Things to think about when designing an ebook

Ebooks and printed books are very different. With a printed book you might spend a lot of time on fonts, fancy background images and colours. With an ebook these designs can largely be thrown out of the window. Things to remember when creating your ebook: Ebooks have free flowing text, and like a webpage will […]

The EPUB format for e-books

EPUB is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). The letters EPUB merely stand for electronic publication and the files have the extension “.epub”. Incidentally, you’ll also see it referred to as ePub, ePUB, EPub, or epub. EPUB is effectively the main standard for e-book formats, which is why […]

Books of the future?

What is a book? It used to be so easy to define, and until a few years ago the definition might have mentioned the word “paper”. Not any more. The e-book revolution has changed everything – and it’s hardly started yet. Books are starting to include many of the things you may associate with finding […]

e-book formats made simple

It starts off simply so I’ll try to keep it like that. Various manufacturers of e-book reader devices have developed their own software and, in conjunction with that, have also devised their own proprietary file formats, although not normally from scratch. Some of these file formats have become popular, so other software has been developed […]

eBook File Basics

The most widely adopted format for eBook files is ePub which is the international standard. ePub files can be read using FREE APPs on PCs, Macs, iOS and Android. Most specialist eBook reader devices are designed to work with ePub files. ePub files can also be loaded onto KDP for use on Amazon's proprietary Kindle devices. ePub files are normally produced from files already created for the production of paper editions, with Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files being a very popular source.

A common misunderstanding

Ebooks are not just like electron copies of paper books as you would get from a scanner. Unlike printed books which have fixed dimensions and a sequence of pages, ebooks have a variable format and don't actually have pages in the conventional sense. They are akin to websites where what you see on the screen depends on a number of factors especially the kind of device and software you are using. This provides great flexibility for the reader. For example, a person with poor eyesight can switch to a large font size. For this reason it is unwise to attempt to force a fixed format on an ebook's contents with the exception of images which need to preserve their own proportions.

If you have written a book and require ebook conversion services we can help.

We can convert your book (from a MS Word or PDF document) to an epub file and ensure the file is free from errors that might prevent it from being published on places like Google Play and Kobo library. Most platforms (e.g. Amazon, Kobo, Nook etc) require an epub file for upload. If you need any other file format please contact us and we can discuss this with you.

If you are a publisher or printer requiring regular ebook conversions we can offer you a reliable and cost effective service based on an an agreed and straightforward tariff.