazon, by the way — it includes all of the coding and formatting that I typically include in creating an ebook. It will be the model that I’ll be using over the next few posts in discussing an ebook’s innards.

Continue reading Inside the Box: The Anatomy of an Ebook

The Convertible Cloud: Ebook Conversion Online

This is the next in my on-going series of post on ebook creation; it focusses, obviously, on ebook conversion online. It was originally posted over at Joel Friedlander’s wonderful site for indie publishers, TheBookDesigner.com

The Convertible Cloud: Ebook Conversion Online

Previously, I’ve compared some of the computer apps that you can use to convert your manuscript into an ebook.

This month I’ll talk about online conversion tools — all of the ones I’m going to discuss are attached to the retailers and distributors that you are going to be interested in.

 

Eye of the Hurricane: Top Ebook Retailers

 

Let’s start with the most popular retailers and their conversion tools (or lack thereof).

 

Once again, I’m assuming that you’re in the US — which isn’t a given, I know. (Most of this information is true for non-US publishers as well.) Also, I’m defining “manuscript” as synonymous with “Microsoft Word document” (either .doc or .docx), since that’s the most common file format for authors to work with, and that’s the format I used in comparing the desktop conversion tools.

 

As before, these are the major retailers you will probably be looking at:

Continue reading The Convertible Cloud: Ebook Conversion Online

Jump in the Convertible: Ebook Conversion Tools

This is the fifth installment in my series of posts about ebook creation. Like the others, it was originally posted on Joel Friedlander’s wonderful resource for indie publishers,TheBookDesigner.com

Over the last few months I’ve discussed preparing your manuscript and your images for conversion into ebook form. This month, I’m going to look more closely at a subject that I’ve touched on: choosing an ebook conversion tool. Just to review, I suggested that there were four basic ways to convert your manuscript into ebook format:

  1. From scratch
  2. Saving from a word-processing or page-layout application into ePub format
  3. Using a conversion app or online service
  4. Hiring a designer

We’re going to ignore option #1 — if you’re the kind of person who wants to dig that deep into the guts of ebook creation, I don’t think that you’re going to be patient with this process. I’m not going to dwell on option #4 (or the second half of option #3), since the emphasis of this series is how to create your own ebooks. Using a conversion service or ebook designer is always an option, and I’ll discuss later how to choose one. But for now, we’re going to look at choosing the software that you can use to create a book yourself. Here’s the list of software that I will look through with you: .[1] Continue reading Jump in the Convertible: Ebook Conversion Tools